Die Völker und Rassen Südosteuropas - The Peoples and Races of Southeast Europe - An anti-Semitic publication following the author's journey in the East and the examination of the population according to the Nazi racial theory. With 96 photographs and a travel report by Gustav Adolf Küppers. Authors: Karl C. von Loesch / Wilhelm E. Mühlmann, Published by Volk und Reich Verlag. Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague - 1943 - First edition. The copy of the Nazi psychiatrist Ernst Rudin with his owner's stamp, highlights and handwritten notes in the body of the text.
Antisemitic publication disguised as a scientific study dealing with the peoples and races of Southeast Europe following Gustav Adolf Küppers' journey to the Balkan countries between 1935-1939. The book provides a detailed survey of the populations comprising the Southeast European population and the ethnic changes this population underwent in an attempt to trace the racial differences between one nation and another, the national and religious influences on the various peoples, migration, and a detailed review of the racial traits of the different peoples. "Anyone who travels extensive areas paying attention to basic racial facts is always influenced by the overall picture of a racial phenomenon" writes the author. The book is written in a condescending tone of an "educated" man who has arrived in a primitive and undeveloped environment trying to characterize the various peoples according to the racial theories he brought with him.
Whenever the author deals with Eastern European Jews, he emphasizes their inferiority according to Nazi racial theory. Thus in describing photographs of Jews from Maramures, the author writes about the idleness of Galician Jews: "Jews from Borsa. There are several Jewish communities in the Maramures region, whose members differ from the ghetto Jews of Galicia in that they also engage in agriculture and crafts". In the chapter dealing with Eastern Jews, the author presents the persecution of Jews in Eastern European countries as "self-defense" against Jewish dominance, writing for example: "There are probably well over a million Jews in Hungary. These new Jewish concentrations in the states of Southeast Europe are much more dangerous for the native peoples than the parallel concentration of Jews in Vienna and Berlin. The recent defensive struggle against Judaism everywhere is here as there national self-defense; but an essential difference is that the indigenous peoples leading in Southeast European countries are smaller and have less economic protection compared to the Jewish masses in their land. After all, in Germany there has always been a closed social structure of the German people, but not among the peoples of Southeast Europe. Therefore, in an amazingly short time, the Jews in Southeast Europe succeeded in taking control of almost all trade and industry, and also becoming farming tenants, thereby indirectly harming the farmers".
The second part of the book features 96 photographs taken by the author on his journey of people from various nations in order to demonstrate the races comprising the peoples of Eastern Europe and to determine their traits, including photographs of Jews as well as photographs of various races with comments referring to Jews such as: "The colonial Armenians are merchants... they are fanatical enemies of the Jews". Alongside Jews, the author presents photographs of Macedonians, Muslims, Albanians and others, with each defined according to Nazi racial theory: "Refined, slender build, intelligent... ancient primitive clothing and customs preserved here" etc.
In addition to the owner's stamp, in several places in the book are handwritten notes in the handwriting of the Nazi psychiatrist Ernst Rudin.Ernst Rüdin [1874-1952]. Rüdin was one of the prominent students of German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (the spiritual father of racial theory). He was one of the founders of the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1904 and an adviser to the Nazis on racial politics. Rüdin was among the first to write about the "dangers" of hereditary defects and the alleged superiority of the Nordic race as the supposed "creator of culture". He headed the organizations of psychiatrists and neurologists in Nazi Germany. His ideas served as the scientific basis for justifying the racial policy of Nazi Germany and the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" was passed by the German government on January 1, 1934. Rüdin was so enthusiastic about the idea of racial selection that his colleagues called him the "Reich Führer for Sterilization". From his high position as Hitler's senior adviser, he instigated scientists who gave legitimacy to the murderous regime. In particular, Rüdin is responsible for the sterilization of 400,000 people and the murder of 300,000 mentally ill and disabled people. Immediately after Hitler came to power, Rüdin declared: "Through the political work of Adolf Hitler, only he will enable us to realize our dream of thirty years, to make racial hygiene a reality". Rüdin formally joined the Nazi party in 1937. In 1939, on his 65th birthday, he was awarded the 'Goethe Medal for Art and Science' by Hitler, who defined him as the "pioneer of the Reich's racial-hygienic means". By using the title of pioneer of psychiatric heredity studies, he designed, justified and financed the mass sterilization and clinical killing of adults and children during the Holocaust. In 1942, he was one of the proponents of the idea of "Euthanasia" and called and worked for the "elimination of clearly inferior young children". In 1945 Rüdin was apprehended, and the prosecution team at the Nuremberg Trials considered putting him on trial, but in 1946 he was released and absurdly returned to his position as director of the research institute until his death in 1952.
104 p. Good - Very good condition.
