File:Emblem_SS_Irminsul.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
The Ahnenerbe
Sign in to saveAlso known as German Ancestral Heritage Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas, Deutsches Ahnenerbe Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte, The Ahnenerbe Society, Research and Teaching Society on Ancestral Heritage, Ahnenerbe Stiftung
The '''' (, "Ancestral Heritage") was a pseudoscientific organization founded by the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany in 1935. Established by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler on July 1, 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to promoting racial theories espoused by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, the Ahnenerbe'' consisted of academics and scientists from a broad range of academic disciplines who fostered the idea that Germans descended from an Aryan race which was racially superior to other racial groups.
Key facts
- Organization.name
- Ahnenerbe
- Organization.image
- Ahnenerbe.svgclass=skin-invert
- Organization.caption
- Emblem
- Organization.formation
- July 1, 1935
- Organization.dissolved
- 1947
- Organization.founder
- Heinrich Himmler
- Organization.leader_title
- President
- Organization.leader_name
- Walther Wüst
- Organization.status
- Registered association under Schutzstaffel control
- Organization.purpose
- PropagandaPseudoscientific research
- Organization.language
- German
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 5 more facts
- inception
- 1935-07-01
- dissolved, abolished or demolished date
- 1945-00-00
- P8168
- Bessie Jones
- start time
- 1939-01-01
- Commons category
- Ahnenerbe
via Wikidata · CC0
~51 min read
Article
47 sectionsContents
- Background
- Nazi Party takes power
- History
- Formation
- The Holocaust
- Second World War
- Institutes
- Expeditions
- Iceland
- Karelia
- Bohuslän
- Italy
- Central Eurasia
- New Swabia
- Germany
- Hedeby
- Baden-Württemberg
- Mauern
- France
- Bayeux Tapestry
- Tibet
- Poland
- Crimea
- Ukraine
- Cancelled expeditions
- Bolivia
- Iran
- Canary Islands
- Iceland
- Other Ahnenerbe activities
- Master Plan East
- Failed seizure of Tacitus manuscript
- Headquarters relocation
- Financing
- Medical experiments
- Dachau
- Skulls
- Post-World War II
- Trials
- Legacy
- Academic study
- Influence in pseudo-archaeology
- In popular culture
- See also
- References
- Bibliography
- External links
The '''' (, "Ancestral Heritage") was a pseudoscientific organization founded by the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany in 1935. Established by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler on July 1, 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to promoting racial theories espoused by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, the Ahnenerbe'' consisted of academics and scientists from a broad range of academic disciplines who fostered the idea that Germans descended from an Aryan race which was racially superior to other racial groups.
Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and transformed the country into a one-party state governed as a dictatorship. He claimed that Germans were descended from an Aryan race which, in contrast to established academic understandings, had invented most major developments in human history, such as agriculture, art and writing. Most of the world's scholars did not accept this, and the Nazis established the Ahnenerbe in order to provide evidence for their racial theories and to promote them to the German public. Ahnenerbe scholars interpreted evidence to fit Hitler's beliefs, and many consciously fabricated evidence to do so. The organisation sent expeditions to various parts of the world to find evidence to support their theories.