Some notes on the history of racial studies and related fields of research.

 Some notes on the history of racial studies

and related fields of research.

The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians were keen observers of racial characteristics. They often depicted the racial characteristics of foreign peoples in their sculptures with surprising fidelity. They created images of Jews and Negroes, as well as images of blond, blue-eyed tribes, which show that they were particularly attentive to racial differences. Scientific records, or at least attempts to describe races, or rather, peoples, can be found in the works of the Greeks, Hippocrates, and Aristotle. A more detailed examination of racial phenomena, however, only came with the great voyages of discovery at the beginning of the modern era and the following centuries. In the 18th century, men emerged who, for the first time, in large, widely distributed works, organized what had been collected and discovered in the field of anthropology into overviews, placed humans within the order of animal life, and attempted a classification of human races: the Swede Linnaeus (1707-1778) and the Frenchman Buffon (1797-1788). The 18th and 19th centuries brought new discoveries and research; the question of monogenesis or polygenesis of human races was discussed in particular. In other words, given the great racial differences, people asked whether human races could be traced back to one or more original forms. Goethe, for example, assumed polygenesis. Today, there is a greater inclination toward monogenesis.

The first, however, to actually establish modern anthropology with his works was the German Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840). With him, and especially with his precise research based on cranial measurements, anthropology entered the ranks of the modern, rigorous sciences. The research of Lamarck (1744-1829) and Darwin (1809-1882) provided rich inspiration for anthropology. The 19th century saw the rapid founding of large anthropological societies in all countries, whose numerous journals are among the most important publications in the study of anthropology. A larger number were published in Germany alone. Racial studies on European populations quickly followed one another. The study of historical and prehistoric racial relationships yielded important insights. Entire European countries were subjected to racial studies. The years 1874 to 1877 saw the so-called Virchow Study of Schoolchildren in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium. Thus, the foundations on which every description of European racial relations will rest gradually emerged. Deniker's "Les races de l'Europe" appeared in 1898/99. Ripley's "The Race of Europe," with its numerous maps and illustrations, appeared in 1899. These were preceded by studies on individual countries: Livi had written on Italy, Beddoe on England; Rudolf Virchow had described his German findings, Quetelet his Belgian research; Broca, Collignon, and Topinard their French. Further studies followed in all countries: it is impossible to mention even the most important names here. Unfortunately, however, Germany, and especially Central and Northern Germany, is still one of the least researched countries. A government that can once again consider other than the most pressing needs has important tasks to perform here.

The rich, daily enriching findings of human science have now sparked many rethinkings in other areas of knowledge as well. Thus, a transformation has taken place in the study of history, or is gradually beginning to take place: the transformation to the so-called anthropological view of history. The life and history of nations are increasingly viewed as determined by the racial composition of the individual peoples. The impetus for this new view of history, like all new things, is still sometimes misguided and frequently disputed, even ridiculed, and was provided by the work of the Frenchman Count Gobineau (1816-1882) "Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines" (1853-55). The great importance of this work and its creator cannot be alluded to here; instead, reference is made to Schemann's "Gobineau's Racial Studies, Documents and Reflections on the History and Critique of the Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines" (1910). Gobineau was the first to recognize the significance of the Nordic race in the life of the European peoples. However, even before the publication of Gobineau's extraordinary book, in 1845, the German Gustav Friedr. Klemm (1802-1867) published the first work of the new historical perspective: "The Spread of the Active Human Race over the Globe." In 1833, the Austrian researcher Karl Penka's "Origines Ariacae" (Ariacae), a fundamental work, was published. However, it was only the work of H. St. Chamberlain, then an Englishman and now a German, that brought the new idea to true European dissemination. Even though the work was not truly scientific, even though it was often wrong, even though it stood in a certain disproportion to the scientific study of man, certainly detrimental to the progress of racial research, whose methods it refused to adhere to, it nevertheless, and perhaps precisely through the fierce opposition and loud enthusiasm it aroused, brought the idea of ​​race to the attention of the widest circles for the first time, so that with its publication, the anthropological study of history was actually established as a matter for the widest circles of research. The questions of racial historical thought, although far from resolved and often even confused, were nevertheless recognized in their importance and scope by a passionate interpreter and demonstrated to a wide audience. Despite its shortcomings, the work contributed to refocusing historical thought on broader issues and had an impact even on those who fiercely opposed it and were forced to do so for scientific reasons. In the same year as "Foundations," 1599, the first scientific work of racial historical thought was published: "L'aryen, son rôle social" by Georges Vacher de Lapouge. And now the researchers who helped create the current state of racial historical thought emerged: Woltmann (1871-1907), "the scientific successor to Gobineau" (Schemann), Wilser, and others. One can see, then, that the racial study of history has only just begun and may therefore still be subject to all that characterizes a young way of understanding: on the one hand, occasional errors, and on the other, the mistrust, if not the scorn, of our contemporaries.

This may suffice to characterize the direction of research: While the so-called spiritualistic view of history saw intellectual forces and moral ideas as the formative powers of historical life; the so-called materialistic view of history saw the environment, the economic conditions, and generally material conditions as shaping history, racial historiography sees man himself as shaping history, but man as a member of his particular race, from whose particular spirit arise the events of an era and of a people determined by this race. Under the same environmental conditions, the same economic and social conditions, each race creates its own special destiny, which is unique to it.

The rapidly improving research into heredity became a powerful aid in laying the foundations of racial knowledge. Darwin's research had already pointed the way in this direction; his cousin Francis Galton (1822-1911) promoted heredity research in an outstanding way through his fundamental work. Above all, it was August Weismann whose intellectual work greatly deepened our understanding of hereditary processes, and whose teachings received clearest confirmation through the 1901 rediscovery of the hereditary research of the Augustinian priest Gregor Mendel (1822-1884): "Like a bright comet, Mendel's discovery shone in the firmament of scientific research long after the discoverer had died, spurring biologists to tremendous activity. Numerous energetic researchers threw themselves into the newly opened field. A tremendous zeal for experimentation began. And as the fruit of serious, honest work, after just a few years, the solid foundations of a new science stood before us: the theory of heredity had developed from more or less uncertain assumptions into an exact science."

Racial hygiene developed—in itself a branch of research that, despite its—not very clearly chosen—has nothing, or not directly, to do with racial research: racial hygiene examines the selection processes that take place within every people, processes that can lead to improvement or degeneration, and then seeks to point the way to the most favorable influence on the hereditary makeup of a people. However, because it necessarily also considers the racial components of a people, it follows certain research paths with racial studies.*) Alfred Ploetz and Wilhelm Schallmayer are the names that should be mentioned here. Ploetz founded the "German Society for Racial Biology" and the "Archive for Racial and Social Biology," one of the most important journals in the field of racial and public health studies. — Thus, from all sides, research followed research, knowledge followed knowledge, and a series of events in the life of nations moved and moves towards their interpretation.