Ludwig F. Clauss: Racial Style, Racial Character (Part I)

Ludwig F. Clauss (1892-1974)

The liberal-communist propaganda against Fascism and National-Socialism has produced results contrary to those originally anticipated. It has created the conceptual model of a value system that often defies the objective reality of the bygone Fascist and National-Socialist epochs. It has given birth to dangerous and subconscious infatuation with hyperreal would-be Fascism, best to be seen in modern mimicry of Hollywood Nazism, especially among troubled young White people. The decades-long antifascist propaganda has produced a peculiar type of infra-political narcissism among a number of estranged White nationalists who often conceive of Fascism as a life style or a vicarious internet escapade. The deadly offshoots of such liberal propaganda are deranged Whites such as Anders Breivik who recently killed scores of innocent people in Norway.

After World War II, National-Socialism and Fascism were officially and normatively designated by the liberal system as the symbols of absolute evil. Consequently, if Fascism stands today for absolute evil, all other systems of beliefs, all other political regimes, or other political values—however aberrant they may be or will be in the future—must  be viewed as lesser evils. The history of Communist mass killings and the ongoing economic corruption and mendacity of the liberal system, however inhumane they are, or may be in the future, must willy-nilly be tolerated.

As was noted on several occasions in TOO articles (e.g., here), nowhere has the communist-liberal propaganda been as destructive as in higher education and in the media. Thousands of titles in the field of psychology, sociology and genetics, published in Europe and the USA in the 20’, 30’s and 40’s of the twentieth century, had to disappear from social science curriculum. Any dispassionate, unbiased and objective talk—for instance about race, especially if a researcher refers to scholarly titles from the Fascist and Nationalist-Socialist epoch—is met with suspicion, ostracism, smear campaigns and the occasional judiciary inquisition. The problem is further aggravated by the insufficient scope of analysis exhibited by many contemporary well-meaning racialist scholars, particularly in America, who oftentimes neglect other approaches in the study of race. Thus when the word ‘race’ is mentioned one is led to think about the structure of a person’s body, forgetting that the study of race can be addressed from a psychological and spiritual point of view as well.

There is also a considerable divide between American and European researchers regarding the race issue. American racialist scholars tend to use an empirically-based, quantitative approach; hence their penchant for Darwinism and the evolutionary theory and the inescapable measurement of IQ. In Europe, especially in the first part of the 20^th century, the subject of race had a large following among scholars from different and often mutually conflicting disciplines, ranging from the field of biology to the field of religious mysticism. Among many others, mention should be made of the philosopher Julius Evola, whose study of race combines both the natural science and the social science approach.

Evola was hostile to Darwinism and in his books he argues that higher species (e.g., the White man), could not possibly evolve from other races (Blacks) or from lower animal species, such as African primates. If we concede that the White man evolved from lesser species, why panic today at the sight of interbreeding we are witnessing in modern multicultural society? Accordingly, sooner or later all of mankind (based on the liberal-communist dogma of progress) will end up being beautiful and the same and sport very high IQs. Evola argues, based on the legacy of Indo-European sagas and myths (all being replete with stories on demigods, magical, transcendental and invisible forces), that our predecessors, the antediluvian Hyperboreans represented our only true race. What we are witnessing today is involution resulting in racial chaos.

Clauss was a highly influential  academic in National- Socialist Germany, a reputation which did not diminish after WWII. His later works on the psychology of Arabs are quite sympathetic to Islamic culture are widely quoted. Although a member of the National Socialist party, he helped his Jewish aide Margaret Landé, thus earning himself in Israel, after his death, the title of “righteous among the nations.”  What follows is my translation of his chapter and some excerpts from his books Rasse und Seele (Race and Soul) and Rasse und Character (Race and Character). The chapter was published in the third edition of Clauss’ Rasse und Seele, in 1943, a highly influential work in Germany back then, which, when perused today, does not sound “Nazi” (?) at all. Clauss’ books tells us that the enigma of race and racial psychology needs to be looked at over and over again — in a dispassionate, across-the-board, and interdisciplinary fashion.

“The question of value”

“When something new enters history it does not need to wait long in order to encounter fierce resistance. Whatever the German research on racial psychology encountered in Germany, a similar fate befell the entire German research on racial psychology from the rest of the world. Outrageous allegations were thrown all around, which in most cases were so clumsy and stupid, that with the passage of time they died of their own accord. Gradually, however, the fight against us became more refined. In most cases at the center of the argument, which had us as targets, surfaced the question of value: we were accused of viewing the Nordic race as the only valuable race while considering other races inferior. Wherever this “evidence” found credibility, it worked against us, all the more as the word ‘Nordic’, which among ignorant people is easily misinterpreted, causes all sorts of nonsense.

Unfortunately, the Vatican, in this campaign against the findings of racial psychology, leveled attacks against us in L’Osservatore Romano, April 30, 1938 — an attack using its usual methods. Given that my books are also targets of the attacks, it seems to be my duty to add a few words and put things in the right perspective, insofar as they are of concern to me. It won’t hurt if the explanations in this book are anticipated in advance. There are three fallacies by means of which each attack attempts to drive a wedge between us and our neighbors.

Firstly, the impression has been created that German science of race accords to each race a certain grade — as does the teacher to his pupils, i.e., placing, so to speak, races into hierarchical slots, whereby the first place must be awarded to the Nordic race. It follows from this that the Mediterranean race must reconcile itself with the second position, or worse, settle for an even lower one.

This is patently false. Undoubtedly, in Germany and elsewhere, books and booklets have been published that support such views. The psychology or race, however, which, in the last analysis, is the only qualified field to make decisions about  racial-psychological values, has taught from the very beginning and with a distinct precision:

Each race in itself represents the highest value. Each race carries in itself its own system of values and its own standard of values and must not be measured by the standards of another race.

It is absurd and unscientific to analyze the Mediterranean race through the eyes of the Nordic race and to evaluate it according to the Nordic system of values. The reverse process is also scientific. In practical life such things happen over and over again and it seems to be unavoidable. In science, however, it is contrary to simple logic. To make decisions about the value of a human race in an “objective” manner could only be done by a human being who stands above all races. But there is no such human being because to be human means to be racially conditioned.

Maybe God knows the hierarchy of races, but we do not.

The goal of science is to find laws that determine the mental and physical shape of each race. Only after the laws of each race are discovered can its inner value system be agreed upon. These value systems can be compared with each other: for instance the inner value system of the Nordic race with the inner value system of the Mediterranean race. Such comparisons are instructive because each thing in the world shows, in a clear fashion, what it is — if one sets it apart from other things that are different. But such value systems cannot be evaluated from a superior standpoint because there is no such standpoint.

The Nordic man should be Nordic; the Mediterranean man Mediterranean.
Only then can every man be real, only then can every man be good — each in his own way. This is the conviction I hold of German racial psychology, and it is the position which has also been adopted by the racial policies of the German government. The Office of Racial Policy of the NSDAP(Das Rassenpolitische Amt der NSDAP)has printed pictures and plaques and has distributed them in German schools, where we read in large letters the following words:  Each race in itself represents the highest value.

The second fallacy that the L’Osservatore Romano would like to promote is the following: according to German science each race differs from others insofar as each one has characteristics that the others don’t. Thus, the Nordic race is characterized by the ability to compare, and by energy, responsibility, diligence, and a sense of heroism. Other races do not have such characteristics. It cannot be denied that in some older anthropological works, but also in the German ones, such un-psychological statements can be found. Nevertheless, it is advisable to listen to a shoemaker when one talks about footgear, to a sailor about seafaring, to a psychologist about the laws of psychology — and not to an anatomist.

Since 1921 German racial psychology has been teaching with clear cut precision: the racial-psychological factor does not lie in this or that characteristic. Characteristics are a matter of each individual human being; somebody has such-and-such characteristics, somebody else has a different set of characteristics. The sense of heroism, for instance, can undoubtedly be encountered among many Nordic men; yet it can also be encountered among people of different races. The same is true concerning energy (will power), the ability for discernment, etc. The racial-psychological factor does not lie in such-and-such a characteristic, but rather in the manner in which these characteristics express themselves with each individual. The Heroism of the Nordic man and that of the Mediterranean man can be equally “great,” yet each looks different, i.e. expresses itself in a different way and with a different gesture.

The childlike attempt to put together individual characteristics, which are to be found among representatives of a particular race, as  for instance among the Nordic race, and then to assume that the racial factor lies in the possession of such-and-such a characteristic, is no wiser than an attempt at depicting someone’s physical appearance—for instance, Nordic racial appearance. Nordics have noses, mouths, arms, and hands.  But other races also have noses, mouths, arms, and hands. Therefore the racial factor does not lie in the possession of these body parts.  Race determines the shape of the nose, the shape of the mouth, and the way it is held and moved. Nobody who has eyes can dispute the fact that a man of the Mediterranean race moves differently than a Nordic man, that he walks differently, dances differently, accompanies his speech with different gestures. Who can now ask the question as to which sort of a movement, or what sort of a gesture is of more value: the Mediterranean or the Nordic? This question is pointless.”

To be continued.

Dr. Tom Sunic (websites here and here) is author, translator, former US professor in political science and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Third Position. He is the author of Homo americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age, prefaced by Kevin MacDonald (2007). The third edition of his book Against Democracy and Equality; the European New Right, prefaced by Alainde Benoist, has just been released.