By
– March 23, 2012
Journalist Heather Pringle brings to light a little known episode in German history: Heinrich Himmler’s attempt to prove that Germans were superior beings as far back as the Stone Age. He created the Ahnenerbe, a research institute dedicated to bringing evidence that backed Nazi racial theories to the public through magazine articles, museum exhibits, and books. Himmler, head of the SS, used his scholars to create data supporting Hitler’s ideas. Pringle has done extensive research, using captured German documents in the National Archives and Records Administration in Maryland, the original Ahnenerbe files in Berlin, and other archives and libraries in Germany and the rest of Europe. Her twenty- six-page bibliography documents this effort. In doing so, she exposes a relatively unknown chapter in the history of the Holocaust and shows that “scholars” were willing to tailor their research for political purposes.
Barbara M. Bibel is a librarian at the Oakland Public Library in Oakland, CA; and at Congregation Netivot Shalom, Berkeley, CA.
