Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Houston Stewart Chamberlain' (1855-1927) was born in Britain, but became fascinated with German culture and eventually became a German citizen, producing most of his work in that language. While he had a wide range of interests, including literature, biology, politics, religion and music, he is most known as the key inspiration of the mixture of race and history, which became the Nazi race and biological ideology.

He was a significant influence on the thinking of Adolf Hitler. Even Hitler's anti-Nazi biographer, Konrad Heiden, who vehemently disagreed with his racism. "he was one of the most astonishing talents in the history of the German mind, a mine of knowledge and profound ideas." Perhaps his most important book was Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Grundlagen des Neinzehnten Jahrhunderts), published in 1899, and praised by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Its title is ironic when compared to another Nazi inspiration, Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century, often considered incomprehensible and incoherent.

Racial theories

Certain anthropologists would fain teach us that all races are equally gifted; we point to history and answer: that is a lie! The races of mankind are markedly different in the nature and also in the extent of their gifts, and the Germanic races belong to the most highly gifted group, the group usually termed Aryan. Is this human family united and uniform by bonds of blood? Do these stems really all spring from the same root? I do not know and I do not much care...<ref>Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, Volume I, p. 542, quoted by [1]

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