The Office of Racial Policy was a department of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

(NSDAP) that was founded for "unifying and supervising all indoctrination and propaganda work in the field of population and racial politics". It began in 1933 as the Nazi Party Office for Enlightenment on Population Policy and Racial Welfare (). By 1935, it had been renamed to the Nazi Party Office of Racial Policy ( or ''RPA''). Walter Gross was tasked with creating the office, and remained its leader until his death at the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in April 1945.

Purpose

The main role of the RPA was to oversee the production and maintenance of

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

regarding the ethnic consciousness of the Nordic

Aryan ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood ...

master race The master race ( ) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology, in which the putative Aryan race is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as ''master humans'' ( ). The Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg b ...

. This was termed "enlightenment" rather than "propaganda" by the Nazi authorities, because it was "not a call for immediate action but a long-term change in attitude".Koonz, p. 110. Gross did not want people thinking of themselves as

individuals An individual is one that exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of living as an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) as a person unique from other people and possessing one's own needs or g ...

but rather as "single links in the great chain of life".

Methods

All Nazi Party racial information required the approval of Gross' office before publication. The department dealt with all measures concerning the field of

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

and racial policies in cooperation with other Nazi and SS agencies, such as the

RKFDV The Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood () was an office of the ''Schutzstaffel'' in Nazi Germany, held by ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler, responsible for the return and resettlement of the German diaspora. Adolf ...

. The RPA checked and passed all Nazi Party press releases on issues of race. It also provided input for drafting Nazi

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

regarding racial issue. The RPA produced '' Neues Volk'', a monthly magazine aimed at a general readership rather than towards a specialist audience.Koonz, p. 117. But while containing articles on topics such as travel tips, its central theme was the promotion of

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

and ethnic consciousness. Other publications created by the office included a ten-point plan to marriage. The guidelines, rather than focusing on love, stressed the ideal criteria for marriage in the

Nazi state Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictator ...

was the consideration of race and health. The pamphlet urged investigation of the ancestry of potential mates, and that the hereditarily fit should not remain single, concluding with the injunction to hope for many children. Other works included "''Can You Think Racially?''" and "''Peasantry between Yesterday and Today''". The RPA also created traveling exhibitions that presented the ideal Aryan type as unchanging in contrast to

subhuman ''SubHuman'' (stylized as ''subHuman'') is the sixth studio album by Recoil. Alan Wilder stated in a YouTube greeting that there would be a new album coming in spring or early summer 2007. On 23 April 2007, he released information regarding th ...

types. In its first year, the office had published 14 pamphlets for racial education. Claudia Koonz, ''The Nazi Conscience'', p. 116. . This led to the establishment of intensive training courses to create ethnic educators. More than a thousand

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; or 'Storm Troopers') was the original paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party of Germany. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and early 1930s. I ...

personnel and recent

medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, professional school, or forms a part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, ...

graduates were indoctrinated each year on Nazi racial topics until 1945.Claudia, p. 123.

References

External links

NSDAP
on cine-holocaust {{coord, 52, 30, 26, N, 13, 22, 57, E, type:landmark, display=title Organizations established in 1933 Organizations disestablished in 1945 Nazi Party organizations

Purpose

Methods

See also

References

External links