The first racial war

An excerpt from the book of Matsu Gurny about the participation of anthropologists in the events of 1914–1918.

While the warring armies have clarified relations in the fields of the First World War, the European scientists entered their own “war of the spirit” to find out who, from the point of view of strict science, has more rights to win. The most direct participation in this “Krieg Der Geister” was taken by anthropologists who developed the doctrine of human race. So, many of them agreed that the Slavic peoples, succumbing to the influence of "Mongolization", remained at the lower stage of development; It was more difficult to solve the issue of racial superiority in the Franco-German and British-German sections of the front. In the book of the Gurny Matsuya “The Great War of the Professors”, which is published in the Russian translation, these battles are told in detail. We publish an excerpt from its 4th chapter called "Body".

Matsu Guroy. The Great War of Professors. Humanities. 1912-1923. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the European University in St. Petersburg, 2021. Translation from Polish N. C. Polyakova, Scientific editor B. I. Kolonitsky. Content

Thus, “Mongolization” turned out to be an extremely popular concept, but the radius of its spread was limited. Outside the East and Balkan Front, she lost its relevance. On the other hand, it was the absence of such a consistent, unambiguous and fit into the leading anthropological discourse of the concept that the concept of race on the Western Front has significantly influenced the functioning of the concept of race. There were not enough generally accepted fundamental categories that would interpret the conflict at the biology level. An indicative example of a lack of such categories is French publications dedicated to the anthropological features of the Germans. Their common feature was to bring arguments from the field of aesthetics, not science. The famous paleontologist Marcellen Bul wrote that the Germans became the victim of the disease, which he called "giantism." This “gigantism” was manifested both in the barbaric and aggressive foreign policy of the Germans, and in their physical structure, disproportionate and prone to obesity. However, it was not entirely clear whether this disease was congenital, or a consequence of the civilizational immaturity of the Germans. Anthropologist Louis Captain at a lecture on the solemn opening of the 1915/16 academic year in the Paris école d'Anthropologie said that anomalies in the building of the skull are often found in the Austrians and Germans in the development of some parts of the brain. The centers responsible for material values ​​and mechanical actions are much better developed than areas that are responsible for feelings and moral qualities. As a result, many of them become crazy, alcoholics and criminals. Psychologist Edgar Beriyon also spoke of the atypical form of the Germans skull, accompanying his story to the impaired imagination with a description of a typical Germans: a wide, flat nose, inexpressive eyes, protruding ears, similar to the ears of a wolf or fox, a large mouth, a disproportionate structure of the body, crooked and short legs. The anthropological characteristics of the “born criminal” Cesare Lombroso inspired the creation of this image of a psychologist.

Louis Captain noted that the Germans have a very specific smell of sweat, compared to other nations involved in the war. Berian interpreted it as a “racial smell” and associated it with a disease that affects the inhabitants of the province of Brandenburg, East Prussia, Pomerania and Mecklenburg. Together with the political expansion of Prussia, this disease began to spread in other German territories. Over time, this motive began to appear more and more often in the publications of French scientists. There were versions that associated the “racial smell” with a gluttony characteristic of the Germans from birth, who did not know any limits. Fullness, in turn, was a consequence of the excessive activity of the digestive system and the abnormal structure of the intestine. According to this theory, the Germans were not able to refrain from immediate defecation, which partially explained the deplorable state of public toilets in the territories that the French conquered. Similar stories were also conveyed by the Serbs. Berion came up with a special name for Polychésie for this phenomenon. In his speech dedicated to the psyche of the German race, he argued that this phenomenon was already noted among the ancient Germans. His direct consequence was, for example, the differences in the composition of the urine among the Germans and the French. Ultimately, according to Berian, Polychésie , due to its constancy and frequency of manifestation, is one of the most characteristic features of the German race.

Although such discussions about the biological shortcomings of the Germans were certainly very colorful, they did not find scientific confirmation in racial theories, including popular in France. True, in France, attempts were made to connect its origin with the Celtic race. The main adherent of this theory was Berian himself, who described the French as typical representatives of the Celtic brachycephalous race, the distinctive features of which were the proportional structure of the body and a tendency to democratic state structure. It was these properties, according to Berian, that distinguished them from the dolichocephalic Germans, striving for conquests and having short arms and legs with a disproportionately large body. In his interpretation, the military conflict was also the next manifestation of the eternal struggle of RAS: “The war between the hosts of the dolichocephalic Germans and the group of brachycephalous Celts is the next episode of the confrontation of these two antagonistic races in the struggle for the victory of one of the two diametrically opposite concepts of social and civilizational structure.” Although there were no studies in French prisoners of war camps that could compare the German or Austro-Hungarian, Berion also used specially selected photos to illustrate the racial superiority of the French representatives of the “pure Celtic race” over prisoners of war of other, lower races.

French theories have not received wide international recognition. Most Anglo -Saxon anthropologists simply ignored them. One of the few exceptions was the American racologist Seth K. Humphrey. It is curious that Polish authors who lived in France and wrote in French immediately joined this racial discourse. Moshchevv Geniusus was the author of scientific work on the evolutionary immaturity of the Germans. In his opinion, they have not yet reached the stage of the "people", but were a primitive race that did not have a pronounced personality - a consequence of the fact that they did not belong to settled races. In the interpretation of the genius, the Germans were half the nomads, which united them with the Hungarians, Turks and the Mongols. Their nomadic features were manifested in a constant desire for expansion and dominance over representatives of other races. Lyutoslavsky held the same opinion. Both authors talked about the original union between related Celts and the Slavs, which was destroyed as a result of the attack of German nomads. Lutoslavsky, faithful to his anti -Russian beliefs, also attributed Muscovites to the nomads, in the veins of which Turkic blood flows. However, Polish attempts to connect the French racial discourse with the idea of ​​“Mongolization” did not meet a big response. A distant echo of French theories, the works of Stanislav Toskovsky, dedicated to East Prussia, are presented. The Polish author described the anthropological type he found in this region as follows: “... chestnut color of hair, wide, powerful neck, wide chest, rather long body, relatively short arms and legs and large, fleshy feet.” In his publications, he associated him with the Pre -Slavic racial type described in the works of Chekanovsky, in others - with the population of Central Asia. It is curious that these descriptions, as well as the statements of Berian, have always contained an element of aesthetic assessment: in order to briefly characterize the appearance of the resident of East Prussia, the Oblokovsky used the expression “man-tact”.

The anthropological arguments of the French “War of the Spirit” discovered their weakness during the disputes about the biological consequences of rape French by German soldiers. In 1915, on the pages of the magazine “Chronique Médicale” a discussion broke out about this. Several French gynecologists participating in it spoke out in favor of the admissibility of abortion in order to maintain the purity of the Celtic-Latin race. They also drawn an analogy with the southern states of the United States, where, according to the law, the White woman had the right to terminate the pregnancy that occurred as a result of rape of black. The brochures were spread everywhere, which said: if you do not terminate the pregnancy, then “these children will forever remain a testimony, albeit temporary, but the victories of the barbarians. Someday we will be able to completely restore our homes, cities and church ... And only they will live, constantly reminding us of those tragic times. ” Moreover, in the course of this discussion, the theory of Telegony unexpectedly revived, in this case, expressed in the conviction that a woman, once fertilized by a German, will always have offspring with his biological features, regardless of the actual father. According to this theory, the German seed was supposed to remain in the woman’s body all her life, up to the end of the fertile period. In the spring of 1915, the leading doctors of the country made a statement that refuted Telegony and emphasized the role of the mother, whose racial characteristics are more important for the child than the data of the father. All this discussion revealed how weak the authority of the theory promoted by Beria about Celtic racial superiority in France is. Ruth Harris rightly notes that it manifested itself as a concern for the insufficient masculinity of the French in a clash with the German “blond monster”. It is significant that although the Russian occupation of part of Eastern Prussia served as an impetus for organizing such a racist campaign, during which the problem of Kosakenkinde R was also touched on, the question of possible legalization of abortion committed by Russian soldiers in the German Empire did not become the subject of public discussion.

The difficulties that attempts to interpret the French-German and British-German conflict have paradoxically contributed to the popularization of the frankly racist discourse, the object of which were military personnel-representatives of the “colored races” who fought in France. The question was already touched on the question of what role this motive played at the very beginning of the War of the Spirit. Immediately after the start of the war, many researchers expressed concern to the genetic influence of the "color" soldiers of the French and British armies on the racial qualities of Europeans. In a work published in neutral Switzerland, Otto Shlaginhaaufen wrote about the "expiring the genetic heritage of the White race." On the other hand, the popularizers of racial theories, including editors of the magazine Politisch-Anthropologishe Revue, turned to the topic of colonial troops in order to prove to the residents of the "Germanic" countries of the race in the history of mankind. To emphasize the scale of this phenomenon, they willingly compared the “savages” with the “best graduates of German universities”:

“I know several brave, formed and endowed with the noble heart of young Germans,” wrote an American researcher, “who now at any moment may encounter the Gurkhas, Algerians or Senegal Negro in a battle! Every day I see the pale and frightened faces of their parents. What England and France did is a crime against civilization. The loss of these young people means the extermination of the color of the Teutonic race, hundreds of thousands of intelligent, talented, possessing outstanding abilities of young men. At the same time, they are killed by significantly less valuable people in racial terms, who set the task of killing the Germans and destroy the excellent structure that they are trying to protect. ”

The soldiers of the colonial troops of the British and French armies played an important role not only in racist propaganda, but also in military anthropology. It is enough to recall that it was they, along with representatives of the rare nationalities of the Russian Empire, that served as an incentive for the Germans of anthropological measurements in prisoners of war camps. In the popular publications published by local authorities (most often in the form of albums) about camps for prisoners of war representatives of “color races”, and especially non -ogram, a disproportionate role was assigned. It happened, for example, that images of black prisoners of war were placed on the covers of documentation albums of camps, in which there were no colonial military personnel at all. The German authorities officially protested against the content of the Germans taken in the French African colonies or under the protection of black employees. France and England, in turn, expressed protests against German policy of joint detention in the camps of representatives of different nationalities. This was not only racial, but also purely practical reasons. Since most of the prisoners of war were Russian, who, as a rule, did not receive parcels from their families and therefore often died of hunger, and also, as it was believed, were carriers of typhoid, even if they themselves were not sick, the British and French accused the Germans of intentional spread of diseases and increasing mortality among captured French and British.