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Where did the Aryan obsession come from? (lemm.ee)

submitted 15 hours ago by [email protected] to c/askhistorians

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Yes, I'm asking about where Hitler got the idea, but also you can see it depicted in media from that era. The fit and beautiful blonde had been portrayed as the ideal and the desirable so much in things like the stereotypical surfer hunk, and Barbie and Ken, and the chain of blonde sex symbol has continued through today. Where did that start?

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[–] Uruanna 4 points 11 hours ago

So, I've never seen any research bring it up, but I've always been curious about the connection with Arianism.

Arianism and Aryanism have nothing to do with each other, and the names are pure coincidence (Arianism was literally named after some dude), but the whole "divine race" concept seems to come straight out of it. Arianism is the Christian interpretation that got Germanic tribes to join Christianity back in the 3rd to 6th centuries because it resembled their own theology the most - that kings were descendants of gods, a concept that does originate in a common Proto-Indo-European mytheme.

All I'm saying is, I wouldn't be surprised if we found out one day that one of those 1850s guys heard about Arianism giving a divine origin in their bloodline and mixed it up with Aryanism. Wagner was heavily into Germanic mythology too, he knew that Norse and Germanic myths said that kings were the children of Norse gods, and he's one of the leading names in Aryanism. Ignoring the name resemblance, the concept is definitely there. Meanwhile, actual Aryan populations have nothing to do with a divine origin or racial superiority, beside the perceived connection to an older race, which these guys interpreted as natural racial superiority. But I've never seen anyone bring up the coincidence.