The Essence of Nordic thought

 Note: This is an general overview of the Nordic thought & its spiritual aspects.

The Nordic Movement and the Essence of Nordic Thought

By Hans Guenther

When the hero is mentioned as the ideal model, some people have derisive ideas: one thinks that such a model should contribute to the creation of warriors or saber-rattling warriors; another thinks that such a model is modeled on ideas of primeval warriors or adventurous knights. Here, however, hero should mean nothing more and nothing less than the epitome of the pure, perfect human being, whose will is directed towards the enhancement of human life and to proving himself in the struggle for such enhancement - to which epitome one person strives in one way, another in another.

The Nordic movement does not turn backwards in looking at its image of the hero, but forwards towards an increasing life of body and soul. The Nordic idea is thus badly misinterpreted as "romanticism". However, since this misinterpretation (at least when looking at the Nordic idea superficially) appears to arise here and there, and since in "Germanic"-minded circles - which are occasionally confused with the Nordic-minded - a variety of "romanticism" was and is actually possible, the work of the Nordic movement and the nature of the Nordic idea will be discussed in more detail here.

It is certainly in keeping with Nordic thought that its adherents regard with reverence all evidence from the earliest history of the Indo-European language, such as the wisdom of the Indian Vedas, the Persian god Spitama Zarathushtra, Hellenic art and thought, and the ancient Roman state and legal system, and that they strive above all to embrace with reverence and love the evidence of early Germanic culture. "The people we are introduced to in Old Norse literature are steeled by struggle and hardship, and the calm and steadfast spirit of women and very young men also sets a model, the model of the heroic Nordic man. The Icelandic stories show figures "who have more to say to us Germans of the war and post-war period than Gretchen and Käthchen." This is certainty for those who believe in the Nordic idea.

It is precisely the sense of reality that characterizes the Germanic peoples of the early period as a genuinely Nordic trait, but as a trait of the Nordic model, it protects the Nordic movement from joining in with the "Germanic enthusiasm" that is stirring here and there and every now and then in Germany. It seems to be a characteristic of individual racially ignorant or racially unclear groups who want to cultivate "Germanic" character and do not consider that a genuine love of Germanic culture is least likely to be expressed through loud enthusiasm and advertising that is in bad taste. In such groups, fantasies are still cultivated and solemnly spread, such as those of Guido v. List and his "students" have devised fantasies such as that of a particularly initiated Indo-Germanic and Germanic, racially Nordic community of the "Armanen", of which, as Schemann says, "no one has ever heard anything and which certainly never existed"), as well as other products of historical and linguistic ignorance, with which a person familiar with Germanic antiquity can hardly refute and warn, as untenable, exaggerated and confused, as unhealthy as everything here is in the end. Anything that slaps the scientific mind in the face like this will end nowhere other than in ridicule. But playing around with particularly "sacred" nonsense will always attract individual brains with the right disposition; the groups in which, in Schemann's words, "Germanic culture is primarily a galvanized Teutonism, an attempt to revive faded Germanic myths" will not soon disappear. and figures, dead names and symbols".!) We will still see many petroglyph nonsense and "primal language" nonsense, many "sublime" sounding rune interpretations spread in the ranks of the Germanic enthusiasts. The Nordic movement will always relentlessly reject such evil spirits.

It will reject all the loud Germanic enthusiasm: this playing with old Germanic, old Nordic (and so often in singular and plural, incorrectly treated in inflection and spelling) names, these attempts to revive dead customs belonging to a completely different level of culture (which are often misunderstood), these house names from the Edda or other old Nordic writings - all these ridiculous things that stem from a sterile Germanic romanticism. The Nordic thought is directed towards the future, not backwards. It receives the waters with which it measures from its will to promote the healthy, capable blood of the Nordic race. It wants "great health" (Nietzsche), and this always grows most vividly where one lives from one's own, not where one wants to bring back the past.

So many unfounded things are believed about the ancient Germanic world in "Germanic" (less so in racially striving Nordic-minded) circles that I always regret that the most profound portrayal of the ancient Germanic world, "Vor Folkert i Oldtiden" by the Dane Wilhelm Grönbech (pronounced Grönbeck), has not yet been translated into German. One could really say of Grönbech that he recognized the ancient Germanic soul, and his work is all the more valuable because it does not conceal the gap that separates us from the ancient Germanic world. Works such as Hoop's "Reallerikon der germanischen Altertumskunde" (unfortunately already somewhat outdated in some respects), the excellent collection "Germanische Wiedererstehung" (1920) published by Nollau and "Vor Folkegruppe Gottjod" (1026) by the Dane Gudmund Schütte will serve the Nordic movement. The Nordic movement will always confront the ancient Germanic world for the sake of its Nordic annihilation, precisely in order to find its way forward all the more surely. But for those who are not proficient in the ancient Germanic languages ​​and Germanic antiquity, it will be better to stop dealing with ancient Germanic things for ten years than to inflate half-understood things into a fruitless fanaticism. The Nordic movement will always ruthlessly reject Germanic enthusiasm. Such Germanic enthusiasm is least compatible with the love of Germanicism that is characteristic of the Nordic movement.

No less emphasis will be placed on the rejection with which the Nordic movement, despite all the high esteem in which it places the image of the Nordic race as a model, avoids empty enthusiasm for the "blond person", for "blondness", etc. Anyone with experience in racial studies knows that some people with dark beards and dark eyes are more Nordic than some blond and blue-eyed people, especially since there are plenty of predominantly East Baltic people with light hair and eyes. This is already an objection to blond enthusiasm. The main objection, however, is that this blond custom obscures many people from a clear view of the meaning of the Nordic idea. For some blond people, the Nordic idea is thereby turned into its very opposite: instead of them serving the Nordic idea, consciously assuming an increased responsibility, the Nordic idea is supposed to serve them: they break the light of the Nordic idea with the edge glass (drisma) of "blondness" and divert it onto their heads in order to stand in a special light. Thus these “blond people” end up in a fruitless arrogance and ultimately do harm to the Nordic cause: how easy it is for the enemy to make a cheap, but no less harmful, joke out of such aberrations.

Fortunately, this type of "blondness" is only cultivated in small groups, in which even the healthy people soon come to the realization. In seriously striving northern groups, anyone who boasts of Nordic racial characteristics is not tolerated. Anyone who uses individual racial characteristics as evidence of the opponent instead of objective reasons in a dispute with an opponent shows how weak his position is or how clumsy his handling of objective evidence is. Anyone who uses his own "blondness" to increase his reputation betrays a lack of such mental qualities as every northern group must demand of its members. The spiritual qualities of the Nordic people, which include a certain noble reserve, a certain cool objectivity, a measured nature and even in the fiercest conflict of views the sure self-control of the determined - by such spiritual youth the Nordicizing clans will ultimately be recognized as much as by their predominantly Nordic appearance - once the Nordic movement has left behind its storm and pressure (which no living movement should be without). A calm view of the world and a determined calm of action, but not blond-haired enthusiasm, Germanic talk and all kinds of old-fashioned mummery and trivialities, are the signs of success.

It has been feared that by emphasizing the value of the Nordic race for the German people, a certain arrogance and vanity might be awakened and nurtured in Nordic and predominantly Nordic people. It must be emphatically countered that individual human arrogance and vanity are directly opposed to the meaning of all ideas of Nordic revival. It is only with the most courageous striving that an individual can meet the difficult task that the Nordic race is faced with today, in this situation that is in every respect desperate. If any individual people no longer belong to themselves alone, if any individual people must resolutely abandon the "individualistic" standpoint in order to use all their strength to preserve the species, then it is the people of the Nordic race who can today only prevent the extinction of their race through the most powerful self-reflection. The Nordic person must least of all belong entirely to himself; he must most of all consider the whole of his race and the renewal of his nationality once he has recognized the importance of the Nordic race for his people. So one can say: If the racial analysis of history must affirm the outstanding value of the northern race for every Indo-Germanic people, it follows that the individual Nordic person is also assigned special tasks with his blood. If the Nordic person is given more - "more" only from the point of view of the observer of Nordic-originated peoples: cf. Section 5 - if he is given more, then even more is required of him: Nordic blood is an obligation. He must strengthen what he has in him so that he expresses the value of his race in body and soul, and above all he must decide in his choice of mate in such a way that the increase of his race is promoted by healthy, genetically capable and numerous offspring.

"You have heard what pleases the god,

go, prepare yourselves, obey quietly!

You are the seed of a new world:

that is the holy spring that he wants”.

(Uhland, Ver sacrum.)

In view of the task facing the Nordic and predominantly Nordic people and tribes of the German people, any allegiance to any possible vanity of northern blood would be senseless and contemptible.

Thus the pride of the Lower Saxony people, which is stirring here and there and is pleasing, in having descended from the relatively most Nordic German tribe, will only become significant for the people as a whole when Lower Saxony has become the region with the most children in Germany. The Nordic people are required to have the utmost self-discipline and a powerful will for the future. They are required to set an example through their way of life that testifies to their race.

In the face of such a task, the adherents of the Nordic idea will not be exposed to any inclination towards blood vanity or to any kind of "Germanic enthusiasm" or "Germanic romanticism" (which is doubly ridiculous compared to the task). The Nordic idea is directed forward, not backward!

Therefore, he cannot be made subject to an objection that is so justified in the case of many racially ambiguous "Germanic" endeavors: "We run the risk of mistaking a one-sided warrior ideal, as shown to us by the tragic art of the Migration Period and the Nordic Vikings (instead of Vikings), for the Nordic ideal per se. However, no national development is based on the warrior alone. Alongside him, there must necessarily be the farmer, whose artistic ideal, sanely speaking, never has the tragic gesture, but whose poetry ends with the indestructible belief: If they have not died, they are still alive today. The warlike cultivation of the military strength that can be amassed for a strong blow and the peasant cultivation of the rhyming powers are both forms of heroism that only result in a full racial ideal." The legends of the migration of the peoples and the Nordic Vikings (so instead of Vikings) show that they are to be considered the Nordic ideal per se. However, no national development is based on the warrior alone. The peasant must necessarily take up his responsibilities, whose artistic ideal, fortunately, never has the tragic gesture, but whose poems end with the indestructible belief: If they have not died, they are still alive today. The warlike cultivation of the military strength that can be amassed for a strong blow and the peasant cultivation of the rhyming powers are both forms of heroism that only result in a full racial ideal."

This is also one of the convictions of the Nordic idea (even if its adherents have seen nothing of a "tragic gesture" in the old legends. The "gesture" is something genuinely Western). Such a person also overlooks the fact that in Icelandic stories, farmer and warrior were very often united in one person (though they were easier to unite back then), but he touches on views that the Nordic movement can certainly share with him. Indeed, like him, the Nordic movement today will particularly emphasize the farmer, since it recognizes that the Migration Period and the Viking Age may have been allowed to waste species, whereas today all forces must be called upon to preserve species, and the preservation of species is most closely tied to land ownership.

But it almost seems as if such a person also came to his objection (which is so justified in the face of many "Germanic" endeavors) because the ancient Germanic world had not yet been sufficiently developed. This world is still seen here and there as being determined by ruthless, bloody warriorry, pursuit, destruction and the never-ending noise of weapons. The Germanic tribes are seen as hordes of people who are nowhere to be found, always eager to fight, completely unpeasant, and thoroughly warlike. Accordingly, it is sometimes assumed that the Nordic thought has modelled its model on such ideas.

Where do these widespread false ideas about the ancient Germanic world come from? Perhaps from the observation of the times when, among the Germanic tribes, earlier in this one, later in that one, after the penetration of Christianity, the morality of their own race had been dissolved by Christianity and the alien Christian morality had not yet been adopted when the Germanic tribes were morally uprooted. Moral uprooting gave rise to the horrors of the Merovingian period among the Franks, the events that ran counter to both Germanic and Christian morality in the Norwegian tribal wars of the 12th century and in the Icelandic Sturlung period of the 15th century. A deeper look at ancient Germanic pagan life reveals, alongside the traits of a determined warlike nature, the Nordic "men of peacefulness, tolerance, joy in the ability of others and a feeling for moderation and dignity".!) The impression of restless wandering does not stand up to a less superficial look: "In reality, the rest breaks between the wanderings took up much more time than the wanderings themselves. The Goths, for example, plowed the land on the lower Vistula for centuries and milked their cows before moving on from there to southern Russia. But then they were soon drawn into a prolonged state of war by the lure of the cities. But no sooner had Italy been conquered than peace returned."

The impression of constant noise from arms does not hold up: “There was also a saying that said in alliteration: Peace nourishes, strife consumes.” “Tacitus writes: “Their ties are not irreconcilable.”a In fact, the deeper one delves into the Germanic sources - and especially into the sagas, which are disreputable to some because of the bloodshed they contain - the stronger the impression becomes that the pagan Germanic people were basically hardly less peaceful than many a Westphalian or Dalecarlian farmer of today. Even then, people valued peace and friendship and were not blind to the suffering that long-lasting wars bring with them. However, peace at any price and friendship with everyone were not only not ideals, but downright impossible ideas.”*) The Germanic example looked like this: “Generous, brave, fearless, friendly, fierce against enemies, loyal to friends, open to all.”

The Nordic thought has let its image of the Germanic people be determined by such correct ideas about the ancient Germanic people. At the same time, the Nordic thought does not conceal the gap that (not only racially, but above all in terms of culture, in the world view necessary for our time) separates and must separate the present and every future, no matter how Nordic it has become, from the ancient Germanic world.”

Grönbech’s insight into the Germanic people of the early days: “They are masculine figures, but standing on a foundation that is in no way suitable for a modern human life. Their life comes from a culture, but this culture has a completely different focus than ours... Their culture has its beauty and in its heyday had the indisputable right to life; but it was tied to a form of self-assertion and self-esteem which, if introduced into our world, would have to join the ranks of the forces that destroy us.")

If the incompatibility of our present and future with the old Germanic world is perhaps emphasized too sharply by Grönbech (in contrast to the Germanic enthusiasms of his environment), Grönbeche and his views come very close to the views inherent in Nordic thought (and Grönbech's reference to the world of early Hellenism, which in many ways is closer to our sensibilities, is not an idea foreign to the Nordic movement).

Above all, it is important to state this clearly: Nordic thought is not romanticism. It is a will to strengthen directed towards the future, a will that seeks to refresh itself from its own source, not from the containers that seek to contain past events. The true revival of past life - something impossible that all "romanticism" attempts - is the essence of Nordic thought, but rather the enhancement of life. Nordic thought knows that the generation currently living can only prepare for the enhancement, can only begin it. "We are nothing

what we seek is everything" (Hölderlin). But the adherents of the Nordic thought feel that they are already participating in the enhancement of life by striving for a goal, the approach of which must allow a future generation to "embody the noble in itself" (Hildebrandt).

The 19th century was filled with a back and forth of opinions about what should be done to improve the conditions that were recognized and felt to be questionable. After all, people seriously believed that majority decisions would lead to the best opinion, the best method of how to set the world back in order. But the dispute of opinions between many Reichstags and Landtags and whether they themselves found their majorities and minorities, "the only possible means of improving the situation" would become completely pointless if, in the meantime, the stronger defense of inferior genetic traits (degeneration) continued to progress and the counter-selection of the Nordic component of the people (de-Nordification) continued to accelerate. In Galton, the Nordic movement reveres the man who was the first to recognize that it is not environment but heredity that is the determining force in people's lives, and that therefore - to use an English expression - it is not measures but men (men, not measures) that can improve conditions. It was the rebirth of Plato's idea of ​​allowing the most capable to have the greatest number of children and excluding the hereditarily inferior from procreation wherever possible.

The Nordic idea is thus entirely an idea of ​​working into the future, and nothing can be less related to it than any kind of "romanticism". Not contemplation, but realization of the noble, up to the physical emergence of exemplary generations - that is what is essential to the Nordic idea. It knows that it is carried by a stream of thought that was familiar to the great Plato, and into which Nietzsche's longing for the superman flows.

The Nordic idea is not, as the uninformed misunderstand it, a way of thinking from the material (materialism), but rather he knows himself as a spirit that wants to create his body, and in order to create the body that will realize him he must sift through the material of the bodies given to his world. The Nordic thought is a spirit that wants to express itself in the noblest body, hence his thought of discipline, the thought of Plato.

They will come, your people, nature! A rejuvenated people will rejuvenate you too, and you will

become like its bride, and the old covenant of spirits

will be renewed with you.”

(Hölderlin, Hyperion.)

The Nordic movement comes from the spirit, it does not lose itself in the spirit: it pushes towards reality and therefore, without any "romantic" fear of oppressive insights into contemporary life, asks itself about the conditions for a hereditary improvement of man.

The Nordic movement knows that it is not easy for the noble to present itself in the flesh. It has recognized that all the education of which the 19th century had expected so much is of little use in this regard. Education can improve the individual, but it is not inherited and must be acquired again and again. But the creation of new educational assets cannot be achieved by any education. This requires high-quality hereditary traits. The Nordic idea is less concerned with existing education than with the creation of new education. For the sake of new creation, the Nordic idea considers selection (choice of spouse, number of children) more important than education. Selection reaches deeper and establishes something more permanent. The broad road of education that the 19th century praised does not lead as high to an enhanced life as the narrow road of selection. The world of the 19th century failed because of the reality of hereditary factors and ultimately collapsed because of its own counter-selection. The spirit of the Nordic movement strives to live in complete familiarity with reality in order to ultimately create its body in the bodies of improving clans. Therefore, it seeks to shape, with the best of the German people, the very culture and education that will bring about the right selection.

General ideas for shaping culture have already been thought up many times. In many peoples, and especially in the peoples of the Indo-European language, there has been no lack of great men whose thoughts and works should have shaped their culture - if only the best in the peoples had not so often lacked the good men who were strong enough to realize great ideas. Plato is an example of how a great man can lack the people whose genes can still be used to build something. The Hellenes of his time were degenerate and de-Nordic. Today, especially when education has made the great ideas of all times and of many peoples accessible, there is no lack of ideas, especially not of "very latest" ideas; rather, there is a lack of people who could realize them.

"The truth was found long ago,

has been united by noble spirits,

the old truth, take hold of it."

(Goethe)

The Nordic idea wants to call upon people who want to be implementers of many old truths. The Nordic movement is not concerned with "improving the situation", as the Reichstag and the Landtag do to their own disgust, but rather with increasing the spirit of the will. The "situation" will only change with people, better: only through people changing, even more clearly: only through the changing selection.

Why do the ideas of the best always lack the implementers? Because these best are made of a different genetic makeup than the "overwhelming majority" of their fellow people. Because the "compact majority" (Ibsen) is not capable of understanding the souls of the greats who live among them, due to their spiritual characteristics. The implementers of great ideas can only arise from a blood that is related to the blood of the best. If several races are represented in a people and one of them is the creative race of that people, it is easy to understand that the other races in the people do not want to accept the creative ideas and always try to deny and destroy them, if the blood of the creative race does not flow through all classes of the people so that the ideas of the best of related blood find an echo and response throughout the entire people.

The Nordic idea wants to create the realisers of the ideas of the best by wanting to increase the blood that always speaks from the shape and features of the best: the Nordic blood.

Only from the spiritual genetic makeup of the race, which always speaks from the youth of the best, will the thoughts of the best be met with the right understanding and through the right understanding will they be realized.?) The Nordic movement wants to prepare the soil of genetic makeup in which, as the most receptive soil, the seeds of great thoughts will first bear fruit "a thousandfold." The best among the Indo-Germanic peoples have always been deprived of their fruitful genetic makeup by de-Nordization just when they had grasped the most comprehensive idea for the creation of a great culture. This insight may also be the basis of Nietzsche's idea, which can be found in his drafts for the "Future of our Educational Institutions" and represents a terrible insight: "Task: to find the culture that belongs to Beethoven." It has happened again and again that a "defect" was discovered in the theology of Spitama Zarathushtra or in the teachings of Plato, which was supposed to explain why these creations were "inferior" to other intellectual creations, were displaced by other intellectual creations. A racial analysis shows that "deficiencies" are less to be found in a Zarathushtra or Plato than in the contemporaries and posterity of such greats. Contemporaries and posterity have often failed - due to an increasing lack of high-quality genetic makeup.

That the best of the German people should not ultimately be denied by their own people in the same way that the late Hellenic people denied Plato - this too was the call of the Nordic Movement.