Posted on 09/04/2026 5:16:09 AM PDT by Cronos
In 1938, Tolkien was in negotiations with Berlin publisher Rütten & Loening about creating a German-language edition of The Hobbit; that is, until they asked for proof of Tolkien’s “Aryan descent,” due to Goebbels’ regulations on Jews’ participation n German cultural activities. Tolkien objected, writing to his British publisher Stanley Unwin:
I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten & Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of arisch origin from all persons of all countries?
Personally, I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
You are primarily concerned, and I cannot jeopardize the chance of a German publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers.
The first of the “two drafts” Tolkien mentioned ignored the request, but the second eloquently chastised Rütten & Loening for asking:
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject—which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
It’s unclear which letter was sent, but regardless, the deal didn’t go through. Three years later, Tolkien would express his disdain for the Nazis in a letter to his son Michael: “I have in this war a burning private grudge against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler. Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.” And The Hobbit wouldn’t be translated into German until 1957. During those interim years, it’s unclear if anyone accused him of “banning the German language.”
The French thought rewarding the Serbs for starting WWI by giving them effective control over Slovenes, Croats and Bosniaks all of whom hated them was a great idea.
The fact that America would beat their asses?
The situations are different. The people in New Mexico, Arizona and California do not want to be part of Mexico. The Sudeten Germans did want to be part of Germany.
Once again, everything bad that happens in the world has something to do with the French.
Yes, but there had been intellectuals from all South Slav nations, who were in favour of creating a confederation of all South Slavs.
Among them were the proponents of the „Greater Serbia“ idea, but others envisioned a country in which political power would be equitably shared. A few even advocated rights for the non-Slav minority populations…
On July 31st, the same day that Cossack patrols had been spotted crossing the German border (presumably for reconnaissance purposes), Wilhelm II telephoned the Czar and pleaded with him to stop the Russian mobilization, which had begun the day before.
The Czar replied that he couldn’t do that anymore (maybe, without him knowing, his cabinet had ordained the mobilization) and he was praying for his cousin. Then he hung up.
Please don’t forget that the alliance of Fascist Italy with Hitler came about because Mussolini had isolated Italy internationally by his attack on Ethiopia in 1935.
Until then, Hitler had unsuccessfully tried to woo Mussolini into an alliance - against the wishes of many Germans, who still looked upon the betrayal of Italy in 1915 with distaste.
But now, it was any port in a storm, for both sides…
Hmmm, three billion gold marks after Frankfurt versus 123 billion after Versailles?😉
You are both correct - though I think that the immediate impact (not the long term one) of the French Revolution was larger in Europe. After all, it was Napoleon who changed the political landscape of the continent forever.
I forget who the historian was who said that Europe was complacent because it had actually been able to resolve earlier crises without world war.
There’s a docudrama film called 37 Days. The most striking moment for me was when the kings, politicians, and diplomats are still arguing things and the German Army is at that moment going into Luxembourg.
Re Alsace-Lorraine: the inhabitant there had begun to identify with France more or less after the French revolution. Before that French rule in Alsace had been relatively mild: most of these institutions which had been in the German era before the 17th century were maintained, among them the university at Strasburg.
Plenty of Alsatians and Lorraines began to identify with France after the revolution and Napoleon. Though this was more the case among the more educated parts of the population; the more rustic population still stuck to its culturally German ways and its German language.
So one could say that in 1871 the opinions of the locals were divided, just as they were not unanimous in 1918.
Sorry, Reverend, but it’s not without danger to regard dramas as historically accurate- especially coming from a nation which (or rather, whose political elite, not so much the people at the grass roots level) is still Germany‘s avowed enemy.
(Sometimes one could think they had lost the conflict, as hateful as their utterances often are)
The program was British. There was some hostility to Germany, but nothing I would call “hateful.” The point I took from it was that the Kaiser was still hoping for peace while the Army took the decision out of his hands. War with Russia was declared on the same day Germany invaded Luxembourg. War with Belgium and France had not been declared, but Germany’s war plans made it inevitable.
Dear FLT-bird,
Your words are the most concise on this matter which I have read in a long, long time🙂
That was the heart of the matter. Hitler had, sadly, managed to camouflage himself as an idealistic man of the people. When he had gotten into power and consolidated it, his mask slipped off, bit by bit.
A sane nationalist - as you stated it so well - might have been able to get a compromise with the neighbors regarding the fate of the Germanophone minorities within their respective countries, e.g. a regional autonomy in linguistic/cultural terms - or maybe even, to some degree, in political matters; although that would, imho, with the defeat of Germany in 1918, almost have been too good to be true.
Had there been a compromise peace agreement in, say, 1916; well, that would have given a much better chance for the establishment of certain inalienable rights for (e.g. German- or Hungarian-speaking) minorities within countries, which have ethnically different majorities.
I see.
But was there any mention of the mobilization by the Russian army on the 30th of July, as well as the Russian incursion into German territory the day later, which caused the phone call by Wilhelm II to the Czar, which I had mentioned earlier in this thread? 🙂
I know that the attempt to stop the war by W II is little known, but then it was clear that the German forces had no other military option than to strike as soon as possible, in order to avoid fighting on German soil - which had happened time and again since the mid- 16th century, the Thirty years War, the wars of the Reunions, the French and Indian War, the Napoleonic Wars until 1870. All this bloodshed had really, through the centuries, resulted in a national trauma.
It was a moment in which, tragically, minutes counted.
Its true that they were fine with being part of France after a time....though they didn't like the way the government stepped hard on the Catholic church, on Catholic education, etc.
BUT
They were also just fine with being part of Germany again after 1871. You did not see any resistance or protests to it in Elsass-Lothringen. They were perfectly content doing business (Germany was a strongly rising economic power) nor demands for French to be spoken, etc. They thought of themselves as German and seemed perfectly content with that. The only objections/resentments came from France, not the locals.
True there were some....but they were never a majority or even close to it. They theorized of some south slav union which sounded good to them but as soon as Yugoslavia was put together and it became pretty clear that it was Serb dominated, pretty much all of them immediately hated that and since the Serbs weren't numerous or strong enough to impose their will effectively, Yugoslavia immediately became riven with internal strife.
Interestingly Tito managed the delicate juggling act pretty effectively but he was not a Serb nationalist. He was a Croat/Slovene himself.
Yes, you are right - the Serbs were the victors of WW one and held a relative majority. Thus they dominated interwar Yugoslavia and suppressed the others, especially the Croats (the dread of the Ustasha didn’t just suddenly fall from the sky).
Even Tito, though not a Serb himself, mainly relied on Serbs for support. Especially the Tito era army was heavily Serb officered.
Hmmm, as far as I know, this did vary from time to time, and from one social group to another.
The intellectuals were mostly a bit of Francophiles, while the farmers, the workers and the artisans were more pro-German. Social security and pensions for invalids came along in the late 1870s and later, and they vere welcomed. More and more, the people of Alsace-Lorraine did arrange themselves, especially after 1911, when Alsace-Lorraine was finally granted autonomy and legal parity with the other German states.
Still, some misunderstandings persisted, as the Zabern affair of 1913 showed. However, it was blown vastly out of proportion by the French media in France.
There had been a turnaround recently before, after, between 1890 and 1905, revanchism in France had died down to some degree.
However, with the Morocco crisis of 1905 and the reassuring through the Entente cordiale with Britain, it intensified again and the French media did their best to pour fuel on the fire. People like Hansi and Zislin, vile caricaturists in service of France, are famous or infamous to this day.
Hansi, who is today mostly known for his mawkish genre postcards, had plenty admirers even in our days. This, however, declined somewhat when it was found out recently that he was not only a Germanophobe, but also a radical antisemite. Some of his early drawings have an uncanny resemblance to similar “art” in decidedly antisemitic papers.
I should add, one of my more distant ancestors was Alsatian. He came to the US prior to 1870 precisely because he did not want to be drafted into the French army and forced to fight the Germans (he considered himself German as did plenty of others).
That’s fascinating. I have heard of those Alsatians who left Alsace after 1871 for France (or North Africa), for they preferred French to German rule, but not of the opposite.
Even as a historian, history keeps surprising me 🙂
By the way, American self-taught philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-83), a New York native and political moderate, was the son of Alsatian parents. His first language was ‚Elsässerdeutsch‘, not English 🙂
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.