History of Sorts

The three groups displayed on the poster are, from top to bottom, “ostbaltische Rasse” (“East Baltic race”), “ostische Rasse” (“Alpine race”), and “dinarische Rasse” (“Dinaric race”). All these three groups were considered part of the sub-races of the Caucasian race, others including the Nordic and Mediterranean.

The Nazis went to great lengths in teaching the German youth to be proud of their race through biology teaching, the National Socialist Teachers League (NSLB) in particular taught in schools that they should be proud of their race and not to mix with other races.

Race biology was meant to encourage the Germans to maintain their racial purity, the NSLB stressed that as early as primary schools Germans have to work on only the Nordic racial element of the German Volk (people) again and again and have to contrast this with the racial differences that foreign peoples such as the Jews represent.

Nazi…