The passing of the great race; or, The racial basis of European history

by Madison Grant

The eastern half of Germany has a Slavic Alpine substratum which represents the descendants of the Wends, who first appear about the commencement of the Christian era and who by the sixth century had penetrated as far west as the Elbe, occupying the lands left vacant by the Teutonic tribes which had migrated southward. These Wends in turn were Teutonized by a return wave of military conquest from the tenth century onward, and to-day their descendants are considered Germans in good standing. Having adopted the German as their sole tongue they are now in religious, political and cultural sympathy with the pure Teutons; in fact, they are quite unconscious of any racial distinction.

This historic fact underlies the ferocious controversy which has been raised over the ethnic origin of the Prussians, the issue being whether the populations in Brandenburg, Silesia, Posen, West Prussia, and other districts in eastern Germany, are Alpine Wends or true Nordics. The truth is that the dominant half of the population is purely Teutonic and the remainder of the population are merely Teutonized Wends and Poles of Alpine affinities. Of course, these territories must also retain some of their early Teutonic population and the blood of the Goth, Burgund, Vandal and Lombard, who at the commencement of the Christian era were located there, as well as of the later Saxon element, must enter largely into the composition of the Prussian of to-day.

Some anthropologists regard the Teutonized round heads of south Germany as a distinct subdivision of the Alpines because of the large percentage of blond hair and still larger percentage of light colored eyes.

The most important communities in continental Europe of pure German type are to be found in old Saxony, the country around Hanover, and this element prevails generally in the northwestern part of the German Empire among the Low German-speaking population, while the High German-speaking population is largely composed of Teutonized Alpines.

The coasts of the North Sea extending from Schleswig and Holstein into Holland are inhabited by a very pure Nordic type known as the Frisians. They are the handsomest and in many respects the finest of the continental Nordics and are closely related to the English, as many of the Post-Roman invaders of England either came from Frisia or from adjoining districts.

All the states involved in the present world war have sent to the front their fighting Nordic element and the loss of life now going on in Europe will fall much more heavily on the blond giant than on the little brunet.

As in all wars since Roman times from a breeding point of view the little dark man is the final winner. No one who saw one of our regiments march on its way to the Spanish War could fail to be impressed with the size and blondness of the men in the ranks as contrasted with the complacent citizen, who from his safe stand on the gutter curb gave his applause to the fighting man and then stayed behind to perpetuate his own brunet type. In the present war one has merely to study the type of officer and of the man in the ranks to realize that, in spite of the draft net, the Nordic race is contributing an enormous majority of the fighting men, out of all proportion to their relative numbers in the nation at large.

This same Nordic element, everywhere the type of the sailor, the soldier, the adventurer and the pioneer, was ever the type to migrate to new countries, until the ease of transportation and the desire to escape military service in the last forty years reversed the immigrant tide. In consequence of this change our immigrants now largely represent lowly refugees from “persecution,” and other social discards.

In most cases the blood of pioneers has been lost to their race. They did not take their women with them. They either died childless or left half-breeds behind them. The virile blood of the Spanish conquistadores, who are now little more than a memory in Central and South America, died out from these causes.

This was also true in the early days of our Western frontiersmen, who individually were a far finer type than the settlers who followed them. In fact, it is said that practically every one of the Forty-Niners in California was of Nordic type.