The idea that white Germans were the ‘superior’ race developed in Germany tied in with European and American racist thinking. The Nazi reading of race came out of the work of Hans F. K. Gunther, who developed the Volk or Volkergruppe, people of a common hereditary with precise physical and spiritual habits. The concept of Aryan or Nordic races arose out of Gunther’s work.

The origins of the war in 1914 cannot be understood without a deeper understanding of racism. The idea that the Europeans stood as a standard-bearer of the world’s peoples, that they were a ‘superior’ race above all others of the world’s peoples, was a widespread belief across all ruling classes at the time.