Adolf Hitler as the Exemplar of Indo-European Ideology
Introduction
WHAT IS IT ABOUT Adolf Hitler that continues to fascinate the world? Why do people, especially those of European descent, find him so endlessly intriguing? It is not just his followers and sympathizers who find him captivating: Even his enemies and those who are conflicted about him fall under his spell.
Clearly, there is something about Hitler that resonates deeply in the Aryan psyche, on a sub-rational level. Something about Hitler attracts us all, even if we do not understand what it is. It goes beyond words. And the more one learns about Hitler, the stronger this attraction becomes.
Part of the answer to the enigma of Adolf Hitler is that we see in him, to one degree or another, an idealized reflection of ourselves. He is more than just one Aryan man: he is an exemplar of all Aryan humanity.
Georges Dumézil and Indo-European Ideology
The French scholar Georges Dumézil (1898-1986) is the father of modern Indo-European studies. Following the Second World War, academic, scholarly investigation into Aryan prehistory and origins came to an almost complete halt. Research in this field was deemed to be Politically Incorrect (to use a contemporary term). Due to its association with National Socialist racial theory, the very world “Aryan” itself was declared out of bounds, and was replaced by the more-neutral term “Indo-European” (IE). For some two decades following 1945, Indo-European studies were only acceptable if they were strictly limited to the realm of comparative linguistics, that is, tracing the common origin of words in the various languages of the IE language family.
Dumézil was one of the scholars in the tiny, tightly-circumscribed field of Indo-European linguistic studies. Unlike his colleagues, however, Dumézil was daring enough to think forbidden thoughts, and to go beyond the bounds of what was academically acceptable. In studying ancient IE texts from many lands, especially those of a mythological nature, Dumézil noticed that they had more in common than just a similar vocabulary. Rather, they also described a common society, that was based on a common ideology or way of looking at the world.
The various IE mythologies, including those of the ancient Greek, Roman, German, Celtic, and Hindu peoples, were all polytheistic. In each, there was a community of divine beings. The individual gods and goddesses of one mythological tradition had a corresponding deity in the other mythologies. For example, the Germanic Thor corresponded closely to the Roman Mars and the Vedic Indra. Furthermore, each god had a distinct social role to play in the divine community, that was likewise a reflection of a social role in actual IE society, such as the chieftain, the warrior, the smith, the mother, and the farmer. Dumézil perceived that the mythologies of the ancient and prehistoric IE peoples described a social hierarchy that was common to all of them. This structural hierarchy in turn was a manifestation of a common IE ideology, or thought world.
In essence, what Dumézil was saying was that our distant Indo-European (Aryan) ancestors not only had a common language, but also a common religion and a common social structure. He later expanded this further to include a common legal system. The implication was that this common IE patrimony was genetically based — that is, that it is encoded in our genes and not just transmitted culturally from generation to generation. (Dumézil never made this claim himself, but left it to his students to elaborate on the basic research that he did.)
Later, the scholars Marija Gimbutas, Edgar Polomé, and Roger Pearson would build on Dumézil’s work, and expand the field of Indo-European studies to formally include not just linguistics, but also mythology, archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology.
Functional Tripartition
The essence of Dumézil’s theory of Indo-European ideology is termed “Functional Tripartition.” There are three levels to the IE social hierarchy, each of which serves a certain social function:
First Function: Sovereignty or leadership
Second Function: Force, which enforces the decisions of this First Function
Third Function: Productivity, which provides the material basis for society
An illustration of the functions from mythology is provided by the Germanic gods:
First Function: Odin, king or lord of the Gods
Second Function: Thor, defender of the Gods
Third Function: Frey, God of prosperity and fertility
Each of these deities was honored with a statue at the great heathen temple in Uppsala, Sweden: one god for each function.
Dumézil wrote numerous books explaining and expounding various aspects of this theory. In English, his most popular and readily available book is Gods of the Ancient Northmen (1973).
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