Racism in Discourse

Abstract

This chapter will explore and illustrate the alignment of nationalist and ‘völkisch’ sentiments with racism as reflected in written discourse between 1871 and 1918. Anti-Semitism, which to a large extent functioned as a type of racism during the period under investigation, is dealt with in a chapter of its own (Chapter 4). Racism outside Europe, developed within the context of the colonial domination of non-white races, is discussed in Chapter 5. The remaining racisms of significance during the Second Reich involved antipathy toward Slavic peoples, chiefly Poles and Russians, and toward travelling people, such as gypsies. The range of sources for these types of racism are much sparser than those for anti-Semitic and colonial racist discourse, but the sources examined in this chapter illustrate many strategies common to all types of German discourse concerning racial Others.