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Untermensch (German for underman, sub-man, subhuman; plural: Untermenschen) is a term that became infamous when the Nazis used it to describe "inferior people" often referred to as "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians).〔Revisiting the National Socialist Legacy: Coming to Terms With Forced Labor, Expropriation, Compensation, and Restitution page 84 Oliver Rathkolb〕〔 at Wayback machine.〕 The term was also applied to most Blacks, and persons of color, with some particular exceptions. Jewish people were to be exterminated〔Snyder, T (2011) Bloodlands, Europe between Hitler and Stalin, Vintage, P144-5, 188〕 in the Holocaust, while, according to the Generalplan Ost, the Slavs of East-Central Europe were to be mostly deported to Asia, or exterminated and partially Germanized. These concepts were an important part of the Nazi racial policy.〔 While the Nazis were inconsistent in the implementation of their policy, its genocidal death toll was in tens of millions of victims.〔Rees, L (1997) The Nazis, a warning from history, BBC Books, P126〕〔Mazower, M (2008) Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, Penguin Press P197〕 == Etymology == Although usually incorrectly considered to have been coined by the Nazis, the term "under man" in the above-mentioned sense was first used by American author Lothrop Stoddard in the title of his 1922 pamphlet ''The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man''.〔 〕 It was later adopted by the Nazis from that book's German version ''Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen'' (1925).〔 〕 The German word ''Untermensch'' had been used earlier, but not in a racial sense, for example in the 1899 novel ''Der Stechlin'' by Theodor Fontane. Since most writers who employed the term did not address the question of when and how the word entered the German language, ''Untermensch'' is usually translated into English as "sub-human." The leading Nazi attributing the concept of the East-European "under man" to Stoddard is Alfred Rosenberg who, referring to Russian communists, wrote in his ''Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts'' (1930) that "this is the kind of human being that Lothrop Stoddard has called the 'under man.'" (Lothrop Stoddard als 'Untermenschen' bezeichnete." )〔 〕 Quoting Stoddard: "The Under-Man – the man who measures under the standards of capacity and adaptability imposed by the social order in which he lives". It is possible that Stoddard constructed his "under man" as an opposite to Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch (superman) concept. Stoddard doesn't say so explicitly, but he refers critically to the "superman" idea at the end of his book (p. 262).〔 Wordplays with Nietzsche's term seem to have been used repeatedly as early as the 19th century and, due to the German linguistic trait of being able to combine prefixes and roots almost at will in order to create new words, this development can be considered logical. For instance, German author Theodor Fontane contrasts the Übermensch/Untermensch word pair in chapter 33 of his novel ''Der Stechlin''.〔 〕 Nietzsche used "Untermensch" at least once in contrast to "Übermensch" in ''Die fröhliche Wissenschaft'' (1882); however, he did so in reference to semi-human creatures in mythology, naming them alongside dwarfs, fairies, centaurs and so on.〔 〕 Earlier examples of "Untermensch" include Romanticist Jean Paul using the term in his novel ''Hesperus'' (1795) in reference to an Orangutan (Chapter "8. Hundposttag").〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Untermensch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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