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J.R.R. Tolkien's No Nonsense Reply to the Nazis

Aimee Herd : Aug 14, 2013
Jonathon Van Maren – LifeSiteNews.com

"I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler... Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light." -J.R.R. Tolkien to his son.

TolkienBeing a J.R.R. Tolkien fan, an article on LifeSiteNews.com recently caught my eye regarding some decades-old correspondence between Tolkien and a Nazi-influenced publishing company.

According to the report, a book titled "The Master Plan" by historian Heather Pringle, revealed a deep interest by the Nazis in Tolkien's academic work on old Germanic culture.

Writing for LifeSiteNews, Jonathon Van Maren notes that a German publisher who was planning a German translation release of "The Hobbit," wrote to the famed English author in 1938, asking about his heritage in an attempt to portray him as "Aryan."

TolkienAn excerpt of Tolkien's reply (below) on July 25th, 1938, exposes Tolkien's disdain for the Nazi's "obsession with German heritage"…

I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject—which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Read the full article, and Tolkien's entire letter to the German publisher by clicking HERE.