Hitler personally tried to acquire the Germania manuscript in 1936

Evidence

In the 1920s and 1930s, Nazi ideologues — Alfred Rosenberg, Heinrich Himmler, Hans F. K. Günther — seized on the Germania as a foundational text for their racial theories. The Germania’s description of the original Germanic peoples — physically robust, morally uncorrupted, genetically pure, distinct from neighboring peoples — was quoted, paraphrased, taught, and reproduced in Nazi educational material. Hitler himself — and this is documented — attempted, in 1936, to acquire the Codex Aesinas — the very manuscript through which the Germania had reached the Renaissance — from Mussolini’s government. The negotiations did not succeed — the Italians refused to hand over the manuscript — and during the war, the codex was hidden in various Italian locations to prevent German seizure. It survived. It is now in Rome. — , The Rod and the Child, 1257

Categorization

• QUESTION: Follow-up worth chasing: how exactly did the Germans learn the Codex Aesinas’s location, and what role did Krebs’s book play in this documentation?
• XREF: connects to: Nazi book policy combined total destruction with systematic collection — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 754

Broader Connections

• Nazi book policy combined total destruction with systematic collection #exemplifies (0.60) — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 754