That’s it, the Professor is truly the King of Sass
The letter didn’t come from the Nazi party, but from the publishing house which had expressed an interest in the German translation of The Hobbit. Tolkien’s response really is a thing of beauty, though, so it deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
25 July 1938 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. … I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. 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.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearings whatsoever on the merits of my work or its suitability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully
J.R.R. Tolkien.
(Letter 30)
The Hobbit wasn’t published in German until 1957.
This might just be the politest “fuck you” ever written.
W.h.a.t.
Not just “I wish I had Jewish ancestors, but I don’t,” but also “you do realize that’s not what ‘Aryan’ actually means, right,” and “you guys are making it pretty hard to be proud of my German heritage.”
“Don’t call Trump supporters nazis, it hurts their feelings.”
Yes, this is real (link to tweet). Yes, Tucker Carlson is literally repeating Nazi propaganda that aided the genocide of the Romani during the Holocaust. Yes, I am furious.
(Also, although there is a large population of Romani in Romania, they aren’t indigenous to Romania. They’re a diasporic group originally from northern India.)
Romani and Jewish have been screaming at the top of their lungs for years about neo-fascism in Europe, and Americans were totally aloof.
Then neo-fascism reared its head in America, but Roma and Jews were left out of the conversation in terms of people being impacted, because our oppression was “over.”
Now Tucker Carlson is on live TV using slurs and Nazi propaganda about Romani people, and I’m 90% most people on the left are just going to ignore it.
I legit served a man at my last job who was fully covered in nazi symbols and shit. He was a proud actual real life nazi getting icecream in a family theme park and when he left I voiced my disgust to my coworkers on how security even let him in the gate wearing all of that. And you know what that bitch said? “Well some people are offended by your rainbow flag and you are allowed to wear it so he can too”. It’s not the fucking same. Don’t fucking compare the two
Nazis’ entire mission is to exterminate anyone who’s not exactly like them. It’s in no way comparable to “some people are offended”.
me: “I’d like to visibly exist without fear”
them: “I want to literally kill these people so that they stop existing”
centrists: “I don’t see the difference”
Oh wow I guess my addition to this post got spread a lot. I just wanted to add in another piece of important information. I live in Orlando. The location of the Pulse night club shooting. I was wearing a rainbow pin on my uniform because 49 people in my community died in a hate crime. I will never forgive anyone who tells me that my rainbow pins are the same as a swastika
