"Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists"
About this Quote
The phrase “religion of the blood” is doing the real work. Calling it a religion recasts racial ideology as something deeper than policy, deeper than opinion: a faith that demands loyalty, sacrifice, even purification. It also borrows the emotional infrastructure of belief while discarding the ethical constraints that many religions impose. “Blood” offers a crisp, bodily shorthand for belonging, policing, and exclusion; it makes membership feel measurable and ancient, like a fact you can inherit rather than a commitment you choose.
Then Rosenberg widens the lens to “the great world story,” annexing all human achievement into a racial ledger: peoples “rise and downfall,” and even “inventors and artists” become evidence in an ethnic morality play. That sweep is strategic. It promises grandeur to followers (you are part of an epic) and reduces complexity to a single cause, a classic totalitarian move: the messiness of economics, politics, and contingency gets replaced by a master key.
Context matters: Rosenberg was a chief Nazi ideologue, writing in an era obsessed with pseudo-scientific classification and national humiliation after World War I. The intent isn’t to interpret history; it’s to weaponize it, turning culture into an alibi for conquest and extermination.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
|---|---|
| Source | Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts), 1930 — passage appears in Rosenberg's principal work elaborating Nazi racial ideology (English translations available). |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Rosenberg, Alfred. (2026, January 17). Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/racial-history-is-therefore-natural-history-and-69446/
Chicago Style
Rosenberg, Alfred. "Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/racial-history-is-therefore-natural-history-and-69446/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/racial-history-is-therefore-natural-history-and-69446/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.










