Johann Chapoutot

In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scientific community supported Nazism, distorted history to legitimize a hideous system and was an accomplice to its unspeakable crimes. The story of the Ahnenerbe, a sinister organization created to rewrite the obscure origins of a nation.

In June 1934, Hitler decided to eliminate the powerful leadership of the SA. With his pistol drawn, he entered the Hotel Hanselbauer in Bad Wiessee on June 30, where his friend Ernst Röhm and other SA functionaries were staying. The three-day murder operation within the SA's own ranks has gone down in history as the "Night of the Long Knives".

Nuremberg is where Nazi congresses were held. In the city where Hitler gathered huge crowds of fanatics, the court hosted in 1945 the greatest trial in History. The Allied victors judged those responsible for the Third Reich. Among the defendants are the Führer's closest surviving accomplices. But not only them: defendant number 27 is not even a man. It is an entire organization: the SS were a state within the state – which ruled all the police – with its own army, within the Nazi regime.

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In 1935, German scientists dug for bones; in 1943, they murdered to get them. How the German scientific community supported Nazism, distorted history to legitimize a hideous system and was an accomplice to its unspeakable crimes. The story of the Ahnenerbe, a sinister organization created to rewrite the obscure origins of a nation.