ARYAN

One of the central myths of Nazi ideology was the racial theory of Aryan superiority. An Aryan was supposed to be a person of pure Teutonic German background with distinct racial characteristics including fair skin. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler writes about the war between the Aryan and non-Aryan races. Nazi extermination policy was rooted in eliminating those races deemed inferior or threatening to Aryan racial purity. The term originally applied to the name of a family of languages of peoples of Europe and India.