Was Queen Nefertiti, dusky Egyptian beauty who shared the throne of the land of the pyramids, “Aryan?” The question has stirred a lively dispute in one of the Londom newspapers after the Queen broke into print for having snared Adolf hitler’s heart.
We hasten to add quickly, only in a literal sense, for the beautiful Queen has been dead these thousands of years, and it is only a limestone statue of her in the Berlin Museum which stirred the German chancellor to the finer emotion.
The bust of Queen Nefertiti is one of the prized possessions of the museum. Not so long ago the Egyptian government, which is now intent on preserving for Egypt the relics of that land’s past, requested the return of the bust for inclusion in the magnificent collection at Cairo. Herr Hitler, it is reported, does not wish Queen Nefertiti to leave Berlin because, in his own words, he is in love with her.
“Not merely is this of interest because it is a ‘non-Aryan’ princess whom Hitler loves, but, what is still more curious, Queen Nefertiti was originally excavated by Gaheimrat (privy Councillor) Borchardt, who at the time was director of exploration in Egypt, and was presented to the Berlin Museum by James Simon, a well-known German philanthropist and friend of the ex-Kaiser,” a reader’s communication to the Daily Telegraph points out. “Both these men were Jews.”
“In view of what has now happened,” he suggests, “may we after all hope that the power of love has conquered the unbending Nordic? Vincit omnia amor?”
Reflections on the “Aryanism” of the Queen brought a prompt reply and a vigorous defense of her blood purity. “It is astonishing that anyone should class Nefertiti among any but the Aryan races,” one F. A. Cornford wrote. She was a Mitannian princess named Gilukhipa before her name was changed as the Queen of Egypt.
“The Mitannian aristocracy were as Aryan as the Medes and the Persians, and probably of that branch of the Indo-Europeans. One has only to glance at the famous bust or its copies to see the resemblance of Nefertiti to the modern Persians, and thus Herr Hitler has some reasonableness after all!”
Well, this department looked at a photograph of Queen Nefertiti but perhaps because we haven’t had the training that Herr Hitler’s race detection department has had, it didn’t clarify matters. The Queen (from the photograph) is a robust, Semitic-looking woman who, if dressed in modern clothes and with a modified hair-dress, might be a resident of West End avenue and a member of the Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress or the Hadassah.
“Even her husband, the Pharoah Akhnaton,” Mr. Cornford states, “was more than half Aryan.” This is an impossible state of affairs. If Herr Hitler is going to admit publicly his love for a woman of doubtful “Aryanism” who remained married to a “half Aryan” (which, to all Nazi intents, is “non-Aryan,”) he condones the same failing in his “Aryan” subjects. What’s good for the Furher is good for the follower.
We logically expect, therefore, an end to this agitation against marriage between “Aryans” and “non-Aryans” and the issuance of instructions from the Brown House to the German cupid that he may once again shoot his arrows where he will without first referring to Dr. Achim Gercke and his racial records for approval of his targets.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
