Nazi Views on Race and Genocide in Australia: A Comparative and Contrastive Approach

Abstract Via an examination of comparative approaches to radically violent societies such as Nazi Germany and colonial Australia, this article investigates how German representations of Australian state racism shed light on the similarities and differences between the Holocaust and frontier violence in Australia. Indicative of these German views, it suggests, were those of government officials like Rudolf Asmis, who frequently wrote and spoke on the question of radical violence against Indigenous people in Australia against the backdrop of increasing antisemitic violence in Germany that culminated in the Holocaust. Assessing the position of Australia in Nazi views on the racial state, it suggests that there are important differences between settler colonial violence and the Holocaust that can only be uncovered through comparative historical method.