Even Hitler knew it, despite making the concept central: ‘I know perfectly well … that in a scientific sense there is no such thing as race,’ he said, ‘but I as a politician need a concept which enables the order which has hitherto existed on historic bases to be abolished and an entirely new and antihistoric order enforced and given an intellectual basis … And for this purpose the concept of races serves me well … With the concept of race, National Socialism will carry its revolution abroad and recast the world.’
