'Kann ich als Flämin diesen Mann heiraten?' De plaats van de Vlaming in de nationaalsocialistische huwelijkspolitiek

Historical investigation into the Nazi period has until now paid little attention to the subject of mixed marriages. Yet, the dogma's of racial purity and racial improvement made mixed marriage into an issue of ideological and political importance. On the one hand, mixed marriage was considered an important threat to the German blood. On the other hand, Nazi institutions recognized its potential for furthering the process of 'Aufnordung' (i.e. the elevation of the Nordic element in the German population) and for laying the biological and ideological foundations of a 'Greater Germanic Reich'. This article focuses on the mixed marriage between a German and a non-German Germanic partner, more specifically on German-Flemish marriages, while drawing on hitherto unexplored sources. Considering the polycratic nature of the Nazi regime, it studies the opinions Hitler, the Party, the Wehrmacht and the SS held on mixed Germanic marriage as well as the resulting rules and directives. Special attention is paid to the competing interests both ideological and pragmatic that informed those rules and the tensions between ideology, politics, public discourse and daily life. Finally and quite unexpectedly, the reconstruction of the Nazi marriage policy and practice also leads to the question whether and to which extent Nazi institutions considered the Flemish to be 'Germanic'.