Tolkien on anti-Semitism

Tolkien was wonderfully unambiguous when, before World War II, a German publisher asked him whether he was "Aryan." From IYOV [quoting from the introduction to Beowulf and the Critics]:

In 1938, Tolkien had written a razor-tongued reply to the German firm Rütten und Loening Verlag, who, upon negotiating the publication of a German translation of The Hobbit, dared to ask Tolkien if he was "arisch" [Aryan]. Tolkien replied with insulting philological precision that since he was not aware that any of his "ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects," he could not claim to be Aryan. He adds, "but if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." He then continues with an explanation of his German name (Tolkien's ancestors immigrated to England in the eighteenth century), and closes with the following:

I have been accustomed . . . to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war . . . . I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

In a letter to his own publishers about the same issue Tolkien calls the German race laws "lunatic" and notes "I do not regard the (probable absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable . . . and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine." ....

Thanks to Mark Olson for the reference.

Iyov: Tolkien on anti-Semitism and racism