In this work, the author seeks to demonstrate that an important component of European fascist thought was derived from linguistics, not least the notion of an Aryan people with an original language and homeland. In Nazi Germany, linguistic fascism took the form of a cult of the mother-tongue, expressed in a horror of linguistic assimilation and a xenophobic assertion of German language rights. Jews were considered to lack a healthy relationship to the German language and therefore to threaten the bond between the Germans and their language. This account of the academic politics of the Nazi...