Tolkien answered the Nazis with a philologist's precise correction

Nazi Germany demanded proof of J.R.R. Tolkien's bloodline in 1938, and Tolkien answered with a philologist's precision instead of a raised voice. The English author and his publisher, Stanley Unwin, were in talks with Rütten & Loening, a Berlin house, over a German translation of "The Hobbit." The publishers wrote asking for evidence of his Aryan descent. Privately, Tolkien had already told Unwin he considered Nazi race-doctrine "wholly pernicious and unscientific." He drafted two replies and let Unwin choose. In the sharper version, he pointed out that Aryans are actually of Indo-Iranian extraction, correcting the regime on its own terminology. Then he added a line about the Jewish people: "I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." Nearly ninety years on, "The Hobbit" has sold hundreds of millions of copies. The regime that questioned his blood collapsed within a decade of asking.