The master race (German: die Herrenrasse, das Herrenvolk ) was a concept in Nazi ideology in which the Nordic or Aryan races, which were thought to predominate among Germans and other northern European peoples, were deemed the highest in an assumed racial hierarchy.
The Nazi official Alfred Rosenberg believed that the Nordic race was descended from Proto-Aryans who he believed had prehistorically dwelt on the North German Plain and who had ultimately originated from the lost continent of Atlantis. The Nazis declared that the Nordics (now referred to as the Germanic peoples), or Aryan as they sometimes called them, were superior to all other races. The Nazis believed they were entitled to expand territorially. This concept is known as Nordicism. The actual policy that was implemented by the Nazis resulted in the Aryan certificate, the one form of the official document that was required by the law for all citizens of the Reich was the "Lesser Aryan certificate" (Kleiner Ariernachweis) which could be obtained through an Ahnenpass which required the owner to trace his or her lineage through baptism, birth certificates or certified proof thereof that all grandparents were of "Aryan descent".