Nietzsche and Race

So by way of a preliminary, let us get to an understanding of what 'race' means/has meant.
The word derives from Old Italian 'razza', the dictionary giving the date 1586. Here we are in a time frame, the late Renaissance, so beloved of Nietszche.
The definitions given for 'Race' are;

"1) A breeding stock of animals ..."
Before going on we will note that Nietzsche took the very un-Christian view that humans were animals who could be bred just like animals and were not uniquely made in Jehovah's image.
The famous passages in Zarathustra refer to the evolutionary perspective of man ascending from worm, to ape, to man and then to superman. Likewise, Nietzsche frequently used the terms discipline/breeding when talking of mankind.
Given that Nietzsche believed in hierarchy among humans (he blatantly advocated slavery and aristocarcy for example) which he called a 'Rank Ordering', then we cannot deny that Nietzsche believed in the concept of 'race' among humans, and believed it to be decisive. This would mean by the post-1936 definition of 'racism' that he would be a 'racist'.
But let us go on to the other dictionary definitions of 'Race';

2):a) a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock.
b) a class or kind of people unified by a community of interests, habits or characteristics.

3):a) an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species,
b) a 'breed' [an Old English word from before the 12th century, but it is noted to be used by 1553 to mean 'a group of animals or plants presumably related by descent from common ancestors and visibly similar in most characteristics etc.,'],
c) a division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissable by descent and sufficient to characterise it as a distinct human type.

4) (obsolete): inherited temperament or disposition,

5): distinctive flavour, taste or strength.

So, there is little to argue with there from a Nietzschean perspective. I have talked in detail long ago about Nietzsche's fondness for the ideas of Sir Francis Galton, whose book 'Hereditary Genius' Nietzsche possessed and read. The book's title is self-explanatory, and I would be willing to quote from my own copy if anyone is interested.

Broadly, my opinion is that Nietzsche's concept of race encompassed and synthesised notions of breeding, in the biological/eugenic sense, as well of that of 'Blood', in the more mystical sense.
So while Nietzsche adhered very much to a philosophy of Blood and Breeding, he would have rejected the tiny value-loaded judgements of anti-racism which arise in the later modern period long after Nietzsche's death. I regard the TAKING SERIOUSLY of 'racism'/'anti-racism' as a symptom of modern degeneration [along with the mythology of the Six Million Jews and their Holocaust - come on, who do you think you are kidding!].

Is Nietzsche a 'racist'? - you bet he is!