"Given this appreciation of his person, it is understandable that the image of the Aryans that Zimmer created could become part of the overall national image of the ancestors of the Germans and as such was later received by those who derived the historical role of the Aryan race from the "oldest cultural conditions". Zimmer's reputation as an exact philologist also contributed to the fact that the correctness of this image was never doubted and the pattern of interpretation that gave rise to it was not generally questioned."