Otto Reche

Otto Reche (1939)

Otto Reche (born May 24, 1879 in Glatz ; † March 23, 1966 in Großhansdorf near Hamburg ) was a German anthropologist , ethnologist and "racial scientist" .

Life

Youth and education

After attending school, Reche studied zoology, comparative anatomy , anthropology with Ernst Haeckel and Johannes Walther, and botany with Ferdinand Albin Pax in Breslau , later geography at the University of Jena with Karl Dove and natural sciences in Berlin . He also attended events on paleontology with Frech, on anthropology and ethnology with Georg Thilenius in philosophy and on psychology with Hermann Ebbinghaus , which were to have a great influence on his work.

1904 Reche was at the University of Wroclaw with a thesis on comparative anatomy and zoology at Willy Kükenthal doctorate . The subject of the dissertation was "About the form and function of the cervical spine of the whale" .

Career in the German Empire and Weimar Republic

After his university days, Reche worked for a few years at the Museum of Silesian Antiquities with Hans Seger in Breslau and at the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. He later switched to teaching at the Colonial Institute in Hamburg , the forerunner of the university there .

In 1908/09, Reche took part in the Hamburg Scientific Foundation's South Seas expedition . In 1911 he became head of department at the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg . At the First World War he took from 1915 to 1917 as an officer of the militia on the eastern front part. In 1918 he was appointed professor. In 1919 he completed his habilitation in anthropology and ethnology at the University of Hamburg. In 1924 he became a full professor at the University of Vienna , succeeding Rudolf Pöch . From 1927 he held the chair for anthropology and ethnology at the University of Leipzig as successor to Karl Weule . From September 1, 1927, he headed the Ethnological-Anthropological Institute, later renamed the “Institute for Race and Ethnology”. On November 11, 1933, he signed the professors' commitment at German universities and colleges to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist state , an appeal for the NS unified list election on the following day ( Reichstag election November 1933 ).

In 1925, Reche founded the "Vienna Society for Race Care", in 1926 together with the marine doctor Paul Steffan the " German Society for Blood Group Research " and in 1927 its organ, the magazine for racial physiology . He developed a lively “racial” training and lecturing activity and became head of the Anthropological Institute of the University of Vienna . Despite the barely veiled National Socialist orientation of society, the professors, lecturers and assistants working at the institute were able to disseminate their teachings unhindered, as the appearance of strict scientificism was preserved on the outside. Reches' former research assistant Michael Hesch attested in a commemorative publication on the occasion of Reche's 60th birthday in 1939 that the effectiveness of the society “above all also resulted in the Jewish influence on this field [blood group research] in Germany, which until then had been predominantly occupied by Jews , before 1933 has been switched off. "

National Socialism Period and Late Life

During the time of National Socialism , Reche was in contact with various Nazi organizations. Professionally, he was mainly engaged in the creation rassenkundlicher parentage commissioned. In addition, he intensified his anthropological surveys among various population groups, but above all among the Sorbs .

On May 1, 1937, Reche joined the NSDAP . He was also a member of the NSV , NS teachers' association , NSKOV , Reichsbund Deutsche Familie and NS-Altherrenbund . He was co-editor of the magazine “Der Biologe” published by the SS- Ahnenerbe . On September 24, 1939, he published the “Guidelines for Securing Population Policy in the German East”. He was involved in the training of "aptitude testers for Germanization" for Polish children. In the German Society for Racial Hygiene and the German Society for Racial Research he sat on the board.

On April 16, 1945, Reche was arrested by the Americans. After his release he was able to resume his work as an expert and prepared judicial paternity reports.

Scientific work

In 1931, the study of the nature of blood groups through investigations in ultraviolet light by rake led to the discovery of the fluorescence of the blood serum of sick people, the laws of which and the ability to be evaluated for the early diagnosis of diseases have since become the subject of medical research. (Fluorescence diagnosis in: Münchener Medizinische Wissenschrift No. 38, 1931).

Rake when examining blood serum (1937)

Reche played a decisive role in the establishment and expansion of the so-called race- biological parentage report: On Reche's grounds, the Supreme Court in Vienna made the decision in a paternity process in 1926, for the first time for courts in German-speaking countries, that in addition to the blood groups that had been used up until then, the Racial "genetic analysis" should be used for the report. During the time of National Socialism, the genetic and racial pedigree certificate was used as an essential aid in race care within the meaning of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Reche worked out his theories in this regard in writings such as Anthropological Evidence in Paternity Trials (1926), Proof of Descent and Race (1938) and On the History of Biological Proof of Descent in Germany (1938).

During the Second World War , Reche also appeared as an “apologist for genocide in Eastern Europe”. As a consultant to the North German Research Society , which was largely identical in terms of personnel to the Berlin-Dahlem publication office set up by Albert Brackmann and also used the same rooms, in September 1939 he offered his anthropological expertise, as he knew from decades of research what was happening in the Polish people "Racially valuable" and which population groups are to be expelled from the new German settlement areas in Poland : "We need space , but no Polish lice in fur." Through Brackmann, he was able to contribute his racist concepts to influential Eastern research . In September 1942 he warned against a “mixture” of Germans with the races of the conquered territories in the Soviet Union , which he described as “biologically destructive”. Therefore, the settlement areas would have to be "cleared" of all locals beforehand.

Fonts

Reche wrote, among other things, "On the ethnography of the drainless area of German East Africa" (1914) and published several anthropological journals (for example: Journal for Rassenphysiologie und Volk und Rasse. Illustrated monthly journal for German folklore, racial studies, race care. Journal of the "Reich Committee for Public Health Service "and the" German Society for Racial Hygiene. " ). His ethnographic work Spreading the Human Races , which, together with the corresponding school wall maps, was used extensively in school lessons during the Nazi era, achieved great importance.

Overview of fonts

The Kaiserin Augusta River , Hamburg 1913.
On the ethnography of the drainless area of German East Africa on the basis of the collection of the East Africa Expedition (Dr. E. Obst) d. Geographical Society in Hamburg , Hamburg 1914.
The importance of race care for the future of our people , Vienna 1925.
For the 25th anniversary of the Vinderen Laboratory in Oslo , Munich 1932.
The early Neolithic skeleton of Gross-Tinz in Schlesien , Leipzig 1933.
Emperor Karl's law on the political and religious submission of the Saxons , Leipzig 1935.
The Mesolithic skull from Nordwalde in Westphalia . In: From the prehistory in Rhineland, Lippe and Westphalia, 1935, vol. 2, pp. 113–124. (Also as a special print.)
Racial mixing in humans , Munich 1936.
Race and homeland of the Indo-Europeans , Munich 1936.
The Importance of Racial Care for the Future of Our People , 1938.

literature

Katja Geisenhainer: Otto Reches racial studies between metaphorics and metatheory . In: B. Streck (Ed.): "Ethnology and National Socialism", 2000
Katja Geisenhainer: Race is fate. Otto Reche (1879-1966). A life as an anthropologist and ethnologist , in: "Contributions to Leipzig University and Science History", Series A 1, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2002

Web links

Commons : Otto Reche - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Otto Reche in the catalog of the German National Library

Literature list in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library

Otto Reche in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig

swell

↑ Wolfgang Neugebauer: "Rassenhygiene in Wien 1938", in: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift , 110 (1998), 4-5. P. 128 f.
↑ His importance as a racial researcher in National Socialist Germany can be seen, for example, in his listing in the reference work 5000 heads. Who was what in the Third Reich , a who's who of the leading personalities of the Nazi state.
^ Andreas Leipold: The first year of the Hamburg South Sea Expedition in German New Guinea: (1908-1909) , Salzwasser-Verlag, Bremen 2008, p. 85.
↑ On the history of the Leipzig Institute for Race and Ethnology ( Memento from October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Contribution by Katja Geisenhainer (Leipzig) at the conference "Ethnic Sciences in the 20th Century" of the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) of the TU Berlin (April 11th and 12th, 2008, Berlin)
^ Hubert Fehr: Hans Zeiss, Joachim Werner and the archaeological research during the Merovingian period. In: Heiko Steuer, Dietrich Hakelberg (Hrsg.): An outstanding national science: German prehistorians between 1900 and 1995. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2001. S. 321.
↑ Cf. Otto Reche: Strength and origin of the proportion of the Nordic race among the Western Slavs . In: Deutsche Ostforschung. Results and tasks since the First World War , ed. by Hermann Aubin et al., Volume 1, Leipzig 1942, pp. 58-89.
↑ On the close collaboration between Reches and Albert Brackmann, cf. Michael Burleigh : Science and lifeworld: General Director Brackmann and the National Socialist Ostforschung. In: Werkstatt Geschichte , 8, results Verlag: Hamburg 1994, pp. 68–75. - Also as a PDF file ( memento from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).

personal data
SURNAME	Rake, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German anthropologist, ethnologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	May 24, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bald
DATE OF DEATH	March 23, 1966
Place of death	Großhansdorf near Hamburg

[1] Wolfgang Neugebauer: "Rassenhygiene in Wien 1938", in: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift , 110 (1998), 4-5. P. 128 f.

[2] His importance as a racial researcher in National Socialist Germany can be seen, for example, in his listing in the reference work 5000 heads. Who was what in the Third Reich , a who's who of the leading personalities of the Nazi state.

[3] Andreas Leipold: The first year of the Hamburg South Sea Expedition in German New Guinea: (1908-1909) , Salzwasser-Verlag, Bremen 2008, p. 85.

[4] On the history of the Leipzig Institute for Race and Ethnology ( Memento from October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

[5] Contribution by Katja Geisenhainer (Leipzig) at the conference "Ethnic Sciences in the 20th Century" of the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) of the TU Berlin (April 11th and 12th, 2008, Berlin)

[6] Hubert Fehr: Hans Zeiss, Joachim Werner and the archaeological research during the Merovingian period. In: Heiko Steuer, Dietrich Hakelberg (Hrsg.): An outstanding national science: German prehistorians between 1900 and 1995. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2001. S. 321.

[7] Cf. Otto Reche: Strength and origin of the proportion of the Nordic race among the Western Slavs . In: Deutsche Ostforschung. Results and tasks since the First World War , ed. by Hermann Aubin et al., Volume 1, Leipzig 1942, pp. 58-89.

[8] On the close collaboration between Reches and Albert Brackmann, cf. Michael Burleigh : Science and lifeworld: General Director Brackmann and the National Socialist Ostforschung. In: Werkstatt Geschichte , 8, results Verlag: Hamburg 1994, pp. 68–75. - Also as a PDF file ( memento from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).