Anthropologia Helvetica

The Anthropologia Helvetica: Results of anthropological studies on Swiss respondents is considered Otto Schlaginhaufen's main work and was published by Orell Füssli in 1946 and 1959 .

Emergence

In the Anthropologia Helvetica the results of are eugenic major project published, the Schlaginhaufen financed by Julius Klaus Foundation for genetic research, social anthropology and eugenics (which he was President) conducted. (The founders "had established in his will," to promote every activity based on a scientific basis, their final destination on the preparation and implementation of practical reforms to improve the white race oriented "are. Specifically the purpose of the foundation excluded were" efforts for the benefit physically and mentally Inferior "" .)

For the project Schlaginhaufen and its staff anthropologically examined and assessed over 35,000 conscripts from 1927 to 1932. The aim of the project was to create a racial typology of the Swiss population. He was supported by the Federal Military Department and the Swiss Society for Anthropology and Ethnology for the investigation . 35,551 recruits were measured and 7,456 photographs were taken. Schlaginhaufen presented the results of his skull measurements in 1935 at the 16th International Congress of Anthropology in Brussels .

content

“The central result was that long heads penetrated the field of medium-length heads through the entry gates of Basel and Geneva , while the short-headed field was settled from the east and south. [Schlaginhaufen] was able to refute the previous assumption that the central Alps were the focus and starting point of the short heads. The long-sought “ homo alpinus helveticus ” had turned out to be a chimera . […] From today's point of view [absurd] and in view of the effort, very [poor] research results […] ”( Alex Schwank , 1996 )

shape

The Anthropologia Helvetica was published by Orell Füssli in two parts :

Die Anthropologie der Eidgenossenschaft , published in 1946 as a 699-page text volume with a separate atlas (= Archive of the Julius Klaus Foundation for Hereditary Research , Social Anthropology and Racial Hygiene 21, supplementary volume OCLC 30382635 );
The Anthropology of the Cantons and Natural Landscapes , published in 1959 as a 708-page text volume with a separate atlas (= archive of the Julius Klaus Foundation for Heredity Research , Social Anthropology and Racial Hygiene 34, supplementary volume OCLC 15726827 ).

reception

“If this work had appeared ten years earlier, it would have been a great success. After the Second World War there was little interest in this kind of race research and eugenics. ”( Alex Schwank , 1996 )

literature

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Alex Schwank : The racial hygiene (or eugenic) discourse in Swiss medicine in the 20th century . In: Sigrid Weigel , Birgit R. Erdle (Ed.): Fifty Years Later: On the Post-History of National Socialism (= Zurich University Forum . No. 23 ). VDF Hochschulverlag AG at the ETH Zurich , Zurich 1996, ISBN 978-3-7281-2169-1 , 6th example of anthropology: Otto Schlaginhaufen, p. 469 ff .

[schwank-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Alex Schwank : The racial hygiene (or eugenic) discourse in Swiss medicine in the 20th century . In: Sigrid Weigel , Birgit R. Erdle (Ed.): Fifty Years Later: On the Post-History of National Socialism (= Zurich University Forum . No. 23 ). VDF Hochschulverlag AG at the ETH Zurich , Zurich 1996, ISBN 978-3-7281-2169-1 , 6th example of anthropology: Otto Schlaginhaufen, p. 469 ff .