Friedrich Keiter

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Friedrich Keiter (born November 26, 1906 in Vienna , † April 20, 1967 in Nicosia , Cyprus ) was an Austro-German anthropologist , physician and racial biologist who worked primarily in Hamburg and Würzburg.

Life

Childhood, youth and education (Vienna, Kiel and Graz)

Friedrich Keiter was born in Vienna as the son of the later Hofrat Albin Keiter, doctor of philosophy. There he went to a humanistic high school from 1916 to 1924.

Keiter first studied natural sciences for two semesters, then as a doctoral degree in anthropology (with minor subjects anthropology and psychology as well as history and geography as teaching subjects ) at the University of Vienna . He was a member of the Ghibellinen Vienna and Holsatia Hamburg singers in the umbrella association of German singers . On February 15, 1929 he received his doctorate as Dr. phil. in anthropology with studies on Australian and Melanesian mandibles from the estate of Prof. Pöch . From May 1929 to November 1932 he worked as an assistant at the Anthropological Institute of the University of Kiel, where he began studying medicine, which he continued in Vienna and completed in Graz (December 20, 1933), where he obtained his doctorate. med. finished. He also received the Venia practicandi. In 1933 he became a lecturer for the subject of Genetics at the University of Graz , where he was already at the Zoological Institute on 18 August 1933 for the subject Anthropology habilitation had. In the winter semester of 1933/1934 he gave the lecture Introduction to the Racial Issue in Humans .

1934 to 1938 (Hamburg)

On January 1, 1934, he became first assistant at the Racial Biology Institute of the Faculty of Philosophy in Hamburg , which was headed by Walter Scheidt , and on January 20 of the same year Keiter's re-qualification for the subject of racial biology agreed. On November 10, 1934, Keiter, who was also a member of the National Socialist German Student Union , joined the National Socialist Teachers' Union .

From 1934 to 1938 he headed the Hamburg local group I / IX of the fighting ring of the German-Austrians and was an Austrian NSDAP party candidate.

At the Berlin World Population Congress in 1935, he declared that the elimination of Judaism had a “healing effect on the German people ”. His maternal grandfather, born Jewish and baptized at an early age, was deleted from the family tree in 1938 by the grandmother's declaration, stating that she had been impregnated out of wedlock by a “ German-blooded person ”. This declaration was supported by a hereditary biology report from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology with a parentage notification dated September 30, 1939. In the same year Keiter's three-volume work Race and Culture was published . Also in 1939, Keiter, whom Scheidt had proposed as associate professor in 1938 , was recommended by Fritz Jäger , the dean of the Philosophical Faculty in Hamburg, that he should voluntarily give up the lectureship.

1939 to 1945 (Würzburg)

In 1939, Keiter began to teach under Ludwig Schmidt-Kehl at the Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research in Klinikstrasse 6 (from 1940 Race Biology Institute ) at the University of Würzburg . Schmidt had already become aware of Keiter beforehand (Keiter had quoted his article from rural exodus and school performance in 1937 ). The institute was inaugurated in May 1939 under Rector Seifert . From April 1, 1939, Keiter had set up a cultural-biological and cultural-anthropological department in Würzburg. On October 13, 1939, with effect from April 1, 1939, he was given the post of scheduled assistant at the Racial Biology Institute. On June 18, 1940, he was appointed "Lecturer of the New Order" after being re-qualified. From September 1, 1939 to December 7, 1942 he was acting head of the institute before Günther Just was appointed as Schmidt's successor. (Keiter was not proposed for the professorship by the medical faculty, justified with an opinion of March 13, 1942). Keiter lived in the Grombühl district (Schiestlstrasse 37).

According to the records of the Berlin Document Center, he had been a member of the NSDAP since April 1, 1940 . Because Keiter did not adhere to the requirements of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office, there were repeated conflicts with party offices.

Lectures, which he held alongside the compulsory lectures for Schmidt, dealt from 1938 to 1941 with race and culture , cultural biology , racial studies , high culture and race and national character and the racial soul in Europe.

Klaus Endruweit was one of his doctoral students in 1941 .

From May to September 1941 Keiter was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a doctor ; the deputy head of the institute was the anatomist Curt Elze . From May 1943 to February 1944 Keiter was a military doctor in Russia and from September to October 1944 in France. In the meantime, he was doing hospital services in Würzburg (in the Mariannhill and Luitpold hospitals). In 1944 Keiter's Short Textbook of Racial Biology and Racial Hygiene for Physicians was published . From March 15 to September 1, 1945, Keiter was a prisoner of war. He was dismissed from his service by the government of Mainfranken on October 10, 1945.

After 1945 (Hamburg, Karlsruhe and Würzburg)

After 1945, Keiter stated that he had difficulties during the Nazi era because of his Jewish grandfather. As a NSDAP member and due to decisions made by the medical and philosophical faculties in Hamburg (1947 to 1953) and Würzburg (1950 to 1957), Keiter was initially unable to continue teaching. (In March 1948 in Würzburg he was classified as a follower by a ruling chamber decision , but was able to obtain his discharge in June 1949 with the help of numerous letters of discharge). After returning from captivity, he began working as an anthropological expert ( paternity report ) in Hamburg and then became head of a private and lucrative forensic anthropological laboratory in Hamburg. During this time he also designed lectures for corporations, in the winter semester 1956/57 for example one on the subject of “Germany, Europe and the World”. In 1958 he received permission to hold the title of adjunct professor . Documents on the denazification process can be found in the Baden-Württemberg General State Archives in Karlsruhe . In October 1958, Keiter was again appointed private lecturer in anthropology and hereditary biology at the Medical Faculty of Würzburg, where he gave lectures again, albeit to a limited extent, and again in Hamburg after 1965. In Würzburg, the subject “Anthropology and Hereditary Biology” disappeared from the course catalog after Keller's death.

Lectures that he held in Würzburg from 1959 to 1965 dealt with biological problems of human nature , human heredity for clinicians and doctors , hereditary and constitutional biology of humans for doctors, biologists and psychologists , behavioral, cultural and social anthropology and racial issues , Human genetics , individuality and type theory in humans and animals, ancestry, curriculum vitae, behavior .

Friedrich Keiter was killed in a plane crash over Nicosia in Cyprus in 1967.

research

Friedrich Keiter conducted research in the field of physical anthropology, human genetics , demography and cultural anthropology . As a physical anthropologist, he was interested in the description and comparison of the largely unmeasurable physiognomic features of the face, largely neglected in anthropology, which he summarized under the term “race psychology ”. He has authored several papers on the distribution of these traits in Central and Southern Europe.

His main interests shifted from physical anthropology and racial biology to cultural anthropology. He was initially influenced by the "cultural biology" of his Hamburg teacher Walter Scheidt and then went his own way. (At the beginning of the 1930s, Keiter had joined the dynamic concept of race by Scheidt, Karl Saller and Friedrich Merkenschlagers ). A special feature of his approach to cultural studies was the attempt to quantify and compare cultural phenomena.

In 1932, Keiter criticized the popularization of the static racial doctrine, which the philologist Hans FK Günther had disseminated with his racial studies of the German people in 1922. From around 1941, however, the “party book opportunist” increasingly slipped his publications into the National Socialist racial hygienic tradition. The dissertations he supervises deal in part with the activities of the Main Franconian hereditary health court .

After the end of the war, Keiter's writings were Human Races in the Past and Present ( Reclam , Leipzig 1936), Race and Culture (Enke, Stuttgart 1938), Racial Psychology (Reclam, Leipzig 1941), Human Reproduction ( Hirzel , Leipzig 1943) and the Short Textbook of Racial Biology and Racial hygiene for physicians (Enke, Stuttgart 1944) placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone .

After the war, Keiter took on increasingly suggestions from American cultural anthropology and cultural sociology . He also repeatedly dealt with the problem of national character. His more important works included Race and Culture (1938–1940) and his behavioral biology of humans based on cultural anthropology (1966), as well as his physiognomic studies.

The chapter on the mental life of negroes from the volume of racial psychology. Introduction to an emerging science , published in 1941, is circulating as online reading on various relevant neo-Nazi websites in German-speaking countries. Members of the Nationally Oriented Swiss Party (Pnos) were convicted in 2005 for distributing this publication under the Anti-Racism Act .

Quote

“In terms of racial psychology, the German people also have a very specific place within northern Alpine Europe, from which they cannot be moved elsewhere without changing their nature. The Germans settle in the south-north direction between Italians and Scandinavia-English and in the west-east direction between the French and Slavs. This also indicates the racial psychological 'coordinate system' in which they have their immovable south-north and west-east location. "

- Friedrich Keiter: Rassenpsychologie - Introduction to the future science, Reclam Leipzig 1942, p. 68, quoted. after Léon Poliakov , Joseph Wulf : The Third Reich and its Thinkers , Berlin 1959, p. 397.

Publications (selection)

Monographs
  • Studies on Australian and Melanesian mandibles from the estate of Prof. Pöch. Philosophical dissertation Vienna (1928) 1929 (doctorate on February 15, 1929).
  • Schwansen and the Schlei. Schleswig farmers and fishermen. Jena 1931 (= German Racial Studies. Volume 8).
  • Russian-German farmers and their fellow tribesmen in Germany. Studies on special and general race studies. (= German Race Studies. Volume 12). G. Fischer, Jena 1934.
  • Race and culture. A cultural balance sheet of the human races as a way to the lore of the race. 3 volumes. Enke, Stuttgart 1938–1940.
    • Volume 1: General Cultural Biology. 1938.
    • Volume 2: Ancient races and primitive peoples. 1938.
    • Volume 3: High Culture and Race. 1940.
  • Human races past and present. Reclam, Leipzig 1936 (= Reclam. Volume 7340/41).
  • Short textbook of racial biology and hygiene for medical professionals. With a foreword by Prof. Dr. L. Schmidt-Kehl. Enke, Stuttgart 1941; 2nd edition ibid 1944.
  • Racial Psychology. Introduction to an emerging science. Reclam, Leipzig 1941.
  • Human reproduction. Cultural biology and population policy tools of the doctor and other trustees of German racial power. A lecture to medical professionals. Leipzig 1941; 2nd, increased and improved edition. Leipzig 1943 (= racial biology lectures for physicians. Volume 1).
  • Human behavioral biology on the basis of cultural anthropology (= monographs and studies on conflict psychology, Section 1: Conflict Analysis. Volume 4). Ernst Reinhard Verlag, Munich / Basel 1966.
  • as publisher (posthumously): Behavioral research in the context of human sciences. Göttingen / Zurich / Frankfurt am Main 1969.
Collective works
  • Behavioral research in the context of human science. Musterschmidt, Göttingen 1969.
Essays
  • Suggestions for the methodology of mandibular observation. In: Anthropologischer Anzeiger. Volume 6, 1929, pp. 154-161.
  • Degeneration and degeneration. In: German singers. Volume 34, No. 8, 1929, pp. 291-295.
  • Growth studies in children. On the anthropology of post-fetal development. In: Negotiations of the Society for Physical Anthropology. Volume 6, 1931/1932 (= special issue on the Anthropologische Anzeiger. 8), pp. 143–148.
  • Günther's racial teachings. In: German singers. Volume 37, No. 5, 1932, pp. 199-204.
  • Race care a matter of fate. In: DS 4, 1933, pp. 148-156.
  • On the anthropology of the Styrian Obermur area around Murau. In: Communications of the Anthropological Society Vienna. Volume 63, 1933, pp. 293-319.
  • Spiritual health care. In: DS 2, 1934, pp. 55-57.
  • Lower jaw from Australia and New Guinea from the estate of Rudolf Pöch. In: Journal of Morphology and Anthropology. Volume 33, 1935, pp. 190-226.
  • Approaches to folk character studies in folklore literature. A racial overview. In: Journal of Racial Studies and its Neighboring Areas. Volume 4, 1936, pp. 43-65.
  • The Racial Biology Institute of the Hanseatic University of Hamburg. In: Journal for Racial Studies and all human research. Volume 9, 1939, pp. 274 f.
  • War and counter-selection. In: Das Reich of December 7, 1941.
  • Nordic: Near Eastern as a racial polarity. In: Journal for racial customers and all human research. Volume 12, 1941, pp. 60-65.
  • Race and face in Europe, particularly in southern Europe. In: Reports of the Physical-Medical Society of Würzburg. New episode. Volume 64, 1941, pp. 1-10.
  • Degenerate painting from yesterday. In: body and life. Volume 10, 1942, p. 58.
  • The biological questions of the rural people. In: Research Service. Special issue 18, 1942, pp. 32–42.
  • with Ludwig Schmidt: Race studies on French prisoners of war. In: Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde. Volume 14, 1942, pp. 30-43.
  • On judicial application of anthropology. The hereditary paternity report. In: Hamburger Ärzteblatt. Volume 3, 1949, pp. 209-212.
  • Twelve rules of social history. In: Cologne journal for sociology. Volume 2, 1949/1950, pp. 158-192.
  • Age and cultural history. In: Homo. Volume 1, 1950, pp. 65-76.
  • Growth and maturation. In: Cologne journal for sociology. Volume 3, 1950/1951, pp. 165-174.
  • About toe berry pattern and complexity index. In: Journal of Morphology and Anthropology. Volume 42, 1951, pp. 169-183.
  • About "darkening" and inheritance of hair colors. In: Journal of Morphology and Anthropology. Volume 44, 1952, pp. 115-126.
  • To the problem of the character of the people. In: Cologne journal for sociology and social psychology. Volume 5, 1952/1953, pp. 285-297.
  • Outlines of a theory of the end of culture. In: Cologne journal for sociology and social psychology. Volume 5, 1953, pp. 432-438.
  • Crisis and Future of Anthropology. In: Studium Generale. Volume 6, 1953, pp. 492-496.
  • The probative value of complex similarities in the anthropological-hereditary proof of descent. In: Homo. Vol. 5, 1954, pp. 5-12.
  • Renato Biasutti. The geographer as researcher of race, ethnicity and culture. In: Hans Schwerte , Wilhelm Spengler (ed.): Researchers and scientists in Europe today. 2nd: explorers of life: physicians, biologists, anthropologists. (= Creators of our time. Volume 4). Stalling, Oldenburg 1955. pp. 325-335.
  • Facial features in Italy and Libya. In: Homo. Volume 7, 1956, pp. 122-142, and Volume 8, 1957, pp. 223-239.
  • Social anthropology. In: Werner Ziegenfuß (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Soziologie. Stuttgart 1956, pp. 247-289.
  • The themes of human life. In: Studium Generale. Volume 9, 1956, pp. 459-466.
  • The range of applicability of multifactorial genetics to man. In: Acta genetica et statistica medica. Volume 7, 1957, pp. 59-64.
  • Biological human studies as a new subject. In: Communications from the Association of German Biologists. Volume 30, 1958, pp. 78-86.
  • Knowledge and error in ideas about heredity in man. In: Reports of the Physical-Medical Society of Würzburg. New series, Volume 69, 1958/1959, pp. 104-119.
  • North Germans, French and Italians in the morphognostic pair comparison. In: Communications of the Anthropological Society Vienna. Volume 90, 1960, pp. 55-66.
  • A German anthropologist as a “Foreign Visiting Lecturer” in the USA and Mexico. In: Homo. Volume 12, 1961, pp. 146-156.
  • Anthropological observations on a trip to Portugal. In: Homo. Volume 13, 1962, pp. 37-45.
  • with Francisco M. Salzano : The flow of growth and aging (the biorrhesis) of anthropological features in Brazilian Indians. In: Homo. Volume 14, 1963, pp. 193-217.
  • On the problem of human behavioral genetics. In: Homo. Volume 15, 1964, pp. 39-46.
  • Multifactorial Genetics and Medicine. In: German Medical Weekly. Volume 90, 1965, pp. 1532-1537.
  • Opinion. In: Rolf Seeliger (Ed.): Braune Universität. German university professors yesterday and today. A documentation. Issue 3. Munich 1965, pp. 70–72.
  • with Walter Mentz and Hiltrut Kneiphoff: Mingling and mixing in southern Brazil (Pôrto Alegre). In: Journal of Morphology and Anthropology. Volume 57, 1966, pp. 215-259.
  • Race and culture . In: Robert E. Kuttner (ed.): Race and modern science . New York 1967, pp. 332-365.
  • The anthropological research on variation, especially cultural behavior (preliminary work on a "behavioral MARTIN"). In the S. (Ed.): Behavioral research in the context of human science. Göttingen 1969, pp. 171-184.

literature

  • W. Bernsdorf, H. Knospe: Internationales Soziologenlexikon , Volume 1: Articles about sociologists who died by the end of 1969. 2nd revised edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-432-82652-4 , p. 208
  • Author's note in: Friedrich Keiter (Ed.): Behavioral research in the context of human science . Goettingen 1969.
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 303.
  • Biographical Note in: Robert E. Kuttner (Ed.): Race and modern science . New York 1967.
  • Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3; also dissertation Würzburg 1995), ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , pp. 9, 39–43, 77, 93–140 (with complete bibliography) and more often .
  • Ute Felbor, Monika Reininger, Gundolf Keil : Friedrich Keiter. A controversial scholar. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): The University of Würzburg in the crises of the first half of the 20th century. Würzburg 2002, pp. 319–343 (with selected bibliography).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Keiter: We want to ride to Ostland. Austria booklet of the "German Singers", Groitzsch-Leipzig 1929.
  2. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 93.
  3. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Fischer Paperback, 2005, p. 303.
  4. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, p. 303.
  5. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, pp. 100-106.
  6. ↑ In: Journal for Morphology and Anthropology. 1934.
  7. ^ Ludwig Schmidt: Change in the hereditary and racial structure of two Rhön places. 1700-1936. In: Archives for population science (folklore) and population policy. Volume 7, 1937 (= writings from the Race Political Office of the NSDAP at the Gauleitung Mainfranken on the Dr. Hellmuth Plan. Volume 5), pp. 176–199, here: pp. 178, 193 and 197.
  8. ↑ Ute Felbor: The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 11, 1993, pp. 155-173, here: pp. 162-165.
  9. ↑ Cf. Harald Lönnecker : The Assembly of the “Better National Socialists”? The Völkische Waffenring (VWR) between anti-Semitism and corporate elitism ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 267 kB), p. 9.
  10. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3; also dissertation Würzburg 1995), ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , p. 123 f.
  11. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, pp. 125-132.
  12. ^ Klaus Endruweit: Teplitz. Health examinations in a German village of Bessarabia as part of an imperial job competition. Medical dissertation Würzburg 1941.
  13. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3; also dissertation Würzburg 1995), ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , pp. 9, 39–42, 77, 93–97 and 102–109.
  14. ↑ Ute Felbor (1993), pp. 162-165.
  15. ↑ From the singers: Holsatia Hamburg. In: DS 2, 1957, p. 152.
  16. ↑ Friedrich Keiter: "In which I had to expose myself dangerously to the official National Socialist years out of scientific responsibility", N Hellpach No. 451
  17. ↑ Ute Felbor (1993), p. 162.
  18. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, pp. 93, 109-114 and 198 f.
  19. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 124 f. and 198.
  20. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 115.
  21. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, pp. 115-121 as well as 125-132 and 201 f.
  22. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of literature to be sorted out
  23. ^ Board of Pnos condemned ( memento of September 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Tagesanzeiger October 19, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Keiter, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1967
Place of death at Nicosia