Earnest Hooton

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Earnest Albert Hooton (born November 20, 1887 in Clemansville , Wisconsin , † May 3, 1954 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American paleoanthropologist and university professor who dealt in particular with racial theory .

biography

After schooling, he studied Classical Studies at Lawrence Institute and at the University of Wisconsin before he himself during a stay at Oxford University studying anthropology turned.

After his return to the USA he became professor of anthropology at Harvard University in 1913 and taught there until his death in 1954. His chair became the main center in the USA for the training of specialists in the field of biological anthropology . Sherwood L. Washburn was one of his most famous students . During this time he was also the curator of somatology at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in Cambridge. In 1927, Hooton was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1935 to the National Academy of Sciences .

In addition to his teaching activities, he contributed in particular through his well-known publications Up From The Ape (1931) and Apes, Men and Morons (1937) to make this branch of anthropology known to a wide readership.

In his research he focused on the "racial" classification of humans and the relationship between physique and biological behavior, as for example in his books The American Criminal (1939) and Crime and Man (1939). He also published Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands (1925) and dealt with Luis de Guardafía , the last indigenous ruler of the Canary island of Lanzarote .

Hooton's idea for post-war Germany

Hooton was a proponent of racial theory and a supporter of eugenics . In 1943, during World War II, he wrote a propaganda essay for the PM Daily, which was published as a collective article along with contributions from Franz Boas , Dorothy Thompson and Albert Einstein . In this, Hooton advocated the settlement of non-German populations in Germany in order to “ destroy German nationalism and aggressive ideology”. Above all, however, he suggested using German soldiers after the war in the war-torn areas for forced labor for the reconstruction. As a eugenicist, he wanted to breed away the predatory tendencies of the Germans, which were biologically based and innate for him, by crossing them with representatives of other peoples.

Outside of the PM Daily article, Hooton's idea was never taken up again, so it is a stand-alone view that was never part of US post-war planning for the German Reich. In today's right-wing extremism , however, Hooton's ideas - together with similar thought games such as the so-called " Kaufman Plan ", the equally influential " Nizer Plan " and the Morgenthau Plan - are actually seen as a secretly implemented plan aimed at the biological annihilation of the Germans working towards mass immigration. This view is also represented by the NPD , which sees the so-called “ welcome culture ” in the wake of the refugee crisis of 2015 as a “continuation of plans drawn up during the Second World War” .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ E. Giles: Two Faces of Earnest A. Hooton. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 149, 2012, pp. 105-133, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.22162 .
  2. ^ EA Hooton: Breed was strain out of Germans. New York daily newspaper Picture Magazine, January 4, 1943.
  3. ↑ The mass immigration through the right of asylum must end! , on: www.npd.de of November 24, 2015, last accessed on September 6, 2019. https://npd.de/2015/11/die-massenzuwanderung-ueber-das-asylrecht-muss-beendet-haben/
personal data
SURNAME Hooton, earnest
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hooton, Earnest Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American paleoanthropologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Clemansville , Wisconsin
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1954
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts