Oswald Menghin

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Oswald Menghin (born April 19, 1888 in Meran , Tyrol , Austria-Hungary ; † November 29, 1973 in Buenos Aires , Argentina ) was an Austrian prehistoric professor , university professor and minister of education in the National Socialist cabinet of Arthur Seyß-Inquart .

Photo by Ludwig Schwab (1930s)

Life

After graduating from high school in Merano in 1906, Menghin studied prehistoric archeology at the University of Vienna ; At the same time he attended the Institute for Austrian Historical Research , where he completed contributions to the oldest settlement and agricultural history in German Tyrol in 1911. Menghin completed his habilitation in 1913 in human prehistory . In 1914 he founded the Vienna Prehistoric Society and founded the Wiener prehistorische Zeitschrift , which he himself edited until 1945.

After Moriz Hoernes ' death , he headed the Prehistory Institute at the University of Vienna from 1917 to 1945 as a university professor, and from 1930 to 1933 he was professor at the University of Cairo .

From 1919 to 1926 Menghin was a member of the German Community , where he met Arthur Seyß-Inquart, as well as of the similar German national German club . In addition, he was a member of the secretly operating, anti-Semitic professors group " Bärenhöhle " at the philosophical faculty, which prevented successful academic careers for Jews in Vienna,

For the academic year 1935/36 he was elected rector of the University of Vienna. After several unsuccessful attempts, he was elected a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1936 . From July 1936 to June 1937 he was a member of the leadership council of the Fatherland Front . In 1936 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In June 1937, the Faculty of Arts awarded him the University of Göttingen to the proposal from the German Ambassador in Vienna von Papen the honorary doctorate title.

On March 11, 1938, he became Minister of Education in the so-called " Anschlusskabinett " of Seyß-Inquart. During his term of office, which ran until the end of May, the connection law and the so-called “cleansing” of the University of Vienna fell. For example, a numerus clausus of 2% was introduced for Jewish students and around 40% of the teaching staff was dismissed for "Jewish descent" or for "political reasons". In August 1938 Menghin returned to the University of Vienna. In 1940 he became a member of the NSDAP .

After the " Anschluss of Austria " to the German Reich in March 1938 , Menghin contributed to the Confession Book of Austrian Poets (published by the Association of German Writers in Austria ), which enthusiastically welcomed the Anschluss.

From this point on he was considered a traitor in Catholic circles and was expelled from his CV connection Rudolfina Vienna , which like all Catholic connections had been banned, at an underground convention on November 12, 1938 - he had become a member in 1906 as a student .

After the war he was placed on the first list of war criminals as a member of the Seyss-Inquart government . However, he was not charged, but was sent to American internment camps, where he gave lectures. In 1948 he managed to escape to Argentina, where he became a university professor in Buenos Aires and from 1957 also at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata . The case against him was dropped in 1956. In 1959 he became a corresponding member abroad of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He died on November 29, 1973 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Further memberships

  • Karantania Klagenfurt (today in the MKV)

Works (selection)

  • World history of the stone age . Schroll, Vienna 1929
  • Spirit and blood: the basics of race, language, culture and ethnicity . Schroll, Vienna 1933.
  • Editor of the series Urgeschichtliche Volksbücher . Burgverlag, Vienna.

literature

  • Otto Helmut Urban : "He was the man between the fronts". Oswald Menghin and the Institute of Prehistory at the University of Vienna during the Nazi era. Archaeologia Austriaca 80, 1996, pp. 1ff.
  • Marcelino Fontán: The Menghin Case. An Austrian Union Minister in Argentina . From the Argentine Spanish by Erich Hackl. In: Zwischenwelt. Journal for the Culture of Exile and Resistance, Volume 19, No. 4. Vienna, February 2003, ISSN  1606-4321 , p. 4f.
  • Marcelino Fontán: Oswald Menghin: ciencia y nazismo. El antisemitismo como imperativo moral. Fundación Memoria del Holocausto, Buenos Aires 2005.
  • Erich Hackl : Postscript to the Menghin case. In: Theodor Kramer Society (ed.): Zwischenwelt. Journal for the Culture of Exile and Resistance, Volume 19, No. 4. Vienna, February 2003, ISSN  1606-4321 , pp. 5f.
  • Philip L. Kohl, JA Perez Gollan: Religion, Politics, and Prehistory. Reassessing the Lingering Legacy of Oswald Menghin. Current Anthropology 43, 2002, pp. 561-586 ( http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v43n4/024002/024002.web.pdf ).
  • Otto Helmut Urban : Oswald Menghin. Professor of Prehistory, Minister of Education 1938. In: Mitchell Ash , Josef Ehmer (Eds.): University - Politics - Society, 650 Years University of Vienna - Dawn of the New Century, Vol. 2. Vienna University Press, Göttingen 2015, p. 299– 304.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Editor: Univ-Prof. Dr. hc Dr. Oswald Menghin at the age of 80 . In: The Sciliar . No. May 5 , 1968 (42nd year).
  2. ^ Kurt Ehrenberg: Othenio Abel's life path, using autobiographical records. Kurt Ehrenberg, Vienna 1975, p. 85 f., Evaluated by Klaus Taschwer: Secret thing Bärenhöhle. How an anti-Semitic professor cartel from the University of Vienna expelled Jewish and left-wing researchers after 1918. In: Regina Fritz, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Jana Starek (Ed.): Alma mater antisemitica: Academic milieu, Jews and anti-Semitism at the universities of Europe between 1918 and 1939. Volume 3, new academic press, Vienna 2016, p. 221– 242, here p. 230 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Dirk Schumann, Lena Freitag: Final report on the project: Honors of the University of Göttingen (honorary citizens and doctors) during the Nazi era and how they were dealt with after 1945 , published by the University of Göttingen . Göttingen, August 26, 2014, pp. 34–40. ( Excerpt online )
  4. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Second updated edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 402.
  5. ^ Association of German writers Austria (ed.): Confession book of Austrian poets. Krystall Verlag, Vienna 1938.
  6. ^ The honorary members, old men and students of the CV Vienna 1925, p. 656.
  7. ^ "Acta Studentica", 72/1988, p. 6
personal data
SURNAME Menghin, Oswald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian prehistorian, Minister of Education
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Meran , South Tyrol
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1973
Place of death Buenos Aires , Argentina