Steindorff list

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The Steindorff List is a list of reviews by the Egyptologist Georg Steindorff about the behavior of German Egyptologists during the Nazi era in the German Empire . It is contained in a letter that Steindorff wrote in June 1945 to the American Egyptologist and director of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute John A. Wilson . The list plays a central role in researching the entanglement of Egyptology in the Nazi system.

background

Steindorff was expelled from Germany because of his Jewish origins and came to the USA in 1939 , where he lived in North Hollywood towards the end of the war . Steindorff was one of the most distinguished Egyptologists of his time. Towards the end of the Second World War , he was asked several times to give an assessment of the character and involvement of German and therefore Austrian Egyptologists in the Nazi system. After initially refusing, he wrote a letter to Wilson in June giving his assessment. The list is not completely complete and in some statements incorrect, but this was due to Steindorff's incorrect information. Overall, his descriptions largely coincide with today's knowledge, although Egyptology has only recently been scientifically researching its own specialist history in modern times.

reviews

The evaluation in the first sections takes place in a numbered weighting, in the negative list from difficult to less difficult.

positive

number Surname Steindorff's description Scientific status
1 Alexander Scharff Nazi opponent and democrat all his life
2 Rudolf Anthes stood by his friends and colleagues against National Socialists and was denounced by NS colleagues as a former Freemason
3 Hans Bonnet is portrayed as one of the noblest people Steindorff had ever met. After the “ Reichskristallnacht ” he even offered his former teacher protection and accommodation in a hiding place in his house
4th Hans Wolfgang Müller Nazi opponent and extremely talented young Egyptologist
5 Herbert Ricke Exile in Switzerland, former employee of Ludwig Borchardt, who was unpopular as a Jew
6th Ludwig Keimer fanatical Nazi opponent
7th Bernhard von Bothmer Together with his brother Dietrich von Bothmer, an exile in the USA, because they no longer wanted to live in Germany, fought as a soldier in the US Army

negative

number Surname Steindorff's description Scientific status
1 Hermann Grapow Fundamentalist who initially pretended to be a democrat, but later became an arch-Nazi . Persecuted people who were not National Socialist, even if they did not use the Hitler salute . Reached high positions at the Berlin University and the Prussian Academy of Sciences . According to Steindorff, Grapow was not outdone by anyone in terms of malice. Close relations with the Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education, Bernhard Rust . Used his position for his personal advancement, but also to have Egyptologists who think differently, such as the Belgian Egyptologist Jean Capart, persecuted and thus Brussels as the Francophone center of Egyptology and at that time the only center of Egyptology that could attack the primacy of Berlin, to weaken. A denunciation by Hans Wolfgang Müller , as claimed by Steindorff, is on record, but it is not specified who denounced him. Ultimately, at a comparatively advanced academic age, Grapow took advantage of the opportunities offered by the upheaval after the National Socialists came to power for their own advancement.
2 Alfred Hermann Likeness and closest colleague of Grapow
3 Hermann Kees Militarist and Junker , openly and secretly fought the Weimar Republic , from head to toe anti-democrat, as a conservative initially anti-Nazi opponent, who quickly adapted and swung to the new line. Kees was a pupil of Steindorff and initially intended to be his successor in Leipzig, but did not accept the offer.
4th Hermann Junker Characterless; Steindorff does not believe rumors that he was active as a spy in Egypt, since Junker would never have exposed himself to such a danger. The German Archaeological Institute in Cairo always kept its apartment open to National Socialists
5 Wilhelm Czermak Steindorff knows little, but is certain that he was a first-rate National Socialist
6th Siegfried Schott Hitler admirers even before the “ seizure of power ” . As a gentleman, however, no supporter of the atrocities committed by the Nazis After 1945 he was dismissed because of his membership in various Nazi organizations (including the NSDAP since November 1, 1942). In 1952, however, he became a professor again at the University of Göttingen
7th Herbert Skull Wolf's assistant, similar to him in political sentiments, but not a talented archaeologist
8th Günther Roeder Steindorff cannot say anything about his political orientation, but suspects an adjustment to the regime, as director of the Berlin Egyptian Museum since 1940 he can hardly have been a National Socialist
9 Uvo Hölscher like Roeder without the museum addition

Without rating

number Surname Steindorff's description Scientific status
1 Heinrich Schäfer Pan-Germanist, who probably did not join the National Socialists. Steindorff knew, however, that Schäfer wanted to attend the Nuremberg Rally as a visitor . Formerly a close friend of Steindorff, whom he later dropped. Steindorff did not want to say anything negative about his former friend.
2 Walther Wolf Steindorff describes his successor as a terrible Nazi, but incorrectly assumes that he died in the war: he actually did not die in Hamburg until 1973.
3 Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing Member of the NSDAP very early in the 1920s , good friends with Rudolf Hess and awarded the Golden Party Badge . He later resigned from the party and visited Steindorff after the 1938 pogroms to express his regret about the situation. Highly cultural people underestimated the ideology of the National Socialists. joined the NSDAP in 1925, did not resign from the party, but was expelled from it in 1937 because he tried to mediate between the Protestant Church and the NSDAP.

This section is preceded by a reference to younger Egyptologists whom Steindorff could not or would not evaluate.

Not mentioned

Surname Scientific status
Heinrich Balcz
(1898–1944)
Käthe Bosse
(1910–1998) 		moved to England in 1936 because of her Jewish origins; probably unknown to Steindorff
Hellmut Brunner
(1913–1997) 		member of the NSDAP since 1937. Due to the testimony of his teacher Alexander Scharff , Brunner was withdrawn from his position as a scientific assistant and lecturer in the denazification process and he was not allowed to be employed again in an official capacity or in an official or government agency.
Emma Brunner-Traut
(1911-2008)
Fritz Hintze
(1915–1993)
Helmuth Jacobsohn
(1906-1994) 		“ Half-Jew ”, was at least able to do his doctorate through protection from the rector of the University of Munich , Walther Wüst , and later work for the art historian Richard Hamann ; probably unknown to Steindorff
Otto Königsberger
(1908–1999) 		Promising architect, as a building researcher with Ludwig Borchardt in Egypt, released from civil service as a Jew in 1933, safe from persecution in Egypt, went to India in 1939, where he made a career as a city planner
Miriam Lichtheim
(1914-2004) 		emigrated to Jerusalem in 1933 and studied with Polotsky there; probably unknown to Steindorff
Erich Lüddeckens
(1913-2004) 		Employee in the task force Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) for plundering art treasures in the Ukraine, 1942 together with Georg Winter ; collected "Deutschtumsakten" in Melitopol , head of the ERR working group in Dnepropetrovsk , head of operations at the ERR "AG East Ukraine" in Kharkiv and Berdjansk
Siegfried Morenz
(1914-1970)
Eberhard Otto
(1913–1974)
Hans Jakob Polotsky
(1905–1991) 		from a Jewish family, emigrated to Jerusalem in 1934 , where he became professor of Egyptian and Semitic languages ​​in 1938; probably unknown to Steindorff
Hermann Ranke
(1878–1953) 		was retired prematurely in 1937 due to his marriage to Marie Stein-Ranke, who is considered half-Jewish . After 1945 this decision was reversed
Joachim Spiegel
(1911–1989)
Hans Steckeweh
(1905–?) 		Architect and building researcher; Banned from practicing because his wife was a communist
Hanns Stock
(1908–1966)

literature

  • Thomas Schneider : Egyptologists in the Third Reich. Biographical notes based on the so-called "Steindorff list". In: Journal of Egyptian History. Volume 4, No. 2, 2011, pp. 109–216 = Egyptologists in the Third Reich. Biographical notes based on the so-called "Steindorff list". In: Thomas Schneider, Peter Raulwing (Ed.): Egyptology from the First World War to the Third Reich. Ideology, scholarship and individual biographies. Brill, Leiden 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-24329-3 , pp. 120–247 ( digitized version of a somewhat shortened version ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ On Grapow see Thomas L. Gertzen: The Berlin School of Egyptology in the Third Reich. Encounter with Hermann Grapow . Kulturverlag Kadmos, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86599-269-7 (not included here).
  2. ↑ History of the Institute for Egyptology at the University of Munich ; Hans-Joachim Lang : booty was found in the estate of a professor in Tübingen. On: tagblatt.de from April 4, 2011 Online .
  3. ↑ Source, here after the summary on p. 315; further details are ongoing throughout the text, Lüddeckens has a total of eight references, he was a leader in the robbery business