Viktor Lebzelter

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Viktor Lebzelter (born November 26, 1889 in Vienna , † December 22, 1936 in Mödling ) was an Austrian anthropologist and opponent of Nazi racial theory .

Life

Lebzelter studied anthropology with Rudolf Pöch , ethnology with Father Wilhelm Schmidt , (SVD), prehistory with Josef Bayer as well as medicine and natural sciences in Vienna . After graduating as Dr. phil. In 1914 he served on the Eastern Front and in Albania . In 1919 he joined the Federal Ministry for Social Administration ( Department of Health ). Lebzelter was a close collaborator of the Steyler missionaries Schmidt, Paul Schebesta and Martin Gusinde and the magazine “Anthropos” they published. In 1926 he was employed full-time in the prehistoric-anthropological department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna . 1926-28 he undertook an expedition to South Africa , supported by Pope Pius XI. for the Mission Museum in Rome, for research into the Bushmen and Bantu as well as the ethnology, prehistory and languages ​​of South Africa. From 1929 Lebzelter undertook extensive field studies in Austria and Czechoslovakia in order to clarify the human races that could be detected there . He collected bones such as B. in ossuaries and in 1932/33 measured over 3,300 people living in the Bohemian Forest . In 1934 a five-week investigation followed in Pöggstall in the Lower Austria region on the "settlement history of the closer homeland". For Hugo Hassinger's Burgenland Atlas , he contributed to the measurement of around 5000 people in 32 localities. In April 1934 he became director of the anthropological department of the Natural History Museum and expanded the collection to include many skulls and skeletons. In 1933 he examined the skeletal remains of Rudolf IV and in 1936 the Margrave Leopold III, who was canonized in 1485 .

Lebzelter had been a member since 1910 and a committee member of the Anthropological Society in Vienna since 1932 . In 1935 he was appointed head of a working group of the cultural department in the Federal Ministry for Education , which dealt with questions relating to the museum, especially in the service of the Christian worldview.

Lebzelter belonged to the "Viennese School" of ethnology and anthropology, which denied racist differences on a biological basis among people. The Indo-European thesis that this primitive people can be traced back to a "Nordic Eastern people" was also rejected as unscientific. As early as 1925 Lebzelter spoke out against an “aristocratic biology”, as represented in Vienna by the National Socialist racist Otto Reche , and denied a degeneration through racial mixing in evolution . On the contrary, he highlighted their advantages. He also denied Reches' assertion of the leading role of a "Nordic" layer in prehistory, as represented by Hans FK Günther . Politically, Lebzelter was a monarchist .

Fonts

  • Races and Cultures in South and South West Africa , 3 vol., 1931 ff.
  • Racial History of Mankind , 1932
  • On the methodology of research in human history , in: Zs. F. Ethnol. 64, 1932, pp. 190-204.
  • The indigenous question in South Africa as a socio-economic and racial psychological problem , lecture Vienna 1934
  • Our race hygiene task , 1937

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lebzelter, Viktor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian anthropologist and opponent of Nazi racial theory
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1936
Place of death Mödling