Walter Greite

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Walter Greite (born June 13, 1907 in Hanover ; † November 19, 1984 in Hasel ) was a German biologist and head of the biology department at the SS Ahnenerbe, founded in 1938 .

Life

Greite, the son of a teacher (and vice-principal), studied biology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Göttingen and received his doctorate there in 1932 under Alfred Kühn (dissertation: The structure formation of the bird's feather and its pigmentation by melanins). From 1935 to 1937 Greite was a consultant for biology as well as genetic and racial studies in the German Research Foundation .

He vehemently represented the National Socialist (racial and vulgar Darwinist) views in biology and, in a prominent role, helped to bring German biologists into line. He had already joined the SS in Göttingen . In 1932 he joined the NSDAP . In 1935 he was a lecturer in racial studies at the College for Teacher Training in Frankfurt an der Oder. In 1937 he moved to the hereditary biological department of the Reich Health Office as a government councilor (later senior government councilor). In 1939 he took over the editing of the monthly of the Reichsbund für Biologie (formerly Der Biologe ) after the National Socialist Ernst Lehmann had been ousted. He was also federal leader of the Reichsbund for Biology and SS-Obersturmbannführer. At the Ahnenerbe, among other things, he was responsible for the "racial" assessment of resettlers in the eastern regions. From 1940 he was on the board of trustees of the German Research Institute for Psychiatry of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.

As head of the biology department in the Ahnenerbe he was replaced or deported by spring 1942 because, in the opinion of his colleagues at the Ahnenerbe, he lacked human qualities .

From 1956 to 1974 he headed the private Realgymnasium Institut Dr. Greite as a country school home Feldafing on Lake Starnberg . This boarding school was partly housed in the villas that were used by the former National Socialist elite school for higher party members ( Reichsschule Feldafing ) before they were rebuilt in Tutzing until 1938. The boarding school with school existed until 1978.

literature

  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , pp. 63-64.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Wagenitz: Göttinger Biologen 1737-1945: a biographical-bibliographical list, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1988, p. 67. There only the date of birth and career data according to Michael Kater is recorded.
  2. ↑ a b Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 64.
  3. ↑ Published in Z. Wiss. Zoologie, Dept. A, Volume 145, pp. 283-336
  4. ↑ Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt, Rassenhygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich, Akademie Verlag 2006, p. 26
  5. ↑ Uwe Hossfeld , History of biological anthropology in Germany, Franz Steiner, 2004, p. 284. According to Wagenitz, loc.cit., Deputy head of the Reichsbund für Biologie.
  6. ↑ Michael Kater, Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935-1945, Oldenbourg 2006, p. 206
personal data
SURNAME Greite, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1984
Place of death hazel