Walter Scheidt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Scheidt (born July 27, 1895 in Weiler im Allgäu ; died July 9, 1976 in Lindenberg im Allgäu ) was a German eugenicist (racial biologist) and anthropologist . He is considered the founder of family anthropology . He also wrote trivial literature under the pseudonym Berchtold Gierer .

Life

Scheidt took part in the First World War. He then studied medicine and natural sciences at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich until his doctorate in 1921. He became the first assistant at the University's anthropological institute under the Swiss Rudolf Martin (1864–1925) and qualified as a professor in 1923 in anthropology. In 1928 he was given the title of professor. Since about 1930 he was one of the leading group of German anthropologists. In 1933 he became the first director of the newly founded Institute for Race and Cultural Biology at the University of Hamburg as a full professor. His chair for racial biology (with a racial biology institute) established at the Philosophical Faculty was created by reallocating the chair of Ernst Cassirer , who had recently emigrated and became the first Jewish rector of a German university in 1929. Scheidt continued to work there until his retirement in 1964, even after it was renamed the Anthropological Institute in 1945 .

Scheidt advocated a connection between population genetics , population history and genealogy as early as the 1920s . Scheidt, like Karl Saller and Friedrich Merkenschlager, represented a dynamic concept of race (in contrast to the static racial doctrine of Hans Friedrich Karl Günther in his 1922, which was popularized in the Nazi racial dogmatics). He and his staff carried out ten research projects from 1923 to 1936. This includes Scheidt's 1932 book Population Biology of the Elbe Island Finkenwärder from the Thirty Years' War to the Present . From 1926 to 1927 Scheidt was editor of the magazine Volk und Rasse . After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , on November 11, 1933, he signed the confession of the German professors to Adolf Hitler . From January 1, 1934, one of his assistants at the Racial Biology Institute of the Philosophical Faculty in Hamburg was Friedrich Keiter , whom Scheidt proposed to the Philosophical Faculty as associate professor in 1938.

In contrast to mass statistical surveys by the anthropologically active scientists Rudolf Virchows and Otto Ammons , Scheidt introduced a race-biological study of limited population groups, which became the central method of German anthropology. Historically, Scheidt is classified as a moderate representative of the racial biology institutionalized by the National Socialists and referred to as an exceptional phenomenon and eccentric among German racial hygienists and biologists. On the one hand, in 1935 he welcomed the fact that National Socialism had made racial biology “the reality of all” and, together with Ernst Dobers, published booklets for racial biology school lessons. On the other hand, he made a career without a party membership, kept his distance from politics and insisted on his independence as a scientist. Scheidt strictly refused to produce hereditary health reports, and Scheidt's institute was the only anthropological institute not to issue any breed reports.

Under the pseudonym Berchtold Gierer, he received the newly founded Wilhelm Raabe Prize of the city of Braunschweig in 1941 as a nationalist propagandist writer for sexes at the lake .

Publications (selection)

Under the name Walter Scheidt:

  • Introduction to scientific family studies / family anthropology , 1923, JF Lehmann, Munich.
  • Family book. Instructions and forms for making a family history. Lehmann, Munich 1936.
  • General race studies as an introduction to the study of human races , 1925, JF Lehmann, Munich.
  • Cultural biology: Lectures for students of all fields of knowledge , 1930, Fischer, Jena.
  • Racial Biology and Cultural Policy (1) Racial Studies , 1930, Reclam, Leipzig.
  • Racial Biology and Cultural Policy (1) Kulturkunde , 1931, Reclam, Leipzig.
  • The political mission of racial biology. In: Kölnische Zeitung of August 14, 1933.
  • The carriers of culture , 1934, Metzner, Berlin
  • The life story of a people: Introduction to racial and cultural biological research 1934, Hermes, Hamburg.
  • Lower Saxon farmers in the Lüneburg Heath: Life story of a Heidekirchspiel , 1936, Hermes, Hamburg.
  • The language surface of the soul (1): Attempt to interpret language for research into racial psychology , 1936, Hermes, Hamburg.
  • The language surface of the soul (2): The numerical designation of different styles , 1936, Hermes, Hamburg.
  • Editor (1926–1927) of "People and Race. Illustrated Quarterly Journal for German Folklore" Julius Friedrich Lehmann Verlag

Under the pseudonym Berchtold Gierer:

  • Tross der Reiter , Berlin: Verl. D. Tempelhof printing house, 1949
  • Sex at the lake , Berlin: Propylaen-Verlag GmbH, 1940
  • The violin , Berlin: Propylaen-Verl., 1944
  • Pallasch and Federkiel , Berlin: Propylaen-Verl., 1939

literature

  • Heidrun Kaupen-Haas , Christian Saller (Hrsg.): Scientific racism: Analyzes of a continuity in the human and natural sciences. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36228-7 .
  • Michael Vetsch: Ideologized Science: Racial Theories of German Anthropologists between 1918 and 1933. ( Licensed thesis , University of Bern, 2003). [2] (PDF file; 0.80 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 529.
  2. Ute Felbor: The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. In: Würzburger medical historical reports , Volume 11, 1993, pp. 155–173, here: pp. 162–164.
  3. Proof of the pseudonym in the nominal catalog of ULB Tirol [1]
  4. Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3.) At the same time dissertation Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , p. 7 f.
  5. Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 115 f.
  6. Eugen Fischer (Ed.): Deutsche Rassenkunde. Research on races and tribes, ethnicity and families in the German people ; Vol. 10: Lower Saxon farmers, Walter Scheidt: II. Population biology of the Elbe island Finkenwärder from the Thirty Years War to the present , Verlag von Gustav Fischer, Jena 1932.
  7. Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, pp. 93 f., 101-103.
  8. Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3.) At the same time dissertation Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , p. 77 f.
  9. ^ A b c Heidrun Kaupen-Haas, Christian Saller (ed.): Scientific racism: Analyzes of a continuity in the human and natural sciences. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36228-7 , p. 37, p. 42; P. 19: "Even Walter Scheidt, who can be classified as moderate, stated in 1935 [...] that the National Socialist movement as a political power encountered a scientific development in racial biology that was essentially the same as its spirit". In his book The Bearers of Culture (1934) you can also read, “[…] the world historical act of our Führer Adolf Hitler has made what was once the theory of less into the reality of all. [...] The time when racial biology teachings were ridiculed, doubted and fought is behind us forever. '"
  10. ^ A b c Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Akademie, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-05-004094-7 , p. 324, p. 333; P. 285 f .: "In 1936 the rector of Hamburg University wrote that Scheidt was not a party member, but he definitely affirmed National Socialism [...]". Two years later, the NSDAP Gauleitung was much more critical of him: Although he hung out the swastika flag, he refused to allow his children to join the Hitler Youth, did not take part in party celebrations, his life [...] did not match his teaching . In 1941 he is described as politically unreliable, the children are still not in the Hitler Youth, worse still, Scheidt is said to be one of those people 'who treat the Führer ironically in their speeches.' "
  11. Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 97 f.
  12. Hanna Leitgeb: The excellent author: Municipal literary prizes and cultural policy. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-11-014402-6 , p. 227 ( online ).
  13. ^ Frank Westenfelder: Genesis, problems and effects of National Socialist literature using the example of the historical novel between 1890 and 1945. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1989, Chapter IV.8.2: Völkische Romane , p. 307 ff. ( Online ).
  14. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7294(192701%2F03)2%3A29%3A1%3C146%3AAN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R