Walter von Stokar

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Walter von Stokar , actually Walter Stokar von Neuforn , (born June 5, 1901 in Marktschorgast , † June 1, 1959 in Koblenz ) was a German pharmacist , prehistorian and university professor at the University of Cologne .

Origin, career start and first years

The son of a finance advisor and a mother from a family of pharmacists went to school in Donauwörth and attended the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich until he graduated from high school in 1921. Then he studied at the University of Munich and did an apprenticeship as a pharmacist. He finished his apprenticeship as a pharmacist in 1926 with good results. In 1928 he took over the pharmacy in Wunsiedel and the Fichtelgebirgsmuseum set up by his grandfather . He took part in the Sudeten German "border fight" with Czechoslovakia and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Pilsen in absentia for the liberation of Dr. Baerlau condemned. At the same time, the "Memorandum on the Investigation of Prehistoric Organic Finds of the German Prehistoric Times" was created.

National Socialist activity

Stokar had contact with the NSDAP early on and joined the party in 1921. He took part in the Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch in 1923. After a dispute with Ernst Röhm , he resigned from the party in 1925 and was a member of the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten , from 1925 to 1933 . Röhm demoted him in 1933 after his integration into the SA to a simple SA man. After Röhms at the end of 1934, Stokar was rehabilitated by Rudolf Heß and awarded the " Blood Order ". From June 14 to 27, 1935, he took part in a training camp of the NSDAP in Raunheim and in 1936 applied for re-entry into the NSDAP, which was granted from April 1, 1936. From May 17 to 22, 1936, he took part in an SA leader camp in Berlin, which was followed by others. Within the SA he rose to the rank of Obersturmführer.

In 1934 the family moved to Berlin, and he began studying prehistory with Hans Reinerth and Albert Kiekebusch . As a chemical specialist, he received orders and a grant from the German Research Foundation to use scientific methods for prehistory. He also studied with the paleobotanist Robert Potonié . The new methods met with many reservations from his colleagues, but the approval of others such as Werner Buttler . From 1937 he developed contacts with the SS and participated in the excavation of the SS ancestral legacy under Alexander Langsdorff in Alt-Christburg . In 1936 Stokar submitted his dissertation , but the award of the doctorate was delayed until 1938. In September 1938 he became director of the Municipal Museum for Prehistory and Early History in Cologne and was given a teaching position at the University of Cologne. In 1939 he became ao. Professor and director of the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory, and in 1942 he was given a full professorship.

Stokar helped to uncover the forgery of the eagle brooch from Königsberg in Moravia by the art dealer Herbert Marwitz .

Second World War - deployment in the German-occupied Netherlands

Through the SS he met Hans Ernst Schneider , who brought him to the occupied Netherlands in 1940. From September 1942 he worked for the " Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands " Arthur Seyß-Inquart , a. a. as a consultant on university issues and to set up a "Germanic Research Institute in the Netherlands" in The Hague from 1943. His superior was the General Commissioner for Administration and Justice Friedrich Wimmer . Stokar was directly involved in the closure of the insubordinate University of Leiden . He also worked with the SS Ahnenerbe. The Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler praised his study on home bread , completed in 1943, to justify the war-necessary mixture of grain with inferior plants than ancient Germanic. In April 1944, Stokar was drafted into the Waffen SS . He was wounded in a bombing raid towards the end of the war in 1945, and after recovering from the hospital he was taken prisoner in England.

After 1945

Because of the intensive contact with Nazi figures, Stokar was no longer wanted by the University of Cologne; the new Rector Josef Kroll describes him as the "worst Nazi" the University of Cologne had seen. The denazification process finally classified him in the contaminated group II. In 1949 he was retired. Therefore, he could no longer work at a university. At first he lived in Würzburg and tried to work in pharmacy, then in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Pharmacists' Association. In 1955 he reopened a pharmacy in Koblenz.

Fonts (selection)

  • Spinning and weaving among the Teutons. A prehistoric-scientific investigation , Leipzig: Rabitzsch 1938 (Mannus-Bücherei; 59).
  • The prehistory of home bread. A contribution to the history of the development of food , Leipzig 1951

literature

  • Frank Golczewski : Cologne University Teacher and National Socialism. Approaches to the history of persons , Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne 1988, p. (not evaluated).
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: Prof. Dr. habil. Walter Stokar von Neuforn (1901–1959), 1st part: pharmacist and archaeologist, 2nd part: list of publications . In: Geschichte der Pharmazie 55 (supplement to Deutsche Apotheker Zeitung 143rd volume, No. 61/52 of December 18, 2003), Stuttgart 2003.
  • Michael Schwab: Walter von Stokar – Neuforn (1901–1959). Biography of a prehistorian . Master's thesis, University of Bonn [2007] ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 4th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 605.
  2. ↑ Spiegel 19/1968: Legacy in the Swamp .
personal data
SURNAME Stokar, Walter von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Neuforn, Walter Stokar von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist, prehistoric scientist and professor at the University of Cologne
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Marktschorgast
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1959
Place of death Koblenz