Wilhelm Gieseler

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Wilhelm Gieseler (born October 11, 1900 in Hanover , † September 26, 1976 in Terracina ) was a German anthropologist , physician, university professor and SS leader.

Life

Gieseler attended a grammar school and completed his school career in June 1918 with a secondary school diploma . He then studied medicine and anthropology at the Universities of Heidelberg , Freiburg and Munich . In Munich , Gieseler received his doctorate in 1924 with the dissertation Studies on the Anthropoid Femora. A contribution to the Klaatschen parentage hypothesis for Dr. phil. with Rudolf Martin . He then became a research assistant and from autumn 1924 a lecturer at the Anthropological Institute of the University of Munich. It was there that he completed his habilitation in anthropology in 1925 . The medical school he completed in 1931 with the second state examination and doctoral Dr. med. From the beginning of July 1930 he worked at the Anatomical Institute of the University of Tübingen under Martin Heidenhain . From 1926 to 1976 he published the magazine Anthropologischer Anzeiger with interruptions ; from 1927 to 1931 together with Theodor Mollison and from 1956 to 1964 with Emil Breitinger .

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists Gieseler received in early May 1934, Tübingen Extraordinat of Anthropology and " racial science ", while Professor of Old Testament was not filled. In addition, he was director of the Racial Biology Institute in Hohentübingen Castle , which was subordinate to the Racial Political Office of the NSDAP . Gieseler became a full professor of race biology at the University of Tübingen in October 1938. After the beginning of the Second World War he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and until February 1940 he was employed as a junior doctor in the Tübingen medical team. In September 1940 he was exempted from military service and returned to the university after being classified as indispensable in February 1941.

From 1937 to 1958 Gieseler was chairman of the German Society for Anthropology , formerly "Rassenforschung". From 1939 he worked at the Research Center for Racial Colonial Science in Tübingen . During the Second World War in 1943 he was appointed prorector of the University of Tübingen. From 1944 he was still a member of the scientific advisory board of the authorized representative for health care Karl Brandt .

On May 3, 1945, Gieseler was arrested and interned by members of the French army. At the beginning of July 1945 he was officially released from his professorship. In September 1948 he was denazified as a fellow traveler . At the beginning of January 1955 he initially took over the management of his "Anthropological Institute" in Tübingen, which from 1961 was called the Institute for Anthropology and Human Genetics . After the end of the war, his main research focus was paleoanthropology . Gieseler received a full professorship at the University of Tübingen in 1962. At the beginning of October 1968 he retired . Gieseler died while on vacation in Italy.

As a paleoanthropologist, he examined skull finds from the Vogelherd Cave (published in 1937) and the Hohlenstein in the Lone Valley , which later became known as the sites of the oldest works of art known to man.

Political activity and SS leader at the RuSHA

Gieseler joined the NSDAP ( membership number 2,872,638) in early May 1933 and became a member of the SA in January 1934 . In December 1937 he moved from the SA to the SS , where he achieved the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer in 1943 . He was also a councilor in Tübingen and was active for some time as the “district commissioner of the racial political office”. Gieseler trained aptitude testers who selected Polish children for Germanization in the General Government during the Second World War . He was also a member of the NS teachers' association (NSLB) and the NS teachers association (NSDDB).

Fonts

  • (Ed.): Swabian Race Studies , 4 vols., In conjunction with d. Württ. Commission f. Regional history, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart.
  • The prehistoric human finds from the Lone Valley and their significance for German prehistory . In: Robert Wetzel / Hermann Hoffmann (Hgg): Wissenschaftliche Akademie Tübingen des NSD.-Dozentbundes, Volume 1: 1937, 1938, 1939 , Tübingen: Mohr 1940, pp. 102–127.
  • (Mithrsg.): Race studies on conscripts from the military district of Tübingen: Results of a race-biological joint work , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1941
  • The history of human fossils , Theiss, Stuttgart 1974

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Klaus D. Mörike, History of the Tübingen Anatomy , Mohr, Tübingen 1988, ISBN 3-16-445346-9 .
  • Potthast, Thomas / Hoßfeld, Uwe: Inheritance and developmental studies in zoology, botany and racial studies / racial biology: Central research fields in biology at the University of Tübingen during National Socialism . In: Urban Wiesing / Klaus-Rainer Brintzinger / Bernd Grün / Horst Junginger / Susanne Michl (eds.): The University of Tübingen in National Socialism , Franz Steiner Verlag 2010. Contubernium - Volume 73 ISBN 978-3-515-09706-2 . Special reprint: (pdf; 3.4 MB) .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Potthast, Thomas / Hoßfeld, Uwe: Inheritance and developmental teachings in zoology, botany and racial studies / racial biology: Central research fields of biology at the University of Tübingen under National Socialism , 2010, p. 464f.
  2. ↑ a b c Klaus D. Mörike, Geschichte der Tübinger Anatomie , Tübingen 1988, p. 80.
  3. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 184.
  4. ↑ Wilfried Rosendahl Pleistocene hominid remains from caves in Southwest Germany , annual issue 1996 of the Grabenstetten consortium, pdf
personal data
SURNAME Gieseler, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician, racial biologist, university professor and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1976
Place of death Terracina