Wolfgang Abel (anthropologist)

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Wolfgang Abel (born May 13, 1905 in Vienna ; † November 1, 1997 in Mondsee , Upper Austria) was an Austrian anthropologist and National Socialist racial theorist .

Life

Wolfgang Abel, son of the paleontologist Othenio Abel , studied medicine, zoology and painting in Vienna and Freiburg from 1925 to 1929. In 1929 he received his doctorate in Vienna under Jan Versluys . From 1931 he worked for Eugen Fischer as an assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics (KWI). In 1933 he joined the NSDAP . He was involved in the forced sterilization of children (" Rhineland bastards ") who were conceived during the time of the Ruhr occupation from relationships between German women and "colored" occupation soldiers who had been recruited in the French colonies. In 1934 he wrote an article about this in the magazine Neues Volk with the title “Bastards on the Rhine”. In the same year, in addition to his work at the KWI, Abel became a lecturer in anthropology and deputy head of the race care department at the German University of Politics .

After joining the SS in 1935, he worked as an expert for the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) of the SS and as a senior appraiser for the Reichssippenamt . At the KWI, Wolfgang Abel was promoted to Head of Racial Studies in 1940. In July 1941 he was appointed associate professor. Previously already assistant to the eugenicist Eugen Fischer , he was his successor from 1943 to 1945 at the chair for racial biology at Berlin University. During this time he also worked for the Army High Command (OKH).

As part of the General Plan East , Abel worked out a plan in May 1942 for a “progressive elimination” of the “Russian race”, with which he wanted to Germanize all “Nordic Russian types” and deport the rest to Siberia .

In addition to his teaching activities, Wolfgang Abel took over the management of the Institute for Racial Biology at the German University of Politics in 1943 .

In 1945 Abel was fired from Berlin University. From 1945 to 1947 he was in US internment custody. He then lived as a portrait painter at Mondsee in Austria.

literature

  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy , Heidelberg 2004, p. 13.
  • Ernst Klee : The Personal Lexicon for the Third Reich , Frankfurt a. M. 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 .
  • Benno Müller-Hill : Deadly Science. The singling out of Jews, Gypsies and the mentally ill 1933–1945 . Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1984 pp. 135–148, conversation with Prof. Wolfgang Abel

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Helmut Heiber : The General Plan East . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Documentation 6 (1958), issue 3, p. 313 ( PDF ).
  2. ↑ Cf. Gerald Reitlinger: The Final Solution . Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939-1945, 7th edition, Berlin 1992, p. 41 f .; see. also Götz Aly & Susanne Heim : Vordenker der Vernichtung , Frankfurt 1993, p. 397 f. and Czeslaw Madajczyk (ed.): From the General Plan East to the General Settlement Plan. Documents. Saur, Munich 1994, p. 50 ff. And Michael H. Kater : The “ Ahnenerbe ” of the SS 1935 - 1945. A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich. , 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-56529-X , p. 208 (with archive source id note)
personal data
SURNAME Abel, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian anthropologist and Nazi racial biologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1997
Place of death Mondsee (Upper Austria)