Nazi archaeology
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Nazi archaeology was a field of
Overview
The search for a strong, nationalistic, Aryan-centric national prehistory of Germany began after Germany's loss in World War I in 1918, in which during this time, the country faced a severe economic crisis due to the terms brought on by the Treaty of Versailles. One of the leading experts who engaged in research and study in search of the German prehistory was German philologist and archeologist Gustaf Kossinna, with his ideas and theories being picked up and further researched by the Nazi organizations Amt Rosenberg and Ahnenerbe. With specialization in researching German prehistory as well as Hitler being able to provide funds from the Nazi Party into the study of German prehistory, the Nazis were able to add pseudoarchaeology into its extensive propaganda campaigns of the German people, presenting Germany as the beginnings of civilization.[1]
Tenets
- The archeological site. This theory was used by the Nazis to justify takeover and occupation of foreign lands such as Poland and Czechoslovakia. One such example of Kulturkreis is shown in Kossinna's article "The German Ostmark", in which Kossinna argued that Poland should be a part of the German Reich, since any lands where an artifact was titled "Germanic" were therefore ancient Germanic territory, in which the artifacts had been "wrongfully stolen" by "barbarians".[1]
- The Social Diffusion Theory, which stated that cultural diffusion occurred through a process whereby influences, ideas and models were passed on by more advanced peoples to the less advanced whom they came into contact with. Examples offered by Kossinna and Alfred Rosenberg presented a history of Germany equivalent to that of the Roman Empire, suggesting that "Germanic people were never destroyers of culture—not like the Romans—and the French in recent times." Combined with Nazi ideology, this theory gave the perfect foundation for the view of Germany as the locomotive of world civilization.[2]
- Weltanschauungswissenschaften or "World View Sciences", which stated that culture and science were as one, and carried certain "race-inherent values". The theory suggested that older cultural models, such as sagas, stories and legends, should be not only reincorporated into mainstream culture, but that "the guiding principle in Germany must be to emphasise the high cultural level and the cultural , and the ideas proposed by German scientists and the conclusions they made were more accurate than the views of "lesser-race" scientists.
- Deutsche Reinheit, or "Pure German Man", argues the idea that Germans were "pure Aryans" who had survived a natural catastrophe and evolved a highly developed culture during their long migration to Germany. This tenet also makes the argument that Greeks were actually Germanic, claiming evidence that certain "Indogermanic" artifacts could be found in Greece. This theory supported the Kulturkreisetheory tangentally, in that archeologists who did not approve of the uses of Kulturkreise theory (moderates) could support this theory.
- The Ahnenerbe and its own role as an organization with the purpose of using its archeological "findings" to further support the propaganda machine of the Nazi regime through the use of previously listed tenets presented and built on by German archeologists such as Gustaf Kossinna.
Organisations and operations
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe Organisation, formally the Deutsches Ahnenerbe – Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte (German Ancestry - Research Society for Ancient Intellectual History ) was an organization started as the Research Institute for the Prehistory of Mind and was connected to the SS in 1935 by
The main goals of the organisation were:
- To study the territory, ideas and achievements of the Indo-Germanic people
- To bring the research findings to life and present them to the German people
- To encourage every German to get involved in the organisation.
Although the organisation claimed to have a research goal, Himmler had no official training in archaeology and was known for his interest in mysticism and the occult. Himmler defined the organisation as working towards a prehistory that would prove the pre-eminence of the Germans and their Germanic predecessors since the beginning of civilization. He is quoted as saying, "A nation lives happily in the present and the future so long as it is aware of its past and the greatness of its ancestors."[3]
The Ahnenerbe had difficulty finding scientists to work on the projects and was run largely by scholars from branches of the humanities, which made their research both unskilled and less professional. The group went on to be responsible for
's uprising. This site was used as an idealised shrine that was considered sacred to the Germanic people and highlighting their readiness for self-sacrifice.Although there were other sites researched by Ahnenerbe, many of them were censored from the public since they did not have the correct Germanic interpretations. The sites chosen for excavations were limited to those of Germanic superiority such as Erdenburg, where the Ahnenerbe claimed to have clear evidence of the victorious campaign of the Germani against the Romans.
Some of the Ahnenerbe's most extravagant activities include:
- Edmund Kiss tried to travel to Bolivia in 1928 to study the ruins of temples in the Andes mountains. He claimed their similarity to ancient European construction indicated they were designed by Nordic migrants that had arrived at the area millions of years earlier.
- In 1938, Franz Altheim and his research partner Erika Trautmann requested the Ahnenerbe sponsor their Middle East trek to study an internal power struggle of the Roman Empire, which they believed was fought between the Nordic and Semitic peoples.
- In 1936 an Ahnenerbe expedition visited the German island of Rügen and then Sweden, with the objective of examining rock-art which they concluded was 'proto-Germanic'.
- Nazi theorists took a huge interest in the Bayeux Tapestry, going so far as to attempt archaeological digs to find other contemporary artwork that would support their assertion of Germanic might.[4]
- In 1938 the Ahnenerbe sent an expedition to Tibet with the intention of proving Aryan superiority by confirming the Vril theory, which was based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton's book Vril, the Power of the Coming Race. Their study included measuring the skulls of 376 people and comparing native feature to those associated with Aryans, with the expedition's most scientific findings abeing associated with biological findings.
Amt Rosenberg
The Amt Rosenberg was an organization dedicated to finding archeological evidence of the superiority of Germanic culture and of Atlantis, headed by
Goals of Nazi archaeology
To the public
Nazi archaeology was rarely conducted with an eye to pure research, but was instead used as a propaganda tool designed to both generate nationalistic pride in the German people and provide scientific excuses for hostile takeovers. The German people were drawn to the idea of Germany as the site of the origins of civilization by several means. For one, there were a series of films put out by Lothar Zotz with titles like Threatened by the Steam Plough, Germany's Bronze Age, The Flames of Prehistory and On the Trail of the Eastern Germans, all of which delved further into the supposed prehistory of the German peoples. These used the appeal of myths, the glory of the ancient past, and German triumph over change to reinforce the idea that German history was something to be proud of, while at the same time taking advantage of the fact that since these periods of history were not well known to the general public and thus could include heavy doses of propaganda.
Additionally, public journals gained popularity such as Die Kunde (The Message) and Germanen-Erbe (Germanic Heritage). With the journals and films, the German people thought they were being given good visuals and interpretations of different archaeological sites and learning more about 'true' German prehistory.
The Nazis also pushed the public to get involved in the search for the past, using the appeal of patriotism as a tool. For example, the membership flyer of one amateur organization of the Amt Rosenberg stated, "Responsibility with respect to our indigenous prehistory must again fill every German with pride!" The goal of the organization was also stated as, "the interpretation and dissemination of unclassified knowledge regarding the history and cultural achievements of our northern Germanic ancestors on German and foreign soil."
Along with appealing to public patriotism, there were open-air museums that reconstructed Neolithic and Bronze Age lake settlements at Unteruhldingen. These public museums gained immense popularity among the general public, and pushed the people to believe in and search for their Germanic past.
All of these pieces put together would create a solid foundation of Germanic pride in the German people that was used to reinforce the nationalistic, fascist message Adolf Hitler was crafting with his speeches, open-air meetings, and public image.[5]
To archaeologists
Prior to the formation of the Ahnenerbe, there was little funding for or interest in Germanic archaeology. This allowed for the Nazi Party to easily rouse interest in the subject among the general public, which in turn made it easier to push their ethnocentric views onto the uninformed public. Another side effect of this sudden support was felt in some scholarly circles, since many German scholars who specialized in archaeology had long been envious of the advancements in archaeology their European neighbors had made during their excavations in the Middle East. With the sudden boom in interest, the scholars were finally able to put their knowledge to work.
Because of Hitler, many changes occurred; funds were made available for scholars to make great advancements beyond their neighboring countries. Under Nazi rule, archaeology went from having one chair in prehistory in Marburg in 1933 to having nine chairs in the Reich in 1935. Once archaeology started gaining popularity, scholars were able to partake in much grander projects, such as the excavation of castles, old ruins, and bring back pieces for display in museums.
One specific example of these changes was that the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (Romano-Germanic Central Museum) in Mainz, which, in 1939, became for a time the Zentralmuseum für deutsche Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Central museum for German pre- and early history).[3] (Note the difference between the original "Römisch-Germanisch" which denotes a historical period, and "deutsche", implying a continuous history of a united group of people. "Anglo-Saxon" and "English" would be rough analogies.)
In their enthusiasm for the Nazi regime's support of archaeology, many German archaeologists became pawns and puppets of the real goals behind the movement. They answered to the requests of the Ahnenerbe, and not always in the interests of true archaeology.
The Search for Atlantis
In their search to prove the superiority of the
In the year 1935, Heinrich Himmler began a joint effort with Wirth to establish the
Haus Atlantis
In the city of
Notable figures
Gustaf Kossinna
The nationalistic theories of Gustaf Kossinna about the origins and racial superiority of Germanic peoples influenced many aspects of Nazi ideology and politics. He is also considered to be a precursor of Nazi archaeology. Kossinna was trained as a linguist at universities in Göttingen, Leipzig, Berlin, and Strasbourg, and eventually held the chair for Germanic Archeology at the University of Berlin. He laid the groundwork for an ethnocentric German prehistory with one of his theories, the Kulturkreis theory, being the basis on which the main pillars of Nazi archaeology were founded. Kossinna also published books for a general audience which were useful tools to spread German propaganda and created archaeological expeditions that allowed the Nazis to use Kulturkreis theory as an excuse for territorial expansion. In one of his most popular books, Die deutsche Vorgeschichte — eine hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft (German Prehistory: a Pre-eminently National Discipline), Kossinna puts forward the idea of an Aryan race, the Germani, superior to all other peoples, and shows Germany as the key to an unwritten history. The book was used to inspire the German people into the belifs of the Nazi Party regarding the origins and history of the German people, with the dedication in the beginning reading, "To the German people, as a building block in the reconstruction of the externally as well as internally disintegrated fatherland." Kossinna died in 1931, 13 months before Hitler seized power.[1]
Alfred Rosenberg
Hans Reinerth
Hans Reinerth was the main archaeologist Rosenberg worked with. Reinerth is famous for his excavations at the Federsee and he saw the Nazi Party as a tool he could use to work his way up in society. This is just what occurred, and in 1934 Rosenberg appointed him to the position of "Reich Deputy of German Prehistory". This made him the spokesman for the "purification and Germanisation of the German prehistory". Reinerth was an adherent of Hitler's theory of German racial purity. Though this theory never really came into full effect, Reinerth pushed it heavily as Reich Deputy, and encouraged archaeological exploration. His archaeological group, along with the Ahnenerbe organization, was used to the Nazis' full advantage since it was a more "professional" group.[6]
Herman Wirth
Other Nazi archaeologists
- Erika Trautmann
- Yrjö von Grönhagen
- Assien Bohmers
- Hans-Jürgen Eggers
- Herbert Jankuhn
- Gero von Merhart
- Gotthard Neumann
- Gustav Schwantes
- Ernst Sprockhoff
- Ernst Wahle
- Wilhelm Unverzagt
- Joachim Werner
- Hans Zeiß
- Werner Radig
- Albert Funk
- Ludwig Kohl-Larsen
See also
References
- ^ a b c Arnold, Bettina. "The past as propaganda: How Hitler's archaeologists distorted European prehistory to justify racist and territorial goals." Archived 2018-01-25 at the Wayback Machine Archaeology, July/Aug 1992: 30-37
- ISBN 0-471-26292-7, p. 200
- ^ a b c Arnold, Bettina "The past as propaganda: totalitarian archaeology in Nazi Germany." Antiquity Sept/Dec 1990: 464-478
- ^ Kater, Michael, Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935–1945. Ein Beitrag zur Kultur-politik des Dritten Reiches, Munich 1997
- ^ Heim, Susanne. Autarkie und Ostexpansion. Pflanzenzucht und Agrarforschung im Nationalsozialismus. 2002
- ^
Härke, Heinrich. Archaeology, Ideology, and Society: The German Experience. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2002
External links
- Archaeological Organisations
- Hitler's Willing Archaeologists (How the SS perverted the Paleolithic record to support Nazi ideology) by Heather Pringle in Archaeology, Volume 59, Number 2, March/April 2006.
- A Nordic civilisation on the lost continent of Atlantis in The Daily Telegraph, May 3, 2006.