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Anthropology during National Socialism Times: Projects Done in the Anthropologische Abteilung, Natural History Museum Vienna, 1938-1945

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Anthropology during National Socialism Times: Projects Done in the Anthropologische Abteilung, Natural History Museum Vienna, 1938-1945
Author(s)Teschler-Nicola, M.; Stuhlpfarrer, K.; Berner, M.; Pawlowsky, V.; Spring, C.
AbstractThis interdisciplinary research project deals with the tradition of how physical anthropology was done in Austria from 1938 to 1945 and the links of the Anthropologische Abteilung of the Natural History Museum (NHM) in Vienna with other, similarly directed institutions as it became increasingly involved in “racial studies.” These studies were carried out on human beings: prisoners of war (1940-1943), 440 male eastern Jews of Polish origin who were detained immediately after the outbreak of the war for three weeks in the Vienna Stadium and then deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the material collected in racial surveys–some of which is still preserved in the museum (data sheets, photographs, hair samples, plaster cast masks, “race expertises”). These racial surveys have never been addressed in relevant literature. Included in this project are our evaluations of the more than 100 “race expertises” carried out by anthropologists at the NHM. We first investigated these activities initiated by members of the NHM staff in order to assess the extent to which anthropology could be exploited by anthropologists under National Socialism who could take advantage of the new political situation for pursuing their research interests and the war for acquiring “new material.” Then we traced the life histories of the Polish Jews detained in the Vienna Stadium in the context of National Socialist deportation policy. Third, we deal with the question of racist theory constructs and its approach to the measurement of the human body.
IssueNo
Pages207
ArticleArticle Not Available
SourceAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology
VolumeNo
PubDateAnnual 2003
ISBN_ISSN0002-9483
Browse Path(s)Anthropology
—-Biological/Physical Anthropology
——–Biology, Eugenics, and Racism


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