Völkerkunde from Vienna during the Nazi period (1938-1945)

GINGRICH, Andre and Peter ROHRBACHER (eds.): Völkerkunde during the Nazi years from Vienna: Institutions, practices, and biography-centered networks. (in German). This multi-volume publication with an overall of 42 contributions investigates the position of Völkerkunde (socio-cultural anthropology) from Vienna during the Nazi era, in exile as well as inside the Third Reich. Central attention is given to institutional and biographical networks and the history of ideas. Disciplinary academic history thereby is systematically represented against the background of general socio-political history of contemporary central European but also wider international contexts. The relevant academic spectrum not only includes Völkerkunde/ethnology (socio-cultural anthropology), but also comprises important neighboring fields ranging from physical anthropology to archaeological prehistory, folklore studies (Volkskunde) as well as to African and Japanese studies. This publications crucial questions address the type of Völkerkunde research as pursued in and from Vienna, and its interactions with corresponding policies. This allows highlighting the extent of the fields participation in the Nazi regimes criminal activities on the one hand and on the other, of its part in resistance activities against the Nazis. Special consideration is given to understanding the subtle nuances within sometimes fluid transitions between resistance to, and acceptance of the status quo. Elaborating this publications contributions by its 27 different authors largely relied on sources from 90 archives from 10 different countries. Archival research was supplemented by interviews (published or newly initiated) of witnesses and family members, where this was still possible. This multi-volume publication also offers a substantially detailed index, and more than 200 visual sources most of which are made accessible for the first time to a wider public.