During the course of World War II, numerous "colonial soldiers" of the Allied armies were captured and taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht. Their internment offered researchers opportunities to conduct studies at a time when overseas expeditions were impossible due to the war. The initial focus of the project is on Austrian researchers involved in such studies. Fragmentary archival evidence suggests that within the "Lehr- und Forschungsstelle für den Vorderen Orient" (Teaching and Research Unit for the Near East) of the SS research association "Deutsches Ahnenerbe" (German Ancestral Heritage), plans were made to conduct anthropological studies on French prisoners of war of African origin who were forced to perform labor in a mining operation in Saxony. In addition to the significant involvement of (Austrian) anthropologists in such investigations, numerous other researchers from various disciplines carried out research in Wehrmacht camps across the German Reich and in occupied France.

A central aim of this research project is to reconstruct previously overlooked biographical gaps and institutional dimensions of this research practice and to analyze the role of the actors and organisations involved in the study of people from colonial contexts in POW camps. Furthermore, the project examines the connections between scientific institutions and governmental agencies during the National Socialist period that conducted similar investigations or pursued related research interests. By incorporating additional academic disciplines—such as ethnology, linguistics, musicology, military science, medicine (particularly tropical medicine), and pharmacology—the study is situated within a broader history-of-science framework.

Project Leader: Lisa M. Gottschall
Duration: 02/2024–09/2028
Financing: APART-GSK (ÖAW)