Between Academic Career Orientation and Political Racism: An Austrian Anthropologist's African Research Interests (1938-45)

During the course of the Second World War, numerous "colonial soldiers" from the French and British armies became prisoners of the Wehrmacht. Their internment presented researchers with an opportunity for investigation at a time when expeditions to Africa were unfeasible due to the war. Fragmentary evidence suggests that the Austrian anthropologist Ämilian Kloiber (1910–1989), affiliated with the "Lehr- und Forschungsstelle für den Vorderen Orient" (LFVO) of the "SS-Ahnenerbe," planned anthropological-ethnological studies of prisoners of war with African backgrounds in a forced labor mining operation in Saxony during the 1940s and participated in (Berlin and Hamburg) camp surveys in France.

The primary objective of this research project is not only to address previously overlooked gaps in Kloiber's biography but also to document connections to scientific institutions and governmental agencies that were engaged in similar research activities (or expressed interest in them). This approach seeks to contextualize the study within a broader research framework.

Collaborations:

• Dr. Laurent Dedryvère (Université Paris Cité)

• Univ.-Prof. Dr. Anna Maria Echterhölter, M.A. (Universität Wien)

• PD Dr. Britta Lange (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

• Dr. Holger Stoecker (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

• Dr. Céline Trautmann-Waller (École Pratique des Hautes Études – PSL)

Financing:
ÖAW APART-GSK