The past as propaganda: totalitarian in Nazi

BETTINA ARNOLD*

An important element to the future of archaeology in the ex-Communist countries of central Europe will be the freeing of archaeological ideas from the constraints of a particular set of social theories built into the fabric of the state, CIS Milisauskas noted in the last Ax’rJQLvTY (64: 283-5). This is a timely moment to look at the interference of a different set of social theories in the same region some decades ago.

After almost six decades, there is no term Vorgeschichte (prehistory)was rejected as comprehensive account by a German-speaking a survival of anthropological thinking; Urge- prehistorian of the effects on prehistoric scho- schichte (early history) was preferred as better larship of the National Socialist regime, or the emphasizing the continuity of prehistory with Isle played by archaeology in legitimating it. documentary history (Sklenar 1983: 132). The This paper addresses the following questions: writings of the 19th-century French racial What were the foundations of German prehis- philosopher Gobineau provided a doctrine of toric research under the National Socialists the inequality of different races (Daniel & Ken- (NS)? What role did prehistory play in the frew 1988: 104-6). Journals and publications process of political legitimation from 1933 to dealing with the subject of race and genetic 1945? What did the NS system offer to prehis- engineering increasingly appeared in Germany torians in exchange for their part in this legiti- in the early 20th century, among them Volk und mation process? What was the official Party Hasse, which was founded in 1926, and policy regarding prehistoric archaeology? What Fortschritte der Erbpathologie und HC~SS~JI- was the response of the discipline to this hygiene, founded in 1929. Neither publication Faustian bargain? What were the effects of state survived the Second World War. control on excavation and research? How is The groundwork for an ethnocentric German German prehistoric archaeology affected by this prehistory was laid by (1858- legacy today? 1932), a linguist who was a late convert to prehistory (FIGIJRE1). Kossinna proposed cultu- The foundations of the ‘pre-eminently national ral diffusion as a process whereby influences, discipline’ ideas and models were passed on by more To understand events in German prehistoric advanced peoples to the less advanced with archaeology under the National Socialists, it is which they came into contact. This concept, necessary to look at the discipline well before wedded to Kossinna’s Kulturkreis theory, the Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the beginning identification of geographical regions with of the Umbruch period of radical change. specific ethnic groups on the basis of material Archaeology in Central Europe at the eve of the culture, lent theoretical support to the expan- First World War was marked by a return of the sionist policies of . ‘Distribution ethnohistoric approach to theory; in German- maps of archaeological types became a convinc- speaking regions there was a new name for the ing argument for expansionist aims: wherever a disc:ipline to go with its new orientation. The single find of a type designated as Germanic was and his organization, primarily bec:ause it con- centrated on the excavation and stridy of prov incia1 Komari (;f:rmany ( Bollmus 1970; Ilggc:rs 1986: 234). The co11 n c(:t i o n tie t w een p reh i s t or5’ ii n d politics was of long standing, not a nciv product of the National Socialist regime. ’The fledgling d i s(: ip I in e e vo1 ved fro in t h c pan -E u r o p (:a ii geo - graphic divisions and rise of nationalisni that followed the First World War (Sklenar 1983: 131). Politicians began to tako an intercst in prehistoric archaeology, which seemed well sit i t e d to nation a 1is t visions . fl i 11den b u rg ’ s interest in Kossinna’s work is well tloc;umented (Mannus-Uiblio thek 1928 : Fro tit is p ic Wilhelm I1 was a frequent visitor to Schuch- hardt’s excavations at the Kiimerschanze near ; after one visit, he sent Schuchhardt a t e I egra m : ’ Continue excavations a n d ascertain whether IKiimerschanze] still Volksburg or already Fiirstensitz’ (Eggers 1986: 224). Between 1905 and 1914 the Kaiser also helped finance a number of archaeological excavations undertaken by the Duchess of Mecklenburg, in what is now the Yugoslav Kepublir: of Slovenia. and at Hallstatt in Austria. The skull of a well-preservcd skeleton from Hallstatt was sent to the Kaiser by the Duchess as a gift (Wells 1981: 1, 16).

FIG~~RP,1. Gustav Kossinna (Mannus 1931: 337) Prehistory as political legitimation Prehistory played an important role in rehabili- tating German self-respect after the humiliation found, the land was declared ancient German of defeat in 1918, the perceived insult of Ver- territory. . .’ (Sklenar 1983: 151) (FIGIJRE2). sailles, and the imposed Weirnar regime. The , the Party’s ideologist, dedication of the 1921 edition of Gustav Kossin- codified this ethnocentric and xenophobic per- na’s seminal German prehistory: a preeminen- spective: ‘An individual to whom the tradition tly national discipline reads: ‘To the German of his people (Volkstum) and the honor of his people, as a building block in the reconstruction people (Volksehre) is not a supreme value, has of the externally as well as internally disinte- forfeited the right to be protected by that people’ grated fatherland’ (1921: Dedication). (Germanenerbe 1938: 105). Applied to prehis- Kossinna acquired great influence after the toric archaeology, this perspective resulted in death of Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902). \vho was the neglect or distortion of data which did not the most prominent German prehistorian of the directly apply to ; during the late 19th century. Virchow was one of the first 1930s scholars whose main interests were prov- proponents of the ethnohistoric approach to incial Roman archaeology were labeled Rom- prehistory, although he is perhaps remembered linge by the extremists and considered more for his misinterpretation of the first Nean- anti-German (Jacob-Friesen 1950: 4). The derthal skeletal remains in 1856 (Eggers 1986: Romisch Germanische Kommission in Mainz, 202-5). In 1909 Kossinna founded the German founded in 1907 by Schuchhardt and his circle Society for Prehistory in , later more aptly (Eggers 1986: 220), was the object of defamatory named the Society for German Prehistory (Ge- attacks, first by Kossinna and later by Kosenberg sellschafi fur Ileutsche Vorgeschichte). This FIGURE2. A distribution mclp of 'Germanic' territory during the Bronze Age (Reinerth 1945: figure 2). was much more than a semantic alteration; as mans originated in antiquity - and that was on Alfred Giitze wrote (1933:68): occasion all of Europe.

Kossinna's influence increased interest in The name of an organization is its business card. . . In archaeology as a political tool; as the path order to understand correctly what the Society for German Prehistory means one must remember what it which German Socia'ism was to became more clearly defined, archaeo- M'BS originally called , , , [It means] a prehistory of Germanness, independent of its present-day political logical data were used to endorse it. Gradual or ethnic boundaries, reaching back to its roots and changes manifested themselves in new journal following these wherever the ancestors of the Ger- titles and cover illustrations. The publication series Mannus-Bibliothek, for example, (Picker 1976: 93). This common pieoe of wish- changed its title from the latinate original to the ful thinking was supported by some otherwise germanic Munnus-Bucherei (it was named reputable archaeologists. The Kesearch Report Munnus-Bibliothek again after the war). of the Reichsbund for German Prehistory, Jul!. Mannus Zeitschrift fur Vorgeschichte became to December 1941, for example, reported the Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Vorgeschichte in 1934; nine-week expedition of the archaeologist Hans by 1975 it was Deutsche Zeitschriftfiir Vor- und Reinerth and a few colleagues to Greece where Fruhgeschichte. The editorial staff of these and they claimed to have discovered major neiv other journals turned over rapidly between evidence of Indogermanic migration to Greece 1933 and 1935, as dissenting archaeologists during the Neolithic (Mannus Zeitschrift fur were replaced by ‘right-thinking’ party liners. Deutsche Vorgeschichte 1942 33: 599). The Berlin-based Prahistorische Zeitschrift was one of the few journals relatively unaffected in The Faustian bargain: state support under the form and content by the political trans- NS regime formations of the 1930s. The of prehistoric archaeology itself in Many prehistoric archaeologists were drawn its European context is crucial to understanding to the National Socialists because they felt its r61e in Nazi Germany. Peter Goessler stated themselves second-class citizens in the unequivocally, ‘prehistory is an historic disci- academic arena with regard to the classical and pline, not a natural science . . . and it serves Near Eastern archaeologists; they were gen- historic goals even if its sources are generally erally bitter about their lack of state funding and quite different ones’ (1950: 7). The same point is public recognition. The Party benefited from a made by Eggers: ‘There is only one history, and dual inferiority complex on the part of its prehistory is part of it in its entirety. These two constituency of prehistorians, feeling both the types of scholarship differ only in their different general sense of injustice provoked by the sources: on the one hand written texts, on the Treaty of Versailles and a particular perception other material culture’ (1986: 16). of prehistory as a neglected academic disci- Prehistoric archaeology in Nazi Germany pline. On the creation of the new Polish state in differed from history as a discipline in one 1919, Kossinna published an article, ‘The important respect. It was not a recognized and German Ostmark, home territory of the Ger- well-funded academic subject before the rise of manen’ (1919),which used archaeological evi- National Socialism. The first chair in prehistory dence to support Germany’s claim to the area. was established in Marburg in 1928 (Sklenar He sent the article to Versailles in an attempt to 1983: 160). The subject was taught by lecturers apply his ethnic interpretation of‘ archaeologi- whose university status was unquestionably cal evidence directly to the politics of the day. lower than that of classical and Near Eastern He never received a reply (Eggers 1986: 236). archaeologists or art historians. Alfred Gotze Kossinna’s identification of ‘Germanic’material (1933: 69-72) blamed this phenomenon on the culture in Polish territory led to a debate with Josef Kostrzewski, one of his former students, obsession, unfortunately embedded in the blood of who was rather predictably convinced that the every German, to value the foreign more highly than ethnic group described by Kossinna was in fact the indigenous, an evil characteristic which affects Slavic. As Veit points out, Kostrzewski’s archaeology as well as other disciplines . . . It also criticism was directed not at Kossinna’s manifests itself however in the unequal treatment by method, but at his results (1989: 40). the authorities and other controlling official organi- This defensively ethnocentric attitude mani- zations. One need only compare the financial support fested itself in the intentional exaggeration of which is allocated to the German archaeological the importance of Germanic cultural influences projects inside and outside Germany . . . Ll’ithout bureaucratic support worth mentioning. without the in Western civilization (Sklenar 1983: 145). financial means at the disposal of other disciplines. Hitler contributed his own views on this subject German prehistory has grown from hand to mouth. in a dinner-table monologue, referring to the attacked and ridiculed to boot by its older sister Greeks as who had survived a disciplines. These are hard words. but I know northern natural catastrophe and evolved a whereof I speak, for I witnessed these de\,elopments highly developed culture in southern contexts in my student days. And Hans Kcinttrth cxplaincd iii the introduc- fur Deutsche Vor- und Fruhgeschichte in 1939 tion to his Fdc:rst:c: Moor volume (1936a: 5): (Behrens 1939: 266-9). (Today it has its pre-war title once more). I\’e have found thi: c:ouragr?once more to admit to the Open-air museums like the reconstructed dertis of our anc:estors. ‘I‘ht.ir honor is our honor! The Neolithic and Bronze Age lake settlement at iiiilleiiiiin sepiiratt, us no longer. The eternal stream of IJnteruhldingen on Lake Constanz popularized blood binds us

Atlantis and that Christ was not a Jew ~ was into early medieval times (FIGIJRE3; Die Kunde ‘considered by the public to be the standard text 1936: Title page; Gerrnanenerbe 1938: Title for party ideology, but Hitler in his teatime page). conversations bluntly called it “stuff nobody can understand” written by “a narrow-minded The response of the discipline to NS control Baltic German who thinks in horribly compli- German prehistorians of the 1930s can be cated terms”. He expressed wonderment that regarded as falling into three basic categories: the party-liners; the acquiescent and passive majority; and the critical opposition.

The party-liners The party-liners either achieved academic legit- imacy under the Nazis, or were already estab- lished scholars promoted within the Party, who furthered their careers by conducting 'politi- cally correct' research. The lunatic fringe of this category were derisively called Germanornunen (Jacob-Friesen 1934: 131) or Germanomaniacs by the mainstream. Herman Wirth, co-founder of the Ahnenerbe organization, attempted to prove that was the cradle of Western civilization and was taken in by the 'Ura-Linda-Chronicle', an obvious forgery (Jacob-Friesen 1934: 130-5). Herman Willc, another of these extremists, interpreted thc megaliths of Scandinavia as Germanic temples. identified as the inspiration for Greek and Roman temples as well as early medieval churches (Jacob-Friesen 1950: 2-3). Wilhelm Teudt's interpretation of the Externsteine near Detmold as a Germanic temple (FKXJKE4) was supported by a large number of amateur prehis- torians, and his encyclopaedic Germanische Heiligtiimer (1934) identified, among other things, a complex system of solar observatories throughout areas of Germanic settlement. The interpretation of the Externsteirle gener-

FIGURE4. Etching of Externsteine near Horn, Kreis Lippe from 1748 (Teudt 1934: figure 17). ated heated and often vindictive debate, demonstrating the extent to which fringe research was rejected by the mainstream (Focke t 1943). As Koehl points out, 'the second- and third-rate minds of the "scientists" which the Das Brot unserer Vorfahren Ahnenerbe, for example, sponsored tended to make SS "research" the laughingstock of the universities Himmler wished to penetrate' (1983: 115). The phenomenon of Germanen- kitsch was parodied in Germanenerbe in a regular humour column (FIGURE5), partly to disassociate the Ahnenerbe prehistorians from the 'fringe' (Germanenerbe 1936: 87; 265). Some researchers established before 1933 became high-ranking party officials, among them Hans Reinerth and the Austrian Oswald Menghin. These individuals consciously parti- cipated in what was at best a distortion of scholarship, and at worst a contribution to the legitimation of a genocidal authoritarian regime. They were certainly aware of what they were doing, and they must have been equally aware that much of the work they were produc- ing under the auspices of Nazi ideology had absolutely no basis in archaeological fact. As a result of his party career and his anti- semitic writings (Menghin 1934), Oswald Menghin was summarily removed from his post as Austrian Minister of Education and Culture in 1945, spent some time in an American internment camp and ended up in South Amer- ica, where he continued to excavate and publish, primarily in Spanish (Uer Schlern: Festgabe fur Oswald Menghin 1958: 73-6). His Spanish publications, interestingly enough, begin around 1942, well before the disastrous end of the war. Hans Reinerth was Rosenberg's Reichsbeauf- tragter fur deutsche Vorgeschichte (a ple- nipotentiary position) from 1934 to the end of the war; he has remained active on the archaeo- logical scene in Baden-Wiirttemberg, and his FI(:UKK5. Example of 'Germanenkitsch' works continue to be published and sold, advertisement from the journal Germanenerbe including the volume Pfahlbauten am Boden- (1936). see (1986),although most of its conclusions and interpretations are outdated. Recently officials illustrated by the three-volume tome entitled in the town of Bad Buchau, where Reinerth The Prehistory of the German Tribes (1945). excavated the Wasserburg Buchau in the 192Os, Key passages deal with the genetic superiority suppressed a pamphlet prepared by young of the Germanic peoples and their natural right archaeologists presently working in the area to those territories to the east of Germany or because it described Reinerth's party activities anywhere else inhabited presently or at any (Pfahlbauten 1984(3): 6-7). time in the past by German peoples. Reinerth's The racist tone of Reinerth's writing is well unprofessional harassment of colleagues who disagreed lvith his virivs is described in detail Sklenar 1983: 160). By 1950 Bersu was back in by Bollinus (1970: 153-235). Germany, again directing the Komisch Ger- manische Kommission. ?'he Mitliiufcr Hans Kuhn and Peter Goessler were also The majority of (;erman archaeologists were forced to leave, together with jewish prchis- Mitl6Llfer or passivc f~~llo~v-travellers.to trans- torians like Paul Jacobsthal, who finished his mclgnuni opus on Celtic art in English at Cam- late a ti u tit ra ti s 1at able (krman term . These were the unnamed thousands lvho taught what they bridge. Hugo Obermaier resided in Spain anti were told to teach in sc;hools arid universities, Switzerland, having turned down a chair at the pted statc funding with little question University in Berlin 'because the National or comment. J.G.D. Clark's discussion in Socialists had already taken possession of the Archneolog!. and society clearly statcs the field' (IPEK 1956: 104).Franz Weidetircich. who dilemma of German prehistorians: 'Will it not had to give up his chair at thc University it1 happen that u ti der dictat o ri a1 con d i t io ri s act i vi - , went to Chicago as Ilircctor of thr: ties paid for by the state will be used for state Geological Institute in China from 1935 to 1941, purposes?' (1939: 202). and as Professor at the Museum of Natural Although the Mitliiufer clearly constituted History in New York after 1941 (IPEK 1956: the critical mass in the attempted Gleichs- 104). Gero voti Merhart was another victim of chnltung (political and ideological coordi- the Reinerth witch-hunt. Despite the efforts nation of all intellectual pursuits) of the made by his student Wcrner Buttler. a member discipline by the Party, their inactive r6le of Himmler's private cmps. to ftmd off the makes their contribution difficult to assess. Yet defamatory attacks, voii Merhart was prema- it is precisely their inaction which explains turely retired in 1940. In a letter to Buttler, who how the discipline could practise 12 years of was in the front lines during this pcriod of self-delusion so effectively. The acquiescent harassment, voti Merhart is both bitter and silence of the Mitliiufcr was crucial, their pas- resigned (Bollmus 1970: 210): sivity representing a de facto sanctioning of NS policies and attitudes - a phenomenon that All I can say. Uuttler. is that I mi being treated ill ill1 extended to all other areas of public life. unbearable manner. My \w): of life has hr:c:n destroyed, I have been defamed in ii way which (:i~ii never be made good. since my resilience: has tx:e11 The opposition dealt a fatal blow . . . No one \\,ill evcr 1)c able to A third category is constituted by the critical convince me that I have not tieen c:arelessly arid opposition and the victims of the regime. These irresponsibly accused, conrlemned without a trial. archaeologists were both highly visible and and finished as a11 honest anti dutiful citizen of thc relatively few in number, so their r61e can be state . . . studied more easily. Victims of the regime were persecuted on the basis of race or political A critical faction. consisting of archaeologists views, and occasionally both. , like K.H. Jacob-Friesen, Ernst Wahle and Carl who had trained a generation of post-war Schuchhardt, were cautious in their opposition archaeologists in the field techniques of yet managed to hold on to their positions. , was prematurely Jacob-Friesen openly criticized the lunatic retired by the National Socialists from the fringe, especially Herman Wirth and his sup- directorship of the K6misch Germanische Kom- port of the Ura-Linda-ChroniLle. In a 1934 mission in 1935. His refusal to condone or artide he claimed to speak for the professiotial conduct research tailored to NS ideological mainstream in warning against the excesses of requirements, in addition to his rejection of the nationalistic and racist manipulation of Kossinna school and its nationalist, racist doc- archaeological data (1934). trine of hyperdiffusionisni, led to the abrupt Jacob-Friesen saw himself as a patriotic interruption of his career as a prehistorian until German prehistorian for whom the complete the end of the war (Kramer 1965). The official distortion of archaeological data by party doctrine reason given for thc witch-hunt led by Keinerth was a defamatory attack on German scholarship under the auspices of the Amt Kosenberg was arid the international reputation of German scho- Bersu's Jewish heritage (Uollmus 1970: 163; lars. Dogma requircs complete, unquestioning faith in its precepts, and ‘faith’, according to Party’s goal of investigating Germanic remains Jacob-Friesen, ‘generally begins where in all modern geographic regions, especially in knowledge ends’ (1950: 1).As early as 1928 his eastern Europe where it was politic to prove article, ‘Fundamental questions of prehistoric previous Germanic habitation on the basis of research’, criticized research along the lines of material culture (e.g. Kunkel 1935). In general, Gobineau’s doctrine of racial superiority, however, excavation reports paid lip-service to remarking: ‘Racial philosophy in our time has the party in introduction and conclusion, while mutated into racial fanaticism and has even been the rest was ‘business as usual’ (Clark 1939: extended into politics’ (1950: 2). As he himself 202). Sound work was done during this period noted, by 1933 this was an unpopular opinion, in spite of political pressure. The vocabulary and he was asked, in the tradition of the medieval carefully conformed to the policies of the fund- inquisition, to retract these statements publicly. ing source, but the methodology was relatively He refused; in response W. Hiille, Reinerth’s unaffected. Given enough time, of course, this second-in- command, issued a statement warning would have changed, as new terms and con- against such heresies. ‘That was how scholarship cepts made a significant transformation in the was conducted in the Third Reich!’ Jacob-Friesen orientation of the discipline inevitable. In 1935, concluded bitterly in his 1950 apologia (1950: 2). the entire prehistoric and early historic chrono- In 1941 Ernst Wahle published a critical logy was officially renamed: the Bronze and analysis of Kossinna’s theories, ‘On the ethnic Pre-Roman Iron Ages became the ‘Early Ger- interpretation of prehistoric cultural manic Period’ (FIGIJRE6), the Roman Iron Age provinces’, which, as Eggers points out, took a the ‘Climax Germanic Period’, the Migration considerable amount of courage (1986: 237). Period the ‘Late Germanic’ Period and every- Unfortunately most of these gestures remained isolated incidents, and real debate on topics like Kossinna’s rosearch did not begin until after the war. Men like Wahle, Jacob-Friesen and Wil- helm [Jnverzagt, the editor of the relatively independent Prahistorische Zeitschrift, repre- sented the voice of reason in German archaeo- logy which attempted to maintain standards of scholarly objectivity, with little effect, as Jacob- 1:riesen himself admits (1950: 4). Without sup- port in the Party machine, organized resistance was impossible, and most criticism either ignored or censured. It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of these individuals, or the reasons for their survi- val. Internal conflicts and the absence of a general policy with regard to dissenting scho- lars were certainly part of the reason. Arousing the personal enmity of a man like Reinerth could be enough to destroy a career. Although the situation in Germany was less life- threaten- ing than in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin, where hundreds of prehistorians and archaeo- logists were killed (Childe 1935; Clark 1939: 196-7), it was a difficult time for researchers committed to an international, rather than a National Socialist, perspective.

Effects on excavations and research Some research designs and interpretations of SS FIGURI:6. Bronze Age ‘Germans‘ (Reinerth 1945: excavations were explicitly geared toward the plate 5a). 474 I3131’TINA ARN0I.D thing from the Carolingians to the 13th century as 1933, although he was careful to explain that the ‘German Middle Ages’ (Petersen 1935: 147). it was exaggerated claims of Germanic achieve- A site continuously occupied from prehistoric ments he deplored, not the principle of Ger- times through to the present was to be excavated manic superiority itself (1933: 70). by Rosenberg’s organization until Roman Field schools for young archaeologists remains were uncovered, at which point the combined political indoctrination with the Romisch Germanische Kommission would deal Party emphasis on the outdoors and on healthy with this ‘non-German’ material. The prehis- communion with one’s peers. The director of a toric strata underneath would again be exca- field school held in 1935 for 65 participants, one \rated by the Amt Rosenberg (Bollmus 1970: fifth of whom were women, stated: ’Naturally 166). This patently ridiculous and impractical the intellectual and material culture of the arrangement, engineered by Reinerth and Germanic world was the focus of the relevant Rosenberg, was never adopted. It was one presentations’ (Geschwendt 1935: 74). reason many previously committed archaeo- logists, disenchanted with the Amt Rosenberg Aftermath and legacy and its plenipotentiary, began to turn more and The paralysis felt by many scholars from 1933 to more, after 1937, to Himmler’s Ahnenerbe for 1945 continued to affect research in the decades official support. after the war. The anomie and intellectual Several well-known sites began as Ahnenerbe dislocation of this period are described by projects at this time: the Viking trading post of in his essay (1959: 163): Haithabu in Schleswig-Holstein, excavated by under SS supervision begin- After Germany’s collapse it initially seemed virtually ning in 1938 (Jankuhn1935; 1938; 1939; 1940), impossible to begin rebuilding the discipline with the Neolithic settlement of Koln-Lindenthal any hope of success. The new wielders of pnlitic:al power viewed prehistory with deep mistrust, an excavated by Werner Buttler (Buttler & Haberey attitude which seemed understandable in view of the 1936),and the Hohmichele tumulus at the Early abuse of the results of prehistoric: research on the part Iron Age Heuneburg, excavated by Adolf Rieth of National Socialist leaders with regard to questions (1936). of education and politics. Many smaller excavations, conducted with SS funding (Doppelfeld 1939), served a very Veit (1989) interprets the predominantly prag- specific purpose apart from their dubious scho- matic orientation of prehistoric research in larly value. They were intended to unite Ger- West Germany today as a direct result of intel- mans - interested amateurs, locals, soldiers in lectual shellshock, ‘a reaction against the the SS and the SA - in the retrieval, preser- inflated claims of Nazi studies in prehistory’, vation and interpretation of prehistoric especially the ethnic interpretation of the Koss- remains. Langsdorff & Schleif state specifically inna school (1989: 48). As Veit also points out, in a 1937 article that the primary beneficiary of ‘the reasons for the misuse of his [Kossinna’s] such research was to be Germany’s young ideas, which were, after all, based on the nature people, not scholarship as such (1937: 82). of archaeological knowledge, remained largely Much of this rhetoric was reserved for official unexplained’ (1989: 39). statements. Since it was necessary to use the The surviving older generation were faced proper code words to ensure continued sup- with a terribly reduced student population after port. their use does not prove that the writer 1945. The journals between 1939 and 1945 accepted the general principles implied. Lan- contain hundreds of obituaries, written mainly gsdorff & Schleif, in fact, appear as unsung by senior scholars, occasionally in the front heroes in Bollmus’ account of their part in lines themselves, who watched a whole gener- maintaining standards of archaeological ation of young archaeologists die. It has taken research within the Ahnenerbe organization. several decades to replace the losses of war, Borderline research like the Externsteine exca- emigration and extermination. Most of the scho- vations was discouraged by the Ahnenerbe after lars who were graduate students during this 1936, largely due to the influence of these two 12-year period had to grapple with a double individuals (1970: 180-1). Gotze warned burden: a humiliating defeat and the disorien- against pseudo-archaeology of this sort as early ting experience of being methodologically ‘deprogrammed’. There was neither time nor dies. The historian Karl Ferdinand Werner says desire to examine the reasons for the ‘German of this phenomenon of denial among historians prostitution of archaeology’ (Piggott 1983: ( 1967:103) : Foreword). The essence of propaganda, as Hirnrnlcr and One didn’t want to hear about one’s past, of which Rosenberg were aware, is the ability to manipu- one was now ashamed (how could one have tlelieved late language and symbols. A race, nation or in this Hitler person!), and expressed this basically individual can be defamed by terms with praiseworthy attitude by simply denying this past. Since the great majority of Germans IVBS interested in negative implications - ‘barbarian’, ‘under- such suppression, very little opposition (muid arise. developed’, ‘primitive’.Rosenberg was adept at After the fact they all became, if not resistance fighters twisting archaeological and anthropological at least sympathetic: to the resistance; indeed. they are data to impugn Jews, the Catholic church and perhaps resisting even now, when it is no longer Communists alike. Terms like ‘hebraic para- dangerous to do so, to make up for the missed sites’, ’ruling priest class’ and ‘red subhu- opportunity. manity’ are liberally sprinkled throughout his magnum opus with invocations of the classics, It is easy to condemn the men and women who the natural sciences, Goethe and any other were part of the events which transformed the authority which could be pressed into service German archaeological community between (Rosenberg 1930). 1933 and 1945, more difficult really to under- Archaeology lends itself particularly well to stand the choices they made or avoided in the intentional misinterpretation. Almost-truths context of the time. Many researchers who and half-facts have been used in archaeological began as advocates of Reinerth’s policies in the contexts other than Nazi Germany to support Awt Rosenberg and Himmler’s Ahnenerbe racist doctrines and colonial military expan- organization later became disenchanted. sion, or to establish political legitimacy for Others, who saw the system as a way to develop shaky regimes (Clark 1939: 197ff.; Silberman and support prehistory as a discipline, were 1982; 1988; Garlake 1984; Silverberg 1986; willing to accept the costs of the Faustian McConnell 1989; etc.). One particularly danger- bargain it offered. ous aspect of archaeological writing is its ten- The benefits were real. Many of them still dency toward professional jargon which tends exist today - in government programmes, to obscure rather than reveal meaning. The museums and institutes, amateur organization. multidisciplinary nature of prehistoric and a widespread popular support of and inter- research, in and of itself an admirable thing, est in prehistory. Academic scholarship outside lends itself too easily to abuse under the guise of Germany also benefited; not all of Kossinna’s science or other falsely appropriated authority. theories or those of his advocates can be dis- Prehistory is particularly vulnerable to manipu- missed out of hand (Eggers 1986: 200).and quite lation because it so often depends on a a lot ofthe work done from 1933 until the end of minimum of data and a maximum of interpreta- the war was ground-breaking research. Scholars tion (Klejn 1971: 8). like V. Gordon Childe adapted Kossinna’s theo- It is difficult to read Rosenberg’s Myth of the ries to their own work. Ideas such as the 20th century today and remember that his identification of ethnic groups in the archaeo- theories - however preposterous and absurd logical record and the concept of independent they now sound - constituted part of the plat- invention on the part of indigenous European form for the Nazi doctrine of racial purity that cultures unaffected by Eastern influence are culminated in the extermination of over six some examples (Klejn 1974: 8). Settlement million human beings. Germany’s archaeologi- archaeology benefited from excavations like cal community played a part in legitimating those at Koln-Lindenthal and Haithabu (C. notions of Germanic racial and cultural Evans 1989). superiority; yet prehistoric archaeology is the More recently a number of studies dealing only social science discipline in Germany with certain aspects of the use and abuse of which has still to publish a self-critical study of archaeology under the National Socialists in its r61e in the events ofthe 1930s. Historians and Germany have been published by non-German Germanists have published several such stu- researchers (Schnapp 1977; Baker 1988; McCann 1988: 1989: C. Evans 1989). The only This trend can be seen in the context of a German prehistorian \\rho has approached the lengthy term in power for the current conser- topic to date has done so indirectly through the vative government and is a subtext of the study of Kossinna’s theories and their political Historikerstrcit which has made revisionist his- and cultural significance (Veit 1984; 1989). Yet tory the topic of much recent debate (R.J. Evans organizations like the ones recently formed by 1989). I mention it here because it emphasizes graduate students in prehistory at the Universi- the importance of an in-depth critical study of ties of Berlin (West) and Kiel (Offener Brief prehistoric archaeology under the National 1989) seem to indicate that a new wind is Socialists. blowing in the corridors of German academe. As C. Evans says: ‘It is precisely because so The theme of a syniposium held recently in much archaeological evidence is ambiguous, Berlin b-j the organizations ‘AUTONOME and therefore open to re-interpretation, that SEILI‘I,\~AR’ (Berlin) and ‘Arbeitsgemeinschaft there is a need to understand the role and Archdologie und Faschismus’ (Kiel) was ‘Ur- historic constitution of archaeology’s disci- und Friihgeschichtsforschung und National- plinary consensus over time’ (1989: 447). His- soziafismus’. The topics under discussion indi- tory (and by association, pr2history) informs cate a critical awareness not just of the forces communal self-image. An awareness of origins that transformed prehistoric research from 1933 is necessary to construct and maintain self- to 1945,but of the enduring legacy ofthat period esteem and self-understanding. History legiti- in the academic community today. mizes individuals and their actions within Unfortunately, conservative elements in society. In this context thc distortion of prehis- German prehistoric archaeology which turn a toric research for political purposes has grave blind eye to the abuses of the 1930s labour implications for the integrity of the structural under the influence of a continuing ‘uncon- framework of a society as a whole. This is the scious ethnocentric fixation’ (Veit 1989: 50). most important legacy of the German example. Dieter Korell (1989: 178),for example, attempts We cannot afford to ignore the responsibility to resuscitate Kossinna’s concept of prehistory the relationship between archaeology and as a ‘preeminently national discipline’: politics places upon interpreters of the past.

Gustaf Kossinna spoke programmaticaily of a ‘pre- Ar:knowlr:dgrri~r~~ts.A prclilninary \’(:rsicJti ofthis iiap(:r iws eminently national discipline’. . . The term ‘national’ prcsc:nted at the Joint Arc:liacologic:;il (;i~iigrc:ssin Bsltiinorc: has nothing whatsoever to do with the current (MD) in January 1989. 1 would liko to thank lohn Mulvancy discussion and labeling of ‘nationalism’. . . German for First onc:ouraging mt! to pursuo thc! topic: of~”.(:lii.stor)~iitict politics. I also w-ould likr: to thank Sti:phr:n I,. Dyson. Nctil A. prehistory is a national discipline. The life and Sil\~mnariand Brian Mc(:oniic:II for tiicir useful si1gg:c:stioiis. suffering of a living people are represented by the Spc:c:ial thanks go to Hcrbcrt A. Ariicilci and Mattlit:\\! I.. discipline, and in the final analysis can only be Murray for thcir commcnts on c:arlit:r drafts of this papc:r. understood in its entire significance by Germans and Thanks also PO to Thomas €1. Hruby for Iiearingwith nie. and their close ethnic kin. to Gloria P. Grcis for acting as gc:itc:ral f(ic:totuni. Any cimissions or i~iai:c:urac:ic:sarc: r:ntirc:ly my ow11.

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