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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE: A NOTORIOUS

JOURNAL AND SOME OF ITS CONTRIBUTORS*

Reinhard Markner

Abstract

Among the many publishing ventures of the “Reichsinstitut für die Geschichte des
neuen Deutschlands,” the journal Forschungen zur Judenfrage (1936–1944) has gained
most notoriety. In its nine volumes, various aspects of the “Jewish question,” rang-
ing from the Jews in antiquity to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, were dealt
with from a strictly National Socialist point of view. The ambitious project proved
to be a failure even before the Third Reich collapsed. While some of the journal’s
contributors managed to pursue their academic careers in post-war West Germany,
its founder, Walter Frank, committed suicide in 1945.

In his editorial for the first issue of the review Weltkampf, published
in 1941, the historian Wilhelm Grau maintained that a scholarly
journal concerned with the “Jewish question” had been a desideratum
“for a long time.”1 This was a rather bizarre claim since there already
existed a journal of this kind in Germany to which Grau himself
had contributed. It was called Forschungen zur Judenfrage (Research on
the Jewish Question) and had been founded in 1937.
Forschungen zur Judenfrage was one of the most prestigious publish-
ing ventures of Walter Frank’s “Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des
neuen Deutschland” (Reich Institute for the History of the New
Germany). Forty years ago, Helmut Heiber reconstructed the history
of this short-lived institution and the biography of its founder in what
might be called a comedy of manners in prose, on 1.200 pages.2

* This paper, originally presented at a seminar organized by Prof. Irene Kajon

at the Institute for Philosophy of the University of Rome La Sapienza, October 27,
2005, had been prepared for publication before the author first took notice of Alan
E. Steinweis, Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univ. Press, 2006).
1
“Seit langer Zeit liegt das Bedürfnis nach einer nichtjüdischen wissenschaftlichen
Zeitschrift zur Judenfrage vor.” Wilhelm Grau, “Zum Geleit,” Weltkampf 1 (1941):
1–2, 1.
2 Cf. Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein Reichsinstitut für Geschichte des neuen

Deutschlands (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1966).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 EJJS 1.2
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396 reinhard markner

Since then, a great many more studies have been devoted to almost
every aspect and detail of the humanities under Nazism. They have
covered academic disciplines ranging from philosophy3 and theology4
to psychology5 and sociology,6 from philology and modern literature7
to history8 and art history,9 from the study of politics10 to that of
folklore.11 Researchers have dealt with students and professors12 in
general as well as with institutions and administrative bodies such as
the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” or Himmler’s “Ahnenerbe,”
an interdisciplinary organisation set up with the primary aim of sup-
porting and directing prehistoric research.13 Of course, they have

3 Thomas Laugstien, Philosophieverhältnisse im deutschen Faschismus (Hamburg: Argument,

1990).
4 Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz and Carsten Nicolaisen, eds., Theologische Fakultäten

im Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993); Kurt Meier, Die

theologischen Fakultäten im Dritten Reich (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996).
5 Ulfried Geuter, Die Professionalisierung der deutschen Psychologie im Nationalsozialismus

(Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1984).

6 Otthein Rammstedt, Deutsche Soziologie 1933–1945. Die Normalität einer Anpassung

(Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1986).

7 Holger Dainat and Lutz Danneberg, eds., Literaturwissenschaft und Nationalsozialismus

(Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2003); Frank-Rutger Hausmann, “Vom Strudel der Ereignisse
verschlungen.” Deutsche Romanistik im “Dritten Reich” (Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann,
2000); Frank-Rutger Hausmann, Anglistik und Amerikanistik im “Dritten Reich” (Frankfurt
a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 2003).
8 Volker Losemann, Nationalsozialismus und Antike. Studien zur Entwicklung des Faches

Alte Geschichte 1933–1945 (Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1977); Karen Schönwälder,
Historiker und Politik. Geschichtswissenschaft im Nationalsozialismus, Frankfurt a. M.: Campus,
1992; Otto Gerhard Oexle and Winfried Schulze, eds., Deutsche Historiker im
Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1999).
9 Jutta Held and Martin Papenbrock, eds., Kunstgeschichte an den Universitäten im

Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003).

10 Ernst Haiger, “Politikwissenschaft und Auslandswissenschaft im ‘Dritten Reich’:

(Deutsche) Hochschule für Politik 1933–1939 und Auslandswissenschaftliche Fakultät

der Berliner Universität 1940–1945,” in Kontinuitäten und Brüche in der deutschen
Politikwissenschaft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1991): 94–136.
11 James R. Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld, eds., The Nazification of an Academic Discipline.

Folklore in the Third Reich (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).

12 Anselm Faust, Der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund. Studenten und

Nationalsozialismus in der Weimarer Republik, 2 vols. (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1973); Michael

H. Kater, Professoren und Studenten im Dritten Reich, in Archiv für Kulturgeschichte
67 (1985): 465–487; Michael Grüttner, Studenten im Dritten Reich (Paderborn: Schöningh,
1995).
13 Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS, 1933–1945. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturpolitik

des Dritten Reiches (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974); Notker Hammerstein,

Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in der Weimarer Republik und im Dritten Reich.
Wissenschaftspolitik in Republik und Diktatur, 1920–1945 (München: C. H. Beck, 1999);
Michael Fahlbusch, Wissenschaft im Dienst der nationalsozialistischen Politik? Die “Volksdeutschen
Forschungsgemeinschaften” von 1931–1945 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999).
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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 397

also presented characteristic case studies of scholars such as Hans

Pyritz,14 Hans-Georg Gadamer,15 Joseph Vogt,16 or Erich Rothacker.17
And finally, there have been both individual and collective efforts
to write the history of universities under the rule of Hitler such as
Bonn, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Giessen, Göttingen, Halle, Hamburg, Jena,
Kiel, Marburg, Munich, and Tübingen.18 Thus, there seem to be
few white spots left on the map of Nazi German academia. Only
recently, Berlin, the largest and most important university of all, has
followed suit. Two massive tomes19 now assemble the contributions
to a three-year Ringvorlesung (i. e. a collaborative public lecture series)
on the topic.
It is safe to say that no other era of German scholarship, no other
decade in the history of German universities has ever been granted
similar attention. For this reason alone, it is hard to summarise
the results of this enormous effort. Once a domain of left-wing out-
siders intent on undermining the complacency of West Germany’s

14 Christa Hempel-Küter, Germanistik zwischen 1925 und 1955. Studien zur Welt der

Wissenschaft am Beispiel von Hans Pyritz (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2000).

15 Teresa Orozco, Platonische Gewalt. Gadamers politische Hermeneutik der NS-Zeit

(Hamburg: Argument, 1995).

16 Diemuth Königs, Joseph Vogt. Ein Althistoriker in der Weimarer Republik und im

Dritten Reich (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1995).

17 Volker Böhnigk, Kulturanthropologie als Rassenlehre. Nationalsozialistische Kulturphilosophie

aus der Sicht des Philosophen Erich Rothacker (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2002).
18 Hans-Paul Höpfner, Die Universität Bonn im Dritten Reich. Akademische Biographien

unter nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft (Bonn: Bouvier, 1999); Gerda Stuchlik, Goethe im

Braunhemd. Universität Frankfurt 1933–1945 (Frankfurt am Main: Röderberg, 1984);
Eckhard John, ed., Die Freiburger Universität in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Freiburg
i. Br.: Ploetz, 1991); Peter Chroust, Gießener Universität und Faschismus. Studenten und
Hochschullehrer 1918–1945, 2 vols. (Münster: Waxmann, 1994); Heinrich Becker, Die
Universität Göttingen unter dem Nationalsozialismus. Das verdrängte Kapitel ihrer 250jährigen
Geschichte (München: K. G. Saur, 1987); Henrik Eberle, Die Martin-Luther-Universität
in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus 1933–1945 (Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2002);
Eckart Krause, Ludwig Huber, and Holger Fischer, eds., Hochschulalltag im “Dritten
Reich.” Die Hamburger Universität 1933–1945, 3 vols. (Berlin: Reimer, 1991); Uwe
Hoßfeld et al. (eds.), “Kämpferische Wissenschaft.” Studien zur Universität Jena im
Nationalsozialismus (Köln: Böhlau, 2003); Hans-Werner Prahl (ed.), Uni-Formierung des
Geistes. Die Universität Kiel im Nationalsozialismus, vol. 1, (Kiel: Malik, 1995); Anne
Christine Nagel (ed.), Die Philipps-Universität Marburg im Nationalsozialismus. Dokumente
zu ihrer Geschichte (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000); Helmut Böhm, Von der Selbstverwaltung
zum Führerprinzip. Die Universität München in den ersten Jahren des Dritten Reiches
(1933–1936) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1995); Uwe Dietrich Adam, Hochschule
und Nationalsozialismus. Die Universität Tübingen im Dritten Reich (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977).
19 Die Berliner Universität in der NS-Zeit. vol. 1: Strukturen und Personen, ed. Christoph

Jahr, vol. 2: Fachbereiche und Fakultäten, ed. Rüdiger vom Bruch (Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner, 2005).
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398 reinhard markner

professorate, the academic history of the short-lived Nazi era has

become professionalised—and defused.
Which side won in the Historikerstreit of the late 1990s? When Götz
Aly and his comrades gleefully drew a direct line from Nazi
Volksgeschichte to the soft-left Sozialgeschichte of the nineteen-seventies,
they generated a considerable stir not just amongst professional his-
torians and their “guild.” Until then the concept of an ominous con-
tinuity before and after 1945 had almost invariably been used to
confront the conservative German elites with their former Nazi alle-
giances. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and the Bielefeld school of social his-
tory, however, had been close to the Social Democrats while keeping
their distance from neo-Marxist and other then fashionable tenden-
cies on the left.
To be sure, even in the politicised field of history most professors
had been allowed to carry on after 1945. And those scholars who
did not pass the denazification screenings of the early post-war years
managed to continue their work in the profession, albeit outside the
university system itself: They founded an historical society of their
own, the “Ranke-Gesellschaft,” and successfully launched a book
club, the “Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,” and a review journal,
Das historisch-politische Buch. By these means they were able to pro-
mulgate their only partially reconstructed views. As someone who had
been contemplating ethnic cleansing himself, Theodor Schieder today
appears to have been morally unfit to become the editor of the multi-
volume documentation on the expulsion of Germans from territories
they inhabited prior to 1945.20 Ironically, none other but Aly is ready
to concede that this publication (sponsored by the West German gov-
ernment) may well have been Schieder’s greatest achievement.21
Setting moral issues aside, the question remains what, if anything,
was wrong with the post-war conversion of Volksgeschichte into
Gesellschaftsgeschichte. After all, from an ideological point of view, “soci-
ety” is the opposite of Volk in very much the same way as “civili-
sation” is the opposite of “culture” in the traditional matrix of German
cultural criticism. It would be odd to believe in earnest that there

20 Theodor Schieder et al. (ed.): Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-

Mitteleuropa, 5 vols, Bonn 1953–62. Cf. Mathias Beer, “Politik und Zeitgeschichte
in den Anfängen der Bundesrepublik: Das Großforschungsprojekt ‘Dokumentation
der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa,’” VfZ 46 (1998): 34–89.
21 Götz Aly, “Theodor Schieder, Werner Conze oder Die Vorstufen der physi-

schen Vernichtung,” in Deutsche Historiker, eds. Schulze/Oexle, 163–82, 169.

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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 399

was a Nazi core to the kind of historiography practised by the

Bielefeld school.
The establishment of a thoroughly new and thoroughly National
Socialist historiography was the task and intention of Walter Frank’s
“Reichsinstitut.” For this reason alone it still deserves our attention,
even though it may seem as if Helmut Heiber already said what
there is to say on this subject decades ago.
Frank was born in Fürth, an industrial town to the west of
Nuremberg, in 1905. There he attended the speeches of Nazi agi-
tator Julius Streicher, the hate-mongering editor of the weekly Der
Stürmer and Gauleiter of Franconia. As a student at the University of
Munich, Frank joined the ranks of Professor Karl Alexander von
Müller’s circle. Müller, who in 1928 had been awarded the chair
for Bavarian history, was attracting a dedicated right-wing crowd.
The only prominent German historian to support Hitler before 1933,
Müller became the editor of the Historische Zeitschrift after Friedrich
Meinecke had been deposed on political grounds in 1935. A year
later, he was elected as president of the Bavarian Academy of Science.
Müller’s pupil Frank graduated in 1927 with a thesis on the con-
troversial protestant cleric Adolf Stoecker and his failed endeavours
to form a Christian Social movement in Germany.22 Stoecker, preacher
to the Prussian court in 1880s and 1890s, had been at the centre
of heated debates triggered by his openly antisemitic pronounce-
ments. Frank, who saw the chauvinist churchman as a precursor to
Nazism, personally dedicated a copy to Adolf Hitler. In his second
book he then turned to the politics of the French Third Republic
in general and the Dreyfus affair in particular.23 By 1933, he thus
had established himself as an expert on the great controversies of
recent history surrounding the so-called Jewish Question. In spite of
his youth and though he had not even joined the party, he was
appointed founding director of the “Reichsinstitut.”
Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess and party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg,
along with other Nazi luminaries, attended its opening on October 19,
1935. In his programmatic address, Frank promised to contribute to
a “spiritual rearmament of the national soul”. In this mighty effort,

22 Walter Frank, Hofprediger Adolf Stoecker und die christlichsoziale Bewegung (Berlin:

Hobbing, 1928).
23 Walter Frank, Nationalismus und Demokratie im Frankreich der Dritten Republik,

1871–1918 (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1933).

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400 reinhard markner

the institute would be assisted by an advisory board for which Frank

had enrolled Müller, Heinrich Ritter von Sbrik, a veteran champion
of Austrian-German unity, and the leading Nazi philosophers Alfred
Baeumler and Ernst Krieck, among others.
Thirteen months later, on November 19, 1936, the “Forschungs-
abteilung Judenfrage”(Research Department for the Jewish Question)
was inaugurated in Munich. Once again, Hess was personally pre-
sent, as were the rectors of five German universities and various other
dignitaries. In his address, Müller stressed the close vicinity of the
Bavarian State Library and the importance of the institute’s own
specialised library which was to become a “unique scientific labora-
tory” for research on all aspects of the “Jewish Question”. It is esti-
mated that in 1945, by the time it was seized by American troops
in Passau, Frank’s library consisted of approximately 35.000 volumes,
most of which probably had either been confiscated or bought at
auctions of Jewish private collections whose former owners had been
forced into emigration.
While the new “Reichsinstitut” department was nominally directed
by Müller, its administration was entrusted to another one of his
disciples, the aforementioned Dr. Wilhelm Grau. Grau, born in 1910,
was even younger and even more ambitious than Frank himself. He
graduated with a thesis on the expulsion of the Jews from Ratisbon
in 1519, a measure he deemed commendable.24 He further pursued
this field of research by writing a short book on Wilhelm von
Humboldt’s attitude towards Jewish emancipation in 1935.25 When
Müller took over the Historische Zeitschrift, Grau was put in charge of
a special review section of literature on Jews. In the early years of
the “Reichsinstitut,” Grau also oversaw the publication of the Forschungen
zur Judenfrage until he was dismissed by Frank in the summer of 1938.
This perhaps explains the symptoms of amnesia he displayed as an
editor of the rivalling Weltkampf.
The first volumes of the Forschungen contained revised and enlarged
versions of papers presented at the annual conferences of the Jewish
Department in Munich. For the most part, the contributions can be
divided into four categories: 1) studies on the Jewish “race,” 2) studies

24 Wilhelm Grau, Antisemitismus im Mittelalter. Das Ende der Regensburger Judengemeinde

1450–1519 (München: Duncker & Humblot, 1934).

25 Wilhelm Grau, Wilhelm von Humboldt und das Problem des Juden (Hamburg:

Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1935).

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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 401

on Jewry in antiquity, 3) studies on European Jewry in recent his-

tory, 4) biographical essays. Though covered in the very first volume
of the journal, religious aspects of Judaism as well as medieval and
early modern Jewish history were thereafter only treated occasionally.
Racial matters were chiefly dealt with by Eugen Fischer (1874–1967)
and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer (1896–1969). Fischer was a vet-
eran raciologist. In 1913, he had published the results of his anthro-
pological field studies in the German colony of South-West Africa
(Namibia). They were taken as proof that human racial character-
istics are inherited in accordance with Mendel’s genetic laws.26 Together
with two colleagues, he published a Grundriß der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre
und Rassenhygiene (Outline of Human Genetics and Racial Hygiene)
in 1923.27 Fischer was called to the German capital to become the
founding director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology,
Human Genetics and Eugenics, in 1927, as well as a professor at
the university. In 1933, he became the university’s first Nazi rector.
In his lecture Racial origin and earliest racial history of the Hebrews, held
at the third convention of the Jewish Department in July 1938,
Fischer tried to address the difficulties in tracing the historical and
geographical origins of human races.28 Originating from the Oriental
race, the Northern Semites: Assyrians, Babylonians, Aramaeans,
Phoenicians, and others, according to Fischer, had later “encoun-
tered other racial elements with whom they mixed.” The Jews, he
explained, belonged to the Northern Semites. Thus admitting that
Jewish people were of a mixed extraction, he was quick to remind
his audience that this did not mean they lacked characteristic
features.29 Any people, Fischer asserted, may have
[ . . .] a strong spiritual-psychological unity even if it consists of several
races that have been fusing with each other for many centuries, pro-
vided they harmonise together.—The Jewish people has experienced
this fusion during its long prehistory and history, and a very harsh,

26 Eugen Fischer, Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen.
Anthropologische und ethnographische Studien am Rehobother Bastardvolk in Deutsch-Südwest-
Afrika ( Jena: Fischer, 1913).
27 In part translated into English, cf. Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer, and Fritz Lenz,

Human heredity (London: Allan & Unwin, 1931).

28 Eugen Fischer, “Rassenentstehung und älteste Rassengeschichte der Hebräer,”

FJ 3 (1938): 121–136.
29 “Es ist eine falsche Fragestellung, wenn man sagt: Juden sind keine Rasse, son-

dern ein Rassengemisch—also haben sie auch (vor allem geistig) keine ihnen eigen-
tümlichen Rasseneigenschaften.” Ibid., 135.
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402 reinhard markner

fate-induced selection has shaped indelibly the characteristics of the

Jewish spirit, the Jewish soul and body.30
Verschuer, in his paper on “The Racial Biology of the Jews” held
at the same occasion, agreed wholeheartedly. “Much confusion has
been caused by the improper formulation of the question, ‘Are Jews
a race?,’ ” he lamented.31 Verschuer granted that the term “race” or,
strictly speaking, Systemrasse, “as established by scientific anthropol-
ogy,” could not be applied to Jews. Verschuer was adamant, how-
ever, that through natural selection (Auslesevorgänge), they had acquired
certain spiritual and bodily traits, making them city dwellers and
peddlars by nature, as well as resistant to some illnesses, yet sus-
ceptible to others:
By means of such selection processes, the spiritual type of the Jew in
particular has been preserved and constantly shaped anew, while the
physical, racial type has remained less uniform. The effects of these
selection processes have also become apparent through the investiga-
tion of the diseases of the Jews: The selective resistance of the Jews
to tuberculosis is a result of urban life, as are their pathological hered-
itary dispositions towards metabolic ailments, blindness, deaf-muteness
and above all nervous and mental diseases, since such hereditary dis-
positions are more frequently eradicated under the conditions of a nat-
ural rural life. The specific spirituality of the Jews has led to an
accumulation of hereditary traits which, in turn, lead to a more fre-
quent manifestation of psychopathic and neuropathic conditions and
endogenous psychoses.32
Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer was speaking as director of the Institute
for Genetic Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt. Having stud-
ied medicine in Marburg, Hamburg, Freiburg, and Munich, Verschuer
had become the head of the Human Genetics Department at the
Berlin Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics,
and Eugenics in 1927. In 1935, he left for Frankfurt. Among his
students was a certain Josef Mengele who was to pursue Verschuer’s
research on twins in Auschwitz. Baron Verschuer returned to Berlin
in 1942 to become Fischer’s successor as director of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute. After an intermission of a few years, in 1951 he
was appointed director of the Institute for Human Genetics at the

30 Ibid., 135–136.
31 Otmar Frhr. v. Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” FJ 3 (1938): 137–151,
137.
32 Ibid., 150.
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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 403

University of Münster. He was also elected president of the (West)

German Society for Anthropology.
By stressing their belief that “the characteristics of the Jewish
spirit,” a “specific mentality” could well be inherited along with other,
more outward racial features, both Fischer and Verschuer were try-
ing to provide the link between genetics and history. In another con-
tribution to the same convention, which was published separately,33
the Tübingen orientalist Karl Georg Kuhn likewise argued that Jewish
history had to be written by taking into account the peculiar racial
amalgamation of this people. This could only be achieved by a close
collaboration between the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) and hered-
itary biology. In Walter Frank’s own words, a “new totality” had to
be aimed at by future students of the “Jewish Question.”34 Writing
in the Historische Zeitschrift, one of his collaborators dutifully acclaimed
the interdisciplinary approach pursued by the “Reichsinstitut’s” Jewish
Department as an important “methodological innovation.”35
Karl Georg Kuhn36 (1906–1976), one of the most active contrib-
utors to the Forschungen, had joined the party in 1932. Two years
later, he was appointed as associate professor for Oriental languages
and history in Tübingen. His inaugural lecture dealt with “The
spread of Jewry in the ancient world,”37 apparently his favourite sub-
ject. His paper “World Jewry in antiquity,”38 delivered at the depart-
ment’s second conference, elaborated on many of the same issues.
Kuhn was deliberately blurring the dividing lines between the ancient
and the modern world. Granting that some sources demonstrated
that there had indeed been Jewish farmers, Jewish soldiers, and even
Jewish mercenaries in former times, he downplayed their importance.
More interesting from his point of view were tendencies of assimi-
lation discernible amongst the Jewish diaspora. The Roman Empire,
Kuhn concluded, had already seen the advent of the “Großstadtjude.” 39

33 Karl Georg Kuhn, Die Judenfrage als weltgeschichtliches Problem (Hamburg:

Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1939).

34 Walter Frank, “Vorbemerkung,” FJ 3 (1938): 7–8, 7.
35 Clemens August Hoberg, HZ 156 (1937): 669.
36 Gerhard Lindemann, “Theological research about Judaism in different politi-

cal contexts. The example of Karl Georg Kuhn,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 17 (2004):
331–338.
37 Cf. Karl Georg Kuhn, “Die inneren Voraussetzungen der jüdischen Ausbreitung,”

Deutsche Theologie 2 (1935): 9–17.

38 Karl Georg Kuhn, “Weltjudentum in der Antike,” FJ 2 (1938): 9–29.
39 Ibid., 16.
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404 reinhard markner

In a programmatical statement, Kuhn demanded to overcome old-

fashioned antisemitism: “We cannot work, nor ought we today work
on the Jewish question by simply taking over and solely providing
with a new façade old material which had been created from quite
different philosophical points of view; we must start from the sources
and approach the problems in quite a new form,” he wrote in the
Historische Zeitschrift.40
His first paper presented at the Jewish Department’s inaugural
conference in 1936, “On the origins of talmudic thought,”41 was a
demonstration of his own intentions to go ad fontes. Kuhn distanced
himself from the position that with the ascendancy of Christianity,
Judaism had become ossified. Talmudic thought, Kuhn explained,
was vital enough, even though it had indeed led to sterile, formal-
ist tendencies.
Kuhn was a disciple of Gerhard Kittel (1888–1948),42 the son of
Rudolf Kittel, a theologian who had written a Geschichte des Volkes
Israel (3 vols, 1888–1924). Kittel jr. had studied theology and Oriental
languages in Leipzig, Tübingen, Berlin, and Halle. In 1924, Kittel
became Ordinarius in Greifswald, from where he moved on to Tübingen
two years later. From 1939 to 1943 he lectured in Vienna, where
he was dismissed in 1945. Today, he is chiefly remembered as edi-
tor of the first four volumes of the seminal Theologisches Wörterbuch
zum Neuen Testament.
At the 1936 conference, Kittel lectured on “The origins of Judaism
and the origins of the Jewish Question.”43 Equating diaspora with
“world Jewry,” Kittel relied on the menacing connotations which the
latter term had acquired in the jargon of Nazi propaganda
(Weltjudentum). In another paper on marriage between Jews and goyim
in antiquity, Kittel argued that intensive proselytising had led to
cross-breeding, whereupon the Jewish people dissolved into “a ritual

40 HZ 156 (1937): 315.

41 Karl Georg Kuhn, “Die Entstehung des talmudischen Denkens,” FJ 1 (1937):
64–80.
42 Cf. William F. Albright, “Gerhard Kittel and the Jewish question in antiq-

uity,” in idem, History, Archaeology and Christian Humanism (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1964), 229–240; Robert P. Ericksen, “Zur Auseinandersetzung mit und um Gerhard
Kittels Antisemitismus,” ETh 43 (1983): 250–270.
43 Cf. Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, “Protestantische Universitätstheologie und

Rassenideologie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Gerhard Kittels Vortrag ‘Die

Entstehung des Judentums und die Entstehung der Judenfrage’ von 1936,” in Günter
Brakelmann and Martin Roskowski (eds.), Antisemitismus. Von religiöser Judenfeindschaft
zur Rassenideologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 52–75.
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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 405

community.”44 His text culminated in a defense of the Nuremberg

Laws.45 Later, Fischer and Kittel joined their forces to write a book
on “world Jewry in antiquity” which was edited as the seventh vol-
ume of the Forschungen zur Judenfrage.46
The only classicist to participate in the debate on Jewry in antiq-
uity was Hans Bogner (1895–1948): a professor in Freiburg whose
appointment there had been supported by Walter Frank.47 After pre-
senting an overview at the first conference,48 he focussed on Philo
of Alexandria at the second.49 Bogner sought to prove that the major
Jewish representative of Hellenism had by necessity been unable to
write history in any way resembling what was now being understood
by the term Geschichte.
Bogner’s attempts at denigrating Philo’s abilities and achievements
while underlining his Jewishness were characteristic for many of the
biographical essays contained in the Forschungen. To the same vol-
ume, the Munich philosopher Hans Alfred Grunsky contributed a
long and rather convoluted essay on Spinoza.50 Grunsky came to the
surprising conclusion that Spinoza had to be regarded as the cre-
ator of a new Torah and a new Talmud.51 Rather than influencing
them, Grunsky asserted, Spinoza had been opposed by most German
philosophers over the centuries.
In fact, Franz Koch seconded, even Goethe had never really been
a Spinozist at all. Unwittingly, the poet had been indebted to the
larger neo-Platonic tradition rather than to Spinoza himself.52 In his
essay on “Goethe and the Jews,” Koch succeeded in demonstrating
that some Jewish writers had misrepresented Goethe’s attitude towards
the Jews, downplaying his adverse pronouncements on contempo-
rary Jewry and his resistance to emancipatory legislation. However,
Koch was forced to concede that the foremost Jewish authority on
Goethe had not been amongst them: Ludwig Geiger, one of the

44 Gerhard Kittel, “Das Konnubium mit Nicht-Juden im antiken Judentum,” FJ

2 (1938): 30–62, 30.

45 Ibid., 39, 62.
46 Gerhard Kittel and Eugen Fischer, Das antike Weltjudentum. Tatsachen, Texte, Bilder

(Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1943 = Forschungen zur Judenfrage, 7).

47 Malitz, Römertum, note 118.
48 Hans Bogner, “Die Judenfrage in der griechisch-römischen Welt,” FJ 1 (1937):

81–91.
49 Hans Bogner, “Philon von Alexandrien als Historiker,” FJ 2 (1937): 63–74.
50 Hans Alfred Grunsky, “Baruch Spinoza,” FJ 2 (1937): 88–115.
51 Ibid., 109.
52 Franz Koch, “Goethe und die Juden,” FJ 2 (1937): 116–142, 121.
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406 reinhard markner

founders of the Goethe-Gesellschaft (German Goethe Society) and

long-standing editor of its yearbook. Earlier, Koch had traced “Jakob
Wassermann’s path as German and Jew.”53 Predictably, the boldness
of Wassermann, a successful novelist of the early twentieth century,
to write an autobiography entitled Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude
was harshly criticised. According to Koch, Wassermann’s claim to
being both a German and a Jew was absurd, dishonest, insincere,
founded in paradox and a sure sign of a fractured existence.54
Koch (1888–1969) himself might have written an autobiography
under the title “My way as Austrian and German.” In 1935, he had
suddenly been raised from the humble position of a honorary pro-
fessor in Vienna to that of Ordinarius for literary history in Berlin.
Conveniently, the SS held him in high esteem. His Geschichte deutscher
Dichtung, published in 1937, was judged a first, very “positive” attempt
at writing a history of German literature from a National Socialist
vantage.55 Koch concluded his career in Tübingen where he con-
tinued teaching until 1952. Grunsky didn’t fare as well. Born in
1902,56 he had been awarded with a post at Munich university in
recognition of his Nazi credentials. As a lecturer he was unpopular
among the students, however, and the faculty soon became annoyed
by his desire to act as an ideological watchdog. By 1941, his posi-
tion had become untenable, and the Education Ministry relieved him
of his duties.
Throughout the Forschungen volumes, all ad hominem attacks on liv-
ing and historical personalities remained structurally similar. In the
forth volume, Moses Mendelssohn was presented as a rather minor
thinker whose influence on the enlightenment in Germany had been

53 Franz Koch, “Jakob Wassermanns Weg als Deutscher und Jude,” FJ 1 (1936):

150–164.
54 “Sein Anspruch, als Deutscher und Jude zu gelten, führt sich durch die Paradoxie

seiner Begründung selbst ad absurdum, demaskiert sich als Brüchigkeit der eigenen
Existenz, darüber hinaus aber als bewußte Unredlichkeit verantwortlichen Denkens,
als Unaufrichtigkeit vor sich selber.” (Ibid., 164.)
55 “Koch geniesst wissenschaftlich einen ausgezeichneten Ruf und gehört seiner

gesamten Haltung nach zu den positivsten Erscheinungen auf dem Gebiet der
Germanistik. Sein neuestes Werk ‚Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung’ ist ein erster
positiver Versuch, die deutsche Dichtung und ihre Geschichte von der nat.soz.
Weltanschauung und ihren Grundwerten aus neu darzustellen. Schon in Öster-
reich hat sich K. durch eine mannhafte nationale Haltung ausgezeichnet. Sehr
ehrgeizig.” (see: http://homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/gerd.simon/germanistendossiers.pdf
[accessed August 31, 2007]).
56 Cf. Heiber, Walter Frank, 483 sqq.
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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 407

negative. “The talmudic structure of his thought,” Hans Behrens

explained, had not gone unobserved by his contemporaries. They
only failed to properly resist it.57 The pompous literary historian
Friedrich Gundolf, a leading member of the Heidelberg Stefan George
circle, was accused of displaying the “primitive instincts of a scrib-
bler” on close analysis.58 Finally, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativ-
ity was presented as an unmistakably Jewish failure.59
Of course, Frank himself, who had begun his career as a biogra-
pher, also contributed a number of detailed biographical studies to
his journal: on Maximilian Harden, editor of the influential period-
ical Zukunft,60 and Eduard Schnitzer aka Emin Pascha,61 a colourful
colonial adventurer, both well-known figures of the Wilhelmian era,
and Walther Rathenau, foreign minister and martyr of the Weimar
Republic.62 Rathenau had already been dealt with by Wilhelm
Ziegler.63 Rathenau’s crucial contribution to the German war effort
being well known, Ziegler stressed what he regarded as Rathenau’s
defeatism, that is, his not unfounded scepticism as to Germany’s
chances of winning World War I. Ziegler (1891–1962) served as a
liaison officer to Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry where he directed
a research department on the “Jewish Question” of his own.
Finally, Wilhelm Stapel launched an attack on Kurt Tucholsky.64
The famous leftist satirist was depicted as a representative of a pre-
destined world, the world of a homeless and faithless late Judaism
(Judentum)” long gone.65 Stapel (1882–1954), an experienced writer
on the völkisch right, after gaining some prominence in the early thir-
ties, later fell from grace. He had started his career as a journalist
for the liberal Stuttgarter Beobachter and as an editor of the art jour-
nal Kunstwart in Dresden. From 1918 to 1938 he edited the monthly

57 Hans Behrens, “Moses Mendelssohn und die Aufklärung,” FJ 4 (1939): 95–114,

114.
58 Otto Höfler, “Friedrich Gundolf und das Judentum in der Literaturwissenschaft,”

FJ 4 (1939): 115–133, 126.

59 Bruno Thüring, Albert Einsteins Umsturzversuch der Physik und seine inneren

Möglichkeiten und Ursachen,” FJ 4 (1939): 134–162.

60 Walter Frank, “ ‘Apostata’. Maximilian Harden und das wilhelminische

Deutschland,” FJ 3 (1938): 9–60.

61 Walter Frank, “‘Ahasverus’. Das Leben des Dr. Eduard Schnitzer, genannt

Emin Pascha (1840–1892),” FJ 8 (1943): 7–80.

62 Walter Frank, “Walther Rathenau und die blonde Rasse,” FJ 4 (1939): 9–67.
63 Wilhelm Ziegler, “Walther Rathenau,” FJ 2 (1938): 170–181.
64 Wilhelm Stapel, “Kurt Tucholsky,” FJ 2 (1938): 182–215.
65 Ibid., 191.
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408 reinhard markner

journal Deutsches Volkstum, where he developed his own brand of the-

ological nationalism.
Stapel had furnished the first volume of the Forschungen zur Judenfrage
with an overview on the alleged Jewish predominance in the liter-
ary life of the Weimar Republic.66 This was one of the more gen-
eral contributions dealing with aspects of the “Jewish Question” in
recent history. To name but a few, Wilhelm Ziegler looked at “World
Jewry in modernity,”67 Kleo Pleyer, drawing on Werner Sombart,68
at “Jewry in capitalist economy,”69 and Max Wundt at “Jewry in
philosophy,” depicting Georg Simmel as a champion of what might
be called asphalt philosophy.70
The case of Max Wundt (1879–1963) is particularly interesting.
The son of the world-famous psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, he stud-
ied philology and philosophy in Leipzig, Freiburg, Berlin, and Munich.
In 1918, he became associate professor in Marburg, from where he
moved on to Jena in 1920 as Ordinarius. Since 1929, he held a chair
at the University of Tübingen. An expert in classical and enlighten-
ment philosophy, enemy of Neokantianism, he had written a history
of Greek ethics, a history of metaphysics, and an outline of the his-
tory of philosophy at the University of Jena.71 This seemed innocu-
ous enough. Yet Wundt had also come forward with an introduction
to völkisch ideology published by the right-wing publisher J. F. Lehmanns
in Munich.72 In this sense, perhaps, his truly disturbing book on “The
roots of German philosophy in tribe and race” (1944) did not come
as a complete surprise.73
The activities of Frank’s “Reichsinstitut” had initially been greeted
with applause by the docile German press and scholarly journals alike.

66 Wilhelm Stapel, “Die literarische Vorherrschaft der Juden in Deutschland,

1918–1933,” FJ 1 (1937): 165–193.

67 Wilhelm Ziegler, “Das Weltjudentum in der Neuzeit,” FJ 4 (1940): 215–236.
68 Cf. Werner Sombart, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (Leipzig: Duncker &

Humblot, 1911).
69 Kleo Pleyer, “Das Judentum in der kapitalistischen Wirtschaft,” FJ 2 (1937):

154–169.
70 Max Wundt, “Das Judentum in der Philosophie,” FJ 2 (1937): 75–87.
71 Max Wundt, Geschichte der griechischen Ethik, 2 vols. (Leipzig: W. Engelmann,

1908–11); idem, Geschichte der Metaphysik (Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1931); idem,
Die Philosophie an der Universität Jena, in ihrem geschichtlichen Verlaufe dargestellt ( Jena:
Fischer, 1932).
72 Max Wundt, Deutsche Weltanschauung. Grundzüge völkischen Denkens (München:

J. F. Lehmann, 1926).
73 Max Wundt, Die Wurzeln der deutschen Philosophie in Stamm und Rasse (Berlin:

Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1944).

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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 409

In 1939, however, Rosenberg’s Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte disap-

provingly noted that the contributions to the first three volumes of
Frank’s journal were of a “sometimes very diverse character in terms
of ideology.”74 The reason for this, the reviewer explained, was a lack
of emphasis on the racial aspects of the various subjects concerned.
By this time, Frank had already sacked Grau. Annoyed by the
overly ambitious activities of his expert on Jewish matters, he accused
Grau of Catholic leanings which had led him to the untenable con-
tention that modern antisemitism constituted a decline from religious
antisemitism in the Middle Ages. Yet the problem subsisted since
Grau sought and found refuge in Rosenberg’s sphere of influence.
In April 1939, Rosenberg founded his own “Institut zur Erforschung
der Judenfrage.” It took no less than two years before it was for-
mally inaugurated. Then, however, it became clear that its size and
means dwarfed those of Frank’s department by comparison.
Ever since 1935, Grau had tried to get hold of the outstanding
Judaica collections of Frankfurt’s municipal library. He failed because
Frankfurt’s mayor did not agree to their transfer to Munich. Now
that Rosenberg had gained permission from Hitler to form provi-
sional branches of the “Hohe Schule,” a party university yet to be
established, the treasures were to remain in Frankfurt yet finally be
at Grau’s disposal.75 In addition to this, his institute participated in
the wide-ranging looting by officers of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg,
a task force set up specifically for the purpose of collecting materials
of possibly value for the “Hohe Schule” in occupied territories.
When the Frankfurt institute held its first conference at Frankfurt’s
city hall (Römer) in March 1941, the leading raciologists Eugen Fischer
and Hans F. K. Günther, the Dutch and Norwegian Nazi leaders
Anton Adriaan Mussert and Vidkun Quisling, and four NSDAP
Gauleiter were among its honorary guests. In his opening speech on
“Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft,” Rosenberg expressed his
hope that the present war would lead to a “biological world revo-
lution” and to widespread recognition of the equation between
Germany’s cause and that of the “entire white race.”76

74 Curt Tiltack, in Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte 10 (1939), 383.

75 Cf. Dieter Schiefelbein, Das “Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage Frankfurt am
Main.” Vorgeschichte und Gründung 1935–1939 (Frankfurt a. M.: Arbeitsstelle zur
Vorbereitung des Frankfurter Lern- und Dokumentationszentrums des Holocaust,
1993).
76 Cf. Weltkampf 1 (1941).
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410 reinhard markner

These lofty aspirations found their visual expression in the relaunch-

ing of that veteran journal which had been called Der Weltkampf
and now presented itself simply as Weltkampf. Apart from the name,
everything else was enlarged rather than reduced. Rosenberg had
founded Der Weltkampf in 1924, when the Nazi party was outlawed
and money was scarce. Since then, the review had been a monthly
pamphlet of the poorest quality, its outward appearance remaining
almost unchanged even after 1933. Yet the revamped Weltkampf was
a different journal altogether. The format was enlarged, illustrations
were added. Paper and print were of the highest quality available.
The new subtitle read Die Judenfrage in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
Compared to Forschungen zur Judenfrage, the first double issue of
Weltkampf was more aggressive in tone. There was open talk of a
possible “Final solution” both in Rosenberg’s concluding address as
well as in Peter-Heinz Seraphim’s contribution on demographic and
economic aspects of the “Jewish Question.”77 Seraphim (1902–1979),
an expert on Eastern Jewry,78 had been appointed as deputy editor.79
He has been ranged among the “theoreticians of annihilation” for
his intensive collaboration with the German occupational regime in
Poland. Seraphim as well as his Königsberg mentor Theodor
Oberländer believed that the roots of the Polish problem lay in an
overcrowding of its rural areas and that there was an excessive num-
ber of impoverished Jews whose presence was impeding economic
development. It has been argued that they were instrumental to the
preparation of genocide by disseminating this idea both publicly and
through bureaucratic channels.
The aggressive tone of the first issue of the new Weltkampf some-
what receded in the following ones. Increasingly, there was a short-
age of subjects not already dealt with and authors capable of dealing
with them. When Goebbels, in 1943, founded yet another “schol-
arly” journal dedicated to the “Jewish Question,” Archiv für Judenfragen,
this became overly obvious. One of the first articles published there,
written by Gerhard Kittel, evidently was only a rehash of one Karl

77 Peter Heinz Seraphim, “Bevölkerungs- und wirtschaftspolitische Probleme einer

europäischen Gesamtlösung der Judenfrage,” ibid.

78 Cf. Peter-Heinz Seraphim, Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum (Essen: Essener

Verlagsanstalt, 1938).
79 Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen

Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1993),
96 sqq. et passim.
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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 411

Georg Kuhn’s contributions to an early volume of the Forschungen

zur Judenfrage.80
The latter journal came to an end with its ninth instalment, printed
in late 1944 or early 1945. By then, Walter Frank had long been
replaced as director of the “Reichsinstitut” and its activities curbed
due to the ever worsening military situation. Frank had continued
to fire at Grau, thereby alienating even his staunchest supporters. In
falling, he had finally succeeded in having his rival removed from
his Frankfurt office.81
Of the last volume of the Forschungen there are only three copies
extant in northern German libraries, two of them in Hamburg, and
one in Kiel. This seems to indicate that the print run was partly
destroyed in an Hamburg air raid or could not be properly distrib-
uted due to the worsening military situation. The volume is note-
worthy for containing an essay by Julius Evola “On the origins of
Jewry as a destructive force,”82 the only contribution by a foreigner
to all of the nine volumes of the journal.
Baron Giulio Cesare Evola (1899–1974), who chose to latinise his
first name as a nom de plume (or nom de guerre, rather), was a prolific
writer and a somewhat quixotic figure on the Italian intellectual land-
scape of the twentieth century. As a young man, he had gained
notoriety as Dadaist painter and poet. Later he became associated
with the French esotericist René Guénon. Evola established himself
as an expert on magic and Eastern religious traditions.
Though well-known to this day (and in some circles revered) as
a major Fascist intellectual, Evola did not regard himself either as
a Fascist or as an intellectual, and had reasons for not doing so. In
fact, he never joined the Fascist party (though he did try to enrol
when unsuccessfully volunteering for military service in 1939). Evola
was a staunchly reactionary, esoteric, and pagan aristocrat seeking
to influence both Fascism and Nazism (and Fascism through Nazism
and vice versa). As indicated in the title of one of his post-war books,

80 Cf. Gerhard Kittel, “Die Behandlung des Nichtjuden nach dem Talmud,”

Archiv für Judenfragen no. 1, 1943, 7–17, and Karl Georg Kuhn, “Ursprung und
Wesen der talmudischen Einstellung zum Nichtjuden,” FJ 3 (1938).
81 Cf. Heiber, Walter Frank, passim.
82 Julius Evola, “Über die Entstehung des Judentums als zerstörerische Macht,”

FJ 9 (1944): 144–158. Missing in Karlheinz Weißmann’s “Bibliografia in lingua

tedesca di Julius Evola (1933–1985),” in Julius Evola nei documenti segreti dell’Ahnenerbe,
ed. Bruno Zoratto (Roma: Fondazione Julius Evola, 1997), 55–58.
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412 reinhard markner

he considered himself to the right of Fascism.83 Consequently, he

was sympathetic with the so-called Conservative Revolution trend in
Germany.84 He translated Oswald Spengler’s Untergang des Abendlandes
(Decline of the West) into Italian and wrote an introduction to Ernst
Jünger’s essay Der Arbeiter (The Worker).
The baron also dabbled with racism. In his Sintesi di dottrina della
razza (1941) which (with Mussolini’s permission) he himself translated
into German,85 Evola stressed the potential of a coherent racial the-
ory for the Fascist movement and state. Alluding to Georges Sorel’s
essay Sur la violence, he promised that such a doctrine, being tanta-
mount to a modern “myth”, would have the force of a truly “revo-
lutionary idea.” Race, Evola claimed, had to be regarded as “a reality
revealing itself in both body and soul,” the race of the soul being
one “of the second degree.” In order to describe its characteristic fea-
tures, he introduced mystical categories such as “uranian,” “heroical,”
“olympian,” “tellurian,” “demetrical,” “solar,” and “lunar,” in part
deriving from Johann Jakob Bachofen’s famous study on prehistoric
matriarchy, Das Mutterrecht (1861). While Evola called the Jews
members of a “counter-race,” this was to be understood chiefly in a
spiritual sense. The Jews were of mixed origin, a people rather than
a race. Thus, a born Jew might possess an “Aryan” soul while some
“Aryans” showed signs of what he called “spiritual circumcision.”
In Italy, Evola’s musings had already infuriated Guido Landra,
editor of the journal La Difesa della razza. From the point of view of
Hitlerism, which in matters of race mainly relied on Hans F. K.
Günther’s Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (1928),86 they amounted to
sheer heresy.87 Evola’s book was evidence that his speculations had
no foundation in genetics at all but were thoroughly esoteric in
nature. He set forth, for instance, that a white woman might give
birth to a coloured child years after breaking her relationship with

83 Cf. Julius Evola, Il Fascismo visto dalla destra, con Note sul terzo Reich (Roma:

G. Volpe, 1970).
84 Armin Mohler, Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland, 1918–1932 (Stuttgart:

Vorwerk, 1950; rev. ed., Graz: Stocker, 1999).

85 Julius Evola, Grundrisse der faschistischen Rassenlehre (Berlin: Runge, 1943), trans.

J. Evola and Annemarie Rasch.

86 On Günther (1891–1968), cf. Uwe Hoßfeld, “Von der Rassenkunde,

Rassenhygiene und biologischen Erbstatistik zur Synthetischen Theorie der Evolution.

Eine Skizze der Biowissenschaften,” in Hoßfeld et al. (ed.), Kämpferische Wissenschaft,
519–574.
87 Cf. Reiner Pommerin: “Rassenpolitische Differenzen im Verhältnis der Achse

Berlin-Rom 1938–1943,” in: VfZ 27 (1979), 649–660.

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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 413

a coloured man. This miraculous phenomenon, Evola explained, was

called “telegenetics.”
The baron, eager to disseminate his quaint ideas north of the
Alpes, repeatedly came to lecture in Germany. Ever since 1937, the
SS was watching his activities closely. A report dating from August
1938 advised caution: “Since Evola is only tolerated and barely sup-
ported by Fascism, it is tactically not necessary to accommodate his
tendencies from our side.” It was therefore recommended to “curb
his public activities in Germany” and to “observe his propaganda
activity in neighbouring countries.” Himmler endorsed these findings.88
Evola nevertheless remained very active and managed to get into
touch with Wilhelm Grau in 1941.89 Even though Italy had intro-
duced racial legislation in 1938, Hitler’s main ally had been con-
spicuously absent when the Frankfurt institute was inaugurated.90 It
is unknown how and why Evola’s contribution was included in the
last volume of the Forschungen zur Judenfrage.
Walter Frank committed suicide one day after Germany’s uncon-
ditional surrender, on May 9, 1945, at his refuge in Groß-Brunsrode,
a village near Brunswick. He was only forty years old. Müller died
of a natural death as an octogenerian in 1964. In an outrageous
obituary published in the leading journal dedicated to Bavarian his-
tory, one of his younger disciples demanded that Müller was to be
remembered as a prototype of “Bavarian spirit and essence.”
Establishing a precarious connection between patriotism and support
for Hitler, Karl Bosl explained that Müller had in fact never been
a Nazi at all, “even though” (!) he had been a patriot throughout.91

88 Cf. Julius Evola, ed. Zoratto: 42–43.

89 “Baron Evola aus Rom kam zu Besuch, und Grau plante für den September
[1941] eine Italienreise. Sie könnte im Zusammenhang mit seinem Vorschlag ge-
standen haben, eine ‘europäische Vereinigung zur Erforschung der Judenfrage’ zu
gründen. Den Vorschlag hatte Rosenberg ‘für gut’ befunden. Er wollte vor der
Reise aber mit Grau ‘noch persönlich’ sprechen, vielleicht, weil es mit Evola ‘das
Beste’ sei, ‘eine gewisse Vorsicht walten zu lassen,’ denn der Römer hatte ‘zwar
nach außen hin immer mit den Ideen des Reichsleiters in puncto Judenfrage zusam-
mengearbeitet,’ aber gerade das scheint mißtrauisch gemacht zu haben.” Dieter
Schiefelbein, “Das ‘Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage Frankfurt am Main.’
Antisemitismus als Karrieresprungbrett im NS-Staat,” in “Beseitigung des jüdischen
Einflusses . . .” Antisemitische Forschung, Eliten und Karrieren im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Fritz-
Bauer-Institut (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus, 1999): 43–71, 54.
90 Cf. “Die politische Entwicklung der Judenfrage in Europa,” Weltkampf 1 (1943):

73–99.
91 “In gerechter Würdigung aller Vorwürfe, die vor allem gegen die Nachgiebigkeit

des Toten erhoben wurden, kann man nicht sagen, daß er je ‘Nationalsozialist’ war,
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414 reinhard markner

Müller’s example shows once again that participation in the ven-

tures of the “Reichsinstitut” did not necessarily preclude a success-
ful post-war career. Quite a few of Frank’s collaborators managed
to continue their academic work after 1945, and when Helmut
Heiber’s monumental study on the “Reichsinstitut” came out in 1966,
some of them were still in office.
Recently, it has been revealed that Fritz Fischer proudly informed
Frank’s collaborator Erich Botzenhart of his plans to hold talks on
“the intrusion of the Jews into Germany’s culture and politics, the
intrusion of Jewish blood into the English upper class, and the role
of the Jews in the American economy and politics.” Fischer later
expressed his gratitude to Frank himself for his support in obtain-
ing the chair at Hamburg University which he was to keep until
retirement.92 After the war, his association with Frank became oblit-
erated by new alliances: Fischer wrote Griff nach der Weltmacht and
became the darling of the West German liberal-left establishment.
Frank had been a rather young man, promoting scholars per-
taining to his generation like Kuhn or Grunsky or Fischer. It can-
not be said, however, that the “Reichsinstitut,” its Jewish Department,
and its rivals were the project of a generation, the generation formed
by the experience of Germany’s turbulent post-World War I era.
The older mentors, men like Müller and Fischer and Wundt, cer-
tainly played a considerable role even if they stayed detached from
the day-to-day business.
Max Weinreich was convinced in 1946, “that many facts con-
cerning the eventual policy of Germany against the Jews could be
disclosed by opening the archives of this peculiar research institu-
tion.”93 Unfortunately, most of the papers concerned had already
been destroyed the year before. Nevertheless, it can be said with
some certainty that Weinreich was wrong. As its subtitle indicated,
the scope of Weinreich’s pathbreaking survey was confined to the
involvement of German scholars in the ideological preparation of
genocide. The continuity he was stressing was that between the ear-

auch wenn er seinem Vaterland und seiner Art zutiefst verbunden und verpflichtet
war.” Karl Bosl, “Karl Alexander von Müller †. In memoriam,” ZBLG 28 (1965):
920–928, 924.
92 Klaus Große Kracht, “Fritz Fischer und der deutsche Protestantismus,” Zeitschrift

für Neuere Theologiegeschichte 10 (2003): 224–252.

93 Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors. Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes against

the Jewish People (New York: YIVO, 1946), 52.

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FORSCHUNGEN ZUR JUDENFRAGE 415

lier “scientific” and “scholarly” pronouncements on the “Jewish

Question” and the “Final Solution” to it found in the years 1941
to 1945. For this purpose, Weinreich divided his survey into three
sections, “Planning and preparation,” “Large-scale experimenting,”
“Execution of the program.” The programme executed in Belzec
and Treblinka, however, was neither Frank’s nor Grau’s, but
Himmler’s. The Nazi court historians neither prepared nor changed
the course of events. They exerted hardly any political influence,
perhaps with the exception of Seraphim, whose research was perti-
nent to the German occupational administration in the East. The
coming political struggles would not be won by historical research,
Frank had said in 1935. History proved him right.
Since the various anti-Jewish research institutes all remained safely
outside the university system, they had no bearing on the funda-
mental structures of German higher education. Likewise, they remained
outside the larger international scientific community. Grau only tried
to address this problem when the war was already restricting com-
munication to the area of German military hegemony.
Based on prejudice and only meant to strengthen ideologically
unassailable convictions, the Nazi research on the “Jewish Question,”
an exercise in Legitimationswissenschaft,94 in the end amounted to little
more than a costly propaganda effort accompanying the introduc-
tion of racial laws both in Germany and abroad.

Reinhard Markner, M.A. (1992) Technical University Berlin, researcher,

Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der europäischen
Aufklärung, Halle (1998–2006). Publications on the history of philol-
ogy, linguistics, and freemasonry, among them Friedrich August Wolf
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1999, together with Giuseppe Veltri), Rechtschreibreform
und Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2000, together with Hanno
Birken-Bertsch), and Die Korrespondenz des Illuminatenordens, vol 1 (Tübingen:
Niemeyer, 2005, together with Monika Neugebauer-Wölk and Hermann
Schüttler).

94 Peter Schöttler, ed., Geschichtsschreibung als Legitimationswissenschaft, 1918–1945

(Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1997).

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