Dresden

Recently I found this work online, it is written by Martin Roessler. The EPaper gives a historical overview of Ethnology in the german-speaking countries. He means on page 20, that Ethnology and the NSRegime were subject to reciprocation, but he states, that political influences were stronger on the science, than the other way round. Except that the NSRegime was interested in colonial affairs, ethnologists during WWII pronounced racist stands and the hierarchical order of peoples from the view of an extreme nationalism. Some people in Dresden were Otto Reche´s alumni, notably one Michael Hesch, who wrote a Festschrift for Reche 1939 and who became the director of the Museums of Ethnology and Zoology in 1941. He was a member of the NSParty since 1933 and it seems, that his friendship with Reche was of great help for him, because his NSCareer was furthered in the years after 1941. He had been responsible for erbbiologische Abstammungsgutachten and later moved to Vienna, where he was a member of the Anthropological Society. He not only was scientifically influential during WWII, he also acquired certain ranks in the uniformed NSMilitia, namely one SSRank called Hauptsturmfuehrer. Sadly enough, the Museum of Ethnology´s website has only two or three sentences left for the time of WWII in Dresden.

Dresden

A group to find out more about the Dresden Museum of Ethnology and Institute was formed during the first part of the seminar concerning the german-speaking regions during WWII. The Dresden Museum keeps an old collection since 1560, which was found by Kurfuerst August of Sachsen. The Inventarien describe these collections furthered by the King of Poland, who was August the Strong since 1794. Adolf B. Meyer founded the ethnographical department 1875, to be a part of the Museum of Natural History. Meyer had close contact with Rudolf Virchow and Adolf Bastian, two scientists important for the german-speaking countries. Remember Adolf Bastian and his work with Francis Boas, who later moved to North America. During WWII Dresden was destroyed, but luckily most of the museum collections were saved in time. As early as 1946 the anthropological collection arrived in the Museum.

Here is an excerpt of the time table, the time in question is only touched with some sentences on the website http://www.voelkerkunde-dresden.de/site.php?g=geschichte&css=fc (2007-10-16 04:58 PM):

1940 - 1945
Auslagerung von Archivunterlagen und Sammlungen. Vernichtung eines Teils der in Ausstellungen verbliebenen Großobjekte während der Bombardierung Dresdens.

1945/46/47
Nach Beendigung des II. Weltkrieges Trennung der Museen für Tierkunde und Völkerkunde. Das Museum für Völkerkunde wird der Hauptverwaltung der Staatlichen Museen, Schlösser und Gärten im Lande Sachsen unterstellt.

This Museum of Ethnology has a Wikipedia article here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_f%C3%BCr_V%C3%B6lkerkunde_Dresden (2007-10-16 05:00 PM), where the same contents, as above mentioned, are repeated. Here is a list of Departments in Germany http://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/ethno/links.html#2 (2007-16-10 05:06 PM), this already of big help for students in the seminar held by Professor Gingrich at the University´s Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology.

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The German-Speaking Countries

Gingrich, Andre (2005) The German-Speaking Countries. Ruptures, Schools, and Nontraditions: Reassessing the History of Sociocultural Anthropology in German, In: Barth/Gingrich/Parkin/Silverman, Sydel (2005) One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, PP. 61 - 153

Contents

1 Prelude and Overture: From Early Travelogues to German Enlightenment

2 From the Nationalist Birth of Volkskunde to the Establishment of Academic Diffusionism: Branching Off from the International Mainstream

3 From the Late Imperial Era to the End of the Republican Interlude: Creative Subaltern Tendencies, Larger and Smaller Schools of Anthropology

4 German Anthropology during the Nazi Period: Complex Scenarios of Collaboration, Persecution and Competition

5 Anthropology in Four German-Speaking Countries: Key Elements of Post-World War II Developments to 1989

The following text is an excerpt and overview of the first part in the first chapter to explain critique and research approach.

Ad 1) After George Stocking, the presentist approach to Anthropology nowadays implies criticist and internationally oriented positions. Professor Gingrich uses nontraditions "to refer, on the one hand, to dispersed, hidden, and half-forgotten treasures with little continuity and, on the other, to certain schools with a lot of continuity that, however, do not represent any positive tradition today" (Gingrich 2005: 61). The basic implications of a presentist stand are:

1. Historical traditions that had consequences for sociocultural anthropology as perceived today in an internationally valid sense
2. The international, transnational and global dimensions of today´s anthropological discourses and debates
3. The linguistic and temporal limits of examining the historical record of anthropology in German.

There are three critical consequences of the critical insterest of Professor Gingrich´s approach outlined

1. The explicit embracing of the broad set of values to share, which are secular democracy and humanism. This would necessitate precise ideological criticism and careful, distantiated evaluation
2. The reassessment of hegemonic traditions of the past with relatively little interantional relevance. Peripheral and subaltern traditions never received local recognition and they appear much more interesting now, than what was respected and taught then.
3. A new consideration of the extremely hierarchical nature of academic institutions in the German-speaking countries, "these hierarchical academic positions answered to wider political interests much more explicitely than academic positions elsewhere" (Gingrich 2005: 63).

This part of the book concerning the German-speaking countries goes on with subchapters titled The German Enlightenment, Enlightenment Explorers, Language Studies and First Concepts, Limited Consequences.

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A Scientific Theory Of Culture

Malinowski´s language is quite antiquated. He uses terms like "primitve men", a phrasing not used in anthropology, anymore. The volume is easy to read and very interesting, Malinowski refers to many early anthropologists, like Lewis H. Morgan or James G. Frazer. He explains his view of science thoroughly and concedes a kind of scientific spirit to early human beings. Here are the contents for you:

Contents

Preface (Huntington Cairns)

A Scientific Theory of Culture

I. Culture as the Subject of Scientific Investigation

II. A Minimum Definition of Science for the Humanist

III. Concepts and Methods of Anthropology

IV. What is Culture?

V. Theory of Organized Behaviour

VI. The Concrete Isolates of Organized Behavior

VII. The Functional Analysis of Culture

VIII. What is Human Nature?

IX. The Derivation of Cultural Needs

X. Basic Needs and Cultural Responses

XI. The Nature of Derived Needs

XII. The Integrative Imperatives of Human Culture

XIII. The Instrumentalyl Implemented Vital Sequence

The Functional Theory

Sir James George Frazer

   Index

The book contains Bronislaw Malinowski´s outlines on the theory of culture. His approach is functional and in the chapter General Axioms of Functionalism he provides a list of axioms:

A. Culture is essentially an instrumental apparatus by which man is put in a position the better to cope with the concrete specific problems that face him in his environment in the course of the satisfaction he needs.

B.  It is a system of objects, activities, and attitudes in which every part exists as a means to an end.

C. It is an integral in which the various elements are interdependent.

D. Such activities, attitudes and objects are organized around important and vital tasks into institutions such as the family, the clan, the local community, the tribe, and the organized teams of economic cooperations, political, legal, and educational activity.

E. From the dynamic point of view, that is, as regards the type of activity, culture can be analyzed into a number of aspects such as education, social control, economics, systems of knowledge, belief and morality, and also modes of creative and artistic expression. (Malinowski 1964: 150)

Further on Malinowski states a cultural process, in which human beings are involved. He names three dimensions of this cultural process, which are artifacts, organized groups and symbolisms, whereas Function and form are related (Malinowksi 1964: 155 ff.) In his chapter Function defined, it is a very short one, Malinowski explains his approach through concepts of use or utility and relationship. Later Malinowski speaks of functional isolates, he values legitimate for cultural analyses.

   Malinowski, Bronislaw (1964) A Scientific Theory Of Culture. And Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press

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