
Transcending Professional Denial: Exploring Nazi Anthropology
Monday, March 26, 2007
Presented By
Presented by the Anthropology Section
Speaker: Gretchen Schafft, American University
Discussant: David H. Price, St. Martin’s College
Transcending Professional Denial: Exploring Nazi Anthropology
Gretchen Schafft, PhD
American University
Gretchen E. Schafft is an applied anthropologist at the American University in Washington, DC and will speak about her research into archives in four countries to find out what German and Austrian anthropologists had done in the employ of German National Socialist government from 1933-1945. In particular, she will discuss primary research data that she uncovered at the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives and what it revealed about the gestalt of Nazi anthropology during the Third Reich. She will emphasize the difficulties of bringing this period of discrediting professional history to light and the processes used to deny or mitigate its importance.