How German Heritage Has Been Ideologically Abused and a Note on Reframing These Misleading Narratives
| Last updated on January 29th, 2025
An audio reading of this post is available for readers who prefer to learn audibly, access at:
Heritage abuse for ideological means is ‘the use of the past for political legitimation, and even cultural warfare against the heritage of opposing ethnic, national, or racial groups’ (Härke, 2002). You see, heritage lends itself to manipulation and abuse for ideological motives by the nature of archaeological evidence and the way research is conducted to come to conclusions.
In essence, material culture and archaeological heritage are interpreted at the discretion of researchers - a prehistoric site does not tell you what it is, a prehistoric object cannot tell you what it meant or was used for in the past, and a prehistoric people without writing cannot tell you exactly who they were. Archaeology is one of the most recurrent victims of pseudo-scientific claims due to the heavy reliance on interpretation, even the most scientific of approaches requires significant extrapolation to add context and meaning to findings.
"a prehistoric site does not tell you what it is, a prehistoric object cannot tell you what it meant or was used for in the past, and a prehistoric people without writing cannot tell you exactly who they were"
In the case of pre-war and Nazi Germany, this type of abuse was carried out in which academics claim to have ‘discovered’ evidence of a German people and past where they evolved and ruled supreme, and a researcher with enough prestige, a title, and a position in a respected institution can claim to know best - for how can the public refute the claims when they have not studied the site for themselves. Equally, evidence can be fabricated and manipulated when it is material. The jargon-laden writing in archaeology can also obscure meaning alongside the minimal evidence and maximal interpretation required for understanding prehistory Arnold (2006). It is because of this ambiguity and the frequent need to revisit and reinterpret evidence as the field advances, that archaeology needs to be introspective and understand its role as a historic authority; consistently the truth has been veiled to push the political agenda and doctrines of questionable regimes, and the Nazi regime is just one in a series of governance systems that has manipulated the past to manipulate people and it continues to this day.
"It is because of this ambiguity and the frequent need to revisit and reinterpret evidence as the field advances, that archaeology needs to be introspective and understand its role as a historic authority"
Germany provides one of the most notable case studies of the abuse of archaeology and history for political and ideological objectives. Nationalism became fervorous in the Third Reich following a search for common Germanic roots in all nations under the 1871 unification; the Nazi myth of the ‘Aryan master race’ was propagated to claim all German people of the time were direct heirs of a supposed superior culture (Härke, 2002). And following World War Two (WWII) there was a continued quest in the East to prove Marx’s, Engels’, and Lenin’s theories on social evolution were true of the German race. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, the Western social and political models of objectivity were brought to the East and the virtual eradication of such skewed racial archaeology came about (ibid.). But theretofore, Gustav Kossinna’s settlement archaeology was instrumental to the foundational beliefs of indoctrinated archaeologists during the Nazi rise to power and throughout WWII.
The new nation in 1871 was created from numerous territories of German speaking people who had no real sense of national unity (Arnold, 1990; Young, 2002). Gustav Kossinna was a language expert and prehistorian, and he used this to attempt to prove a common ancestry and history in all these nations through his ‘Kulturkreis’ theory; the theory used archaeological material culture to define ethnic groups (ibid.) In his work prehistoric Germans were seen as a superior race that spread throughout Europe - Germans of Stone Age were believed to have developed an advanced culture from the Baltic sea, which spread via the Alps to Italy and Greece (Aschwandern, 2023). It was using evidence to support a pre-decided conclusion – confirmation bias – and the conclusion of a Germanic master race was the perfect springboard for Nazi ideas of German superiority. Kossinna’s archaeological specialisation was also the perfect basis for manipulation because prehistorical sources are scant which provides scope to portray a romanticised and knowingly falsified story of the past that serves ideological ends (Schöbel, 2007). Nazi archaeologists chose to continue using prehistory over the more popular approach of using classical archaeology for propaganda, because prehistoric archaeology was “deemed more suitable for confirming the supremacist ideology of ‘the Nordic race’” (Bouchard, 2011), and this was particularly true to Hans Reinerth – one of the most prominent proponents of using prehistory for Nazi propaganda.
It seems unusual that academics should come to knowingly be complicit in manipulating archaeology under the Nazi regime, but the work of many archaeologists’ had previously been ignored and thus they seized the chance to be recognised, whilst some had also shared the party’s ideals (Arnold, 1990; Young, 2002). Hans Reinerth was motivated by both recognition and his own politics. An archaeologist at the University of Tübingen, famous for his excavations at the prehistoric lake-dwelling at Federsee (Härke, 2002). Times were tough and Reinerth saw a chance in being recognised in the world of academia, above the field of prominent Classical archaeologists (Schöbel, 2007). He was a huge proponent of Kossinna’s settlement archaeology and on Kossinna’s death he wrote the infamous paper ‘Deutsche Vorgeschichte im Dritten Reich’ on the prehistory of Germany in the Third Reich (ibid.). It outlined his agenda on everything from education to homogenisation, a reichs-institute, promotion of museums and regional heritage departments, and a central publication for German prehistory – his beliefs on the role of German prehistory were in line with the narrative that the Nazi party would later place him in charge of pushing.
With the rise of the Nazi party he saw that toeing the party line in his field had great potential for his career, in 1933 he said “to return to being a great, united people, we must make contact with that time when the core of the Nordic race was still pure and uncorrupted, along with a glorious culture that influenced all of Europe. That is the period of Germanic antiquity, the German prehistory” – a line which matched Kossinna’s beliefs and the Nazi’s line of German superiority – and this led to his subsequent appointment by Rosenberg in 1934 to ‘Reich Deputy of German Prehistory’ for the "purification and Germanisation of the German prehistory" (Haßmann, 2002). The significance of this was the power he held in abusing historical knowledge and his reputation as a scholar to push misleading narratives that fed into Nazi ideology: it was the propagandisation of a prehistory in which Germany was a superior. It had considerable influence and he fought within the discipline to fight against those who were opposed to the missuses of research, consciously manipulating facts (Aschwandern, 2023). For him, prehistory was a political weapon to justify the German policy of conquest.
Hans Reinerth’s political motives were instrumental in creating false stories from lake dwelling settlements such as Federsee and Pfhalbauten. The Pfhlbaumuseum consists of idealised reconstructions based on the Wasserburg Buchau at Federsee which was excavated by Hans Reinerth himself – where the reconstructions were meant to show that lake-dwellers presided in water in stilt houses rather than on land where in reality such stilt houses were actually just used as flood support. This was just one misrepresentation of German prehistory. With Reinerth taking over the Pfahlbaumuseum, Unteruhldingen, in 1937 the line of ‘jolly lake dwellers’ was twisted into fearsome Germanic warriors that fitted with the prehistory that politics wanted to push; with claims of “Germanic cultural supremacy”, expansionism, and superiority (Schöbel, 2007). To spread such propaganda, a travelling exhibition "Lebendige Vorzeit" (Living Antiquity) was developed and ultimately renamed: "Our Ancestors Heritage Obliges" (ibid.). Scale models of the past dwellings were on display in front of swastika symbols, and characters acting as Germanic warriors portrayed life in the Bronze age beneath propaganda slogans (ibid.). A “Fuhrer’s House” was also built in the reconstruction in a prominent position despite having no archaeological evidence to support the structure ever having existed.
The obscenity of this is hard to comprehend – most countries today see an historical exhibition as an important and essential part of our cultural education, with the expectation that it has been thoroughly researched by experts in the field and rigorously checked. We can take a look to some of the Codes and Principles set out by the European Association of Archaeologists to see the requirements for archaeologists today that we see lacking in the research undertaken under Nazi rule:
1b Archaeologists in Society
iii. Archaeologists should have regard for the interests and viewpoints of all stakeholders concerning the past and its remains, considering that archaeology is a scientific activity in the most comprehensive sense, and works for the benefit of humanity.
vi. Archaeologists should be accountable for their actions and decisions to the public and must remain transparent and open to any scrutiny that is deemed necessary by the relevant legal bodies.
vii. Archaeologists must not exploit their position to gain undue advantages, including financial profit for themselves, their family or associates, nor should they use their capacity to further their private interests or those of external parties
2b Ethical treatment of archaeological human remains
2) The EAA concedes that various anthropologists and archaeologists have, in the past, formulated research designs and hypotheses based on the racist fallacy that culture is inherited biologically, and thus that culture is linked to superficial physiological characteristics (such as, for example, skin pigmentation). Any theory which implies that people of different physiological appearance are culturally superior or inferior, or more or less advanced in evolution, has no scientific foundation.
3) Archaeologists are called upon to vigorously reject any study or display of human remains that seeks to portray non-European people as examples of “primitive” (in the sense of uncivilised) culture. The differences between cultural groups are attributable to, for example, geographical, historical, political, economic, and social factors.
We can see today that with such codes of conduct, alongside the need for peer-review in any academic work it should be near impossible to falsify or manipulate heritage in the same way that Reinerth and the Nazi party did.
There are other cases in which history was used to spread eugenic lies, notably in the field of evolution with ‘Social Darwinism’ emphasising that the Aryan race had evolved to a higher level due to harsher climates for sure evidence of racial inequality (Weikart, 2013). This was taught in classrooms, and published in the writings of Nazi anthropologists. However, acknowledging how local prehistory was manipulated and influential to conveying racist Nazi ideology is critical in our understanding of the importance of the way we portray the past in politics (Härke, 2002).
Because - the consequences of such abuse? Well, it goes beyond simply gaining support for political ideologies, to the justification of ‘ethnic cleansing’ by mass genocide. Archaeology, and prehistoric archaeology in particular, was not just used to instil a sense of patriotism in a weak nation but under the Nazi regime it was used to support the idea of German cultural superiority stemming from that notion of an ‘Aryan’ or ‘Nordic’ race that had evolved to a higher level than other races (Weikart, 2013), and thereby justify the ethnic cleansing of supposed weaker peoples. Reinerth was also the leading scientist of Amt Rosenberg. The Amt Rosenberg was an organisation of Nazi archaeologists based on nationalist ideology and founded by Alfred Rosenberg, racial theorist (Schöbel, 2007). They sought to find evidence of German superiority – as Reinerth was evidently doing in the lines he pushed on German prehistory - in order shape the ethnic, cultural, and racial basis of the Nazi Final Solution. It was eugenics; an abhorrent justification for obtaining Lebensraum (‘living space’) through racial and cultural extermination.
A Note on Reframing
In light of all this – how has the questionable past of these sites been acknowledged or amended? The Federsee museum website lacks any acknowledgement of its history, a section on the website with a timeline of the museum’s history starts at 1998 with the open air structures of four village sections. On the website for the Buchau Society for Local History it acknowledges the modern version of the society, but not the original excavations. What is more, the audio guide ‘The Federsee Musuem and the Buchau Society for Local History’ opens that the site was first worked on in 1919, by the society for antiquity and local history. There only vague references to its past in the audio: ‘It soon became one of the most unique excavation projects’, ‘with the help of the university of Tubingen a total of 5 prehistoric settlements were almost completely excavated’, ‘Sadly there were also long breaks on the archaeology, especially following the outbreak of WWII’.
The Pfhalbauten website in translation makes more of an attempt to acknowledge its past noting that “During the Nazi era, it became a plaything for various interest groups in cultural policy due to its public impact.”. In the museum itself there is one board detailing who Hans Reinerth was with just a short note saying: “Reinerth lost his formerly good name as a scientist because of his work within the scope of the Nazi prehistoric research”.
In spite of this, there exists a rich body of research dedicated to studying how these lake-dwelling settlements were and prehistory was exploited in the past - which provides the source for much of the content of this article – seeking to highlight what narratives were falsified for nationalist propaganda in order to correct them. After the war, Reinerth’s illegal activities came to light when Ukranian artefacts were seized revoking Reinerth’s excavation rights and the SS Headquarters in Berlin released publications discrediting Reinerth over the ‘Pfahlbau question’ over whether lake dwellers lived on stilts on water or dry land – and he was mocked as ‘Reinerth the stilt house romanticits’ (Schöbel, 2007).
Focusing on the exploits of Hans Reinerth and the prehistoric research undertaken under Nazi rule, it is evident that the abuse and manipulation of archaeological evidence can be dangerously instrumental in ideological propaganda. The field must not only endeavour to learn from this to implement guidelines and precautions to mitigate the abuse of the past, but actively amend erroneous research, with public sites becoming more transparent about how they were previously misused for corrupt political motives.
This remains ever important today as we see examples of archaeology still being used as propaganda. In China, archaeology is being used to justify rule over Xinjiang (The Economist, 2024). Excavations outside Kashgar at the site of Mo’er are being used to claim that they have found hard evidence for Xinjiang being part of China since ancient times – positing that artefacts discovered at the temple are similar to those dug up in an area known to be dominated by the Han and that parts of the temple are built in “Han Buddhist” style (ibid.) These are being used to support brutal rule over Xinjiang – with Uyghurs and other Muslims of Xinjiang being put through camps to be forced into Han Chinese culture. It is frightening how this echoes the way in which the Germans used the past to justify brutal control over peoples deemed as ‘other’ – it is for this reason that archaeology must do its upmost to retain rigour in the discipline and be wary of how the reliance of interpretation leaves space for significant manipulation. As the discipline advances and scientific methods involving isotopic analysis and GIS are used more widely, we can hope to do the up-most to leave no room for such hateful abuse of the past to push twisted ideological and political narratives.
Bibliography
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