Hans Fleischhacker (10 March 1912 – 30 January 1992) was a German

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

with the

Ahnenerbe The Ahnenerbe (, ''ancestral heritage'') operated as a think tank in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. Heinrich Himmler, the ''Reichsführer-SS'' from 1929 onwards, established it in July 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promot ...

and a commander in the SS of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. He worked with

Bruno Beger Bruno Beger (27 April 1911 – 12 October 2009) was a German racial anthropologist, ethnologist, and explorer who worked for the ''Ahnenerbe''. In that role he participated in Ernst Schäfer's 1938–39 journey to Tibet, helped the Race and Settl ...

on some projects, making measurements of Jewish people. He was with Beger at Auschwitz when the people were selected to be part of the Jewish skull collection, a project of the

. At their post-war trial, Beger was found guilty of full knowledge of the scope of that project, while Fleischhacker was found not to be aware that the purpose of the measurements was to select the 86 people to be murdered at Natzweiler-Struthof camp.

Education and joining the SS

After studying at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

and the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

Fleischhacker went to work at the Institute of Racial Research in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

in 1937, joining the SS at the same time.

Second World War

In 1940 he also joined both the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

and the

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

. Before long Fleischhacker saw service with the

SS Race and Settlement Main Office The SS Race and Settlement Main Office (''Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS'', RuSHA) was the organization responsible for "safeguarding the racial 'purity' of the SS" within Nazi Germany. One of its duties was to oversee the marriages of SS p ...

. Following the invasion of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

he was sent to Litzmannstadt as part of this group in order to perform measurements on

ethnic Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

and determine whether they were suitable for resettlement programmes in the east or simply for

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

. His main base of operations was at

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

. In 1942 Fleischhacker was, along with Heinrich Rübel, chosen by

to work with him in an SS project to determine the racial type applicable to the

Mountain Jews Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews also known as Juhuro, Juvuro, Juhuri, Juwuri, Juhurim, Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews ( he, יהודי קווקז ''Yehudey Kavkaz'' or ''Yehudey he-Harim''; russian: Горские евреи, translit=Gorskie Yevrei ...

of the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

, a group that did not readily fit the Nazi's existing ethnic paradigms. Fleischhacker was chosen for this task due to a thesis he was preparing at the time dealing with skin color amongst

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. The following year he worked again with Beger, this time at

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

where again his duty was to measure physical features of the inmates in order to determine to which race they belonged. He took measurements of the persons selected for the

Jewish skull collection The Jewish skull collection was an attempt by the Nazis to create an anthropological display to showcase the alleged racial inferiority of the "Jewish race" and to emphasize the Jews' status as ''Untermenschen'' ("sub-humans"), in contrast to the G ...

, who were sent from Auschwitz to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp to be gassed.

Post-war trial and work

After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Fleischhacker was held in various internment camps until appearing before the board of arbitration in 1948, where he was designated ''Mitläufer'' - not a fully committed Nazi but one who nonetheless went along with

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

. He was able to return to anthropological research at the

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...

in November 1950 and subsequently worked as a researcher and lecturer at the

University of El Salvador The University of El Salvador or Universidad de El Salvador (UES) is the oldest and the most prominent university institution in El Salvador. It serves as the national university of the country. The main campus, Ciudad Universitaria, is located ...

, then at the Tübingen Anthropology Institute and returned to the Goethe Institute in Frankfurt until 1968. Along with Beger and Wolf-Dietrich Wolff, Fleischhacker came under investigation for his time at Auschwitz. A case was not brought against the men until 1970, as their connection to the Jewish skull project was not known until then. Ultimately the case against him was dismissed the following year as there was insufficient evidence to prove that he knew he was involved in extermination and only Beger was convicted.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleischhacker, Hans 1912 births 1992 deaths German anthropologists Auschwitz concentration camp personnel SS-Obersturmführer University of Jena alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Goethe University Frankfurt faculty Waffen-SS personnel 20th-century anthropologists