Walther Wüst

Walther Wüst (7 May 1901 – 21 March 1993) was a German Indologist who served as Rector of the University of Munich from 1941 to 1945. He was an ''Oberführer'' in the SS and served as the President of the Ahnenerbe during the Nazi era.

Biography

Walther Wüst was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany on 7 May 1901. Wüst studied Indology and other subjects—including comparative religion, anthropological geography, and racial distribution and migration—at the University of Munich, and became a specialist in the Vedas. He immersed himself in the cultures of Persia and India while studying philology. He received his PhD at the age of 22 with a dissertation on the Rigveda and its relation to Indo-European mythology entitled ''Der Schaltsatz im Rigveda'' ("The Parenthetical Clause in the Rigveda").

After completing his studies, Wüst became a private lecturer in Sanskrit by 1926 and later a professor. In 1927, Wüst married a young woman from Munich named Bertha Schmid, who had given birth to a daughter just two months prior; despite the scandal this may have elicited in Catholic Bavaria, the young Wüst was unbothered since he cared little for Christianity.

He joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933, and subsequently became an agent of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD); he was considered a ''Vertrauensmann'' or informer and spy. It seems Wüst's late enlistment cast doubt on his commitment to the Nazi cause, so he agreed to inform on his university colleagues and students for the SD. Sometime in 1934, he joined the National Socialist Teachers League and the National Socialist German Lecturers League. In early 1935, Wüst was made Professor of Aryan Culture and Linguistics and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich and was considered an expert in not only Indo-European religion, but also the migrations of the "Aryan" race. Notable students of Wüst included Davud Monshizadeh; he was also '' Doktorvater'' (Dissertation Chair) to the linguist Karl Hoffmann.

At the Bruckmann Verlag in Munich, Wüst first met Wolfram Sievers—at the time managing director of the fledgling ''Ahnenerbe''—who subsequently introduced Wüst to Heinrich Himmler. Impressed with Wüst and his research, Siever declared that spending time with the professor was akin to being in "a German cathedral where one gains insight and reflection." Sievers then persuaded Wüst to join the ''Ahnenerbe''. Shortly thereafter, Himmler invited Wüst to his alpine chalet at lake Tegersee where the two men discussed the professor's conviction about an ancient blue-eyed population from the Far East, which excited Himmler. To this end, Himmler appointed Wüst director of a new department inside the ''Ahnenerbe'' named the ''Wortkunde'' that the two established on the spot.

After this meeting, Wüst quickly began taking charge of the ''Ahnenerbe'', adding personnel to the fold and before long there were thirty-eight employees of the organization. Historian Horst Junginger described Wüst as an opportunist who was only too eager to subordinate himself under the authority of the SS-leader (Himmler); thereby making him "a perfect collaborator of the ''Ahnenerbe''." Moreover, given his credentials, Wüst was the "right man" to transform the organization from an assembly of like-minded ''völkisch'' thinkers "into a scientific think tank". Himmler also charged Wüst to give speeches—crafted primarily after the one the professor gave in June 1936 titled "Hitler's ''Mein Kampf'' as a mirror of the Aryan worldview" to members of the SS all over the nation. Prominent themes in the speech included the superiority of the Aryan worldview over the Semitic one and the notion of Hitler's alleged self-sacrificing personality as evidence that proved his innate virtuousness.

His relationship with Himmler notwithstanding, Wüst advanced very quickly in the SS after joining on 26 January 1937; four days later he was a ''Sturmbannführer'' and by 9 November 1942, Wüst had advanced several ranks to an SS-''Oberführer'', a position he held through the end of the Nazi regime. Wüst was generally considered a successful and adaptable figure in the Nazi research network, adept at blending traditional conservative views—including commitments to unbiased scholarship—with key elements of National Socialist ideology.

Walther Wüst worked tirelessly to professionalize the ''Ahnenerbe'', navigating eccentric research demands from Himmler—such as studies on Helgoland’s healing springs, Germanic sexual customs, and runic inscriptions—while recruiting staff and expanding the institute's scope. Despite the often irrational nature of these projects, Wüst complied, believing he was contributing to Germany’s future and drawn by his increasing influence within the SS hierarchy. Himmler, who saw Wüst as a trusted confidant and intellectual equal, empowered him with greater authority, allowing the ''Ahnenerbe'' to absorb rival SS departments. In 1938, the ''Ahnenerbe'' took over the SS Excavations Department, adding archaeological expertise to its previously text-focused mission. This expansion enabled the organization to pursue pseudo-scientific projects aimed at proving the ancient supremacy of the mythical Nordic race, even into the Paleolithic era. In that same year, Wüst was also editing the scholarly journal, ''Wörter und Sachen'' (Words and Things) along with Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities member and fellow linguist, Hermann Güntert.

As one of the heads of a Nazi organization committed to studying the Aryan and Nordic past, Wüst collaborated with scholars from the ''Saarforschungsgemeinschaft'' (Saarland Research Community) at the University of Bonn. These scholars and other members committed to the Nazi version of '' Ostforschung'' also worked with faculty at the ''Institut für die geschichtliche Landeskunde der Rheinlande'' (Institute for the Historical Geography of the Rhineland). Correspondingly, Wüst appears as a key figure within the SS's ideological-scientific apparatus, specifically through his role in the ''Ahnenerbe''. Alongside Wolfram Sievers, he was responsible for recruiting figures like August Hirt and Bruno Beger, who carried out racially motivated anatomical research under SS auspices.

Wüst emphasized the role of universities by theoretically legitimizing the Third Reich’s dominance over Europe. Enthralled by the overwhelming force of the German Wehrmacht, he began contemplating the post-war future and the responsibilities of German academics within it. He was certain that National Socialist scholarship would once again become ''Praeceptor Europae''—Europe’s teacher—and play a vital role in securing Nazi Germany’s supremacy throughout the coming millennium. His commitment to the Nazi cause reveals itself even further when as rector of the University of Munich, he was directly involved in the arrest of Hans and Sophie Scholl, handing them over to the Gestapo.

Soviet archived diary entries from Himmler between 1941 and 1942, reveal that Wüst was present and acted as a translator for a meeting between the ''Reichsführer-SS'' and the Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose. Wüst also appears in diary entries when Himmler was meeting with Dr. Sigmund Rascher about his high-altitude experiments at Dachau and shortly thereafter, he accompanied Himmler to review the extermination process at Auschwitz. Another example of Wüst's prominence within the Nazi regime was not only evidenced by his presence at Himmler's side, but when Reinhard Heydrich was murdered and his body returned to Germany for burial, it was Wüst who gave the SS leader's funeral oration.

Arrest and post-war life

After the end of World War II in Europe, Wüst was arrested by the Office of Military Government, United States. He was interned for forty months after the war in Dachau, but American investigators struggled to build a case against him due to his cautious delegation of responsibilities and the destruction of key documents. Wüst denied any knowledge of human experiments and patently lied about the connection between the ''Ahnenerbe'' and the Institute for Military Scientific Research; instead, he portrayed the ''Ahnenerbe'' as a purely academic institution, frustrating investigators who noted his persistent self-exoneration. Ultimately, Wüst was not tried at Nuremberg and was classified as a "fellow traveler" in 1950, later finding modest work at the Bavarian State Library. Though many former Nazi academics reintegrated into academic life, Wüst remained on the margins, possibly by choice, working on obscure projects such as the role of bears in prehistory. In the 1950s and 60s, renewed investigations by the Central Office in Ludwigsburg uncovered evidence of Wüst’s involvement in SS medical research, including his recommendation of a promotion for a scientist conducting mustard gas experiments on prisoners. However, lacking definitive proof of criminal responsibility, the case was closed in 1972, and Wüst lived out his days claiming innocence. He died on 21 March 1993.

See also

* Hans Reinerth

References

Citations

Bibliography

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wüst, Walther
1901 births
1993 deaths
German Indologists
German male non-fiction writers
German orientalists
German prisoners and detainees
Indo-Europeanists
Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
People from Kaiserslautern
Prisoners and detainees of the United States military
SS-Oberführer
Ahnenerbe members
Nazis convicted of crimes
German Nazi propagandists
White Rose