Bernatzik, Hugo A. (1897-1953)
Hugo A. Bernatzik (1897–1953), born in Vienna-Döbling, was one of the best-known anthropologists in the German-speaking world from 1930 to the 1950s. Between 1923 and 1930 he undertook four expeditions to Africa, conducted field research in Oceania and Papua New Guinea in 1932–33, travelled to South East Asia in 1936–37 and to Morocco in 1949–50. His travel books with extraordinary photographic illustrations were reprinted several times and translated into many languages. Bernatzik was a representative of applied anthropology, which he positioned during the Nazi era as “colonial ethnology” and as the basis for modern European colonization. He died of a parasitic tropical infection in 1953 and left behind an important photographic oeuvre, which is accessible at the Bonartes Photographic Institute in Vienna.
Keywords: Applied anthropology | Visual anthropology | Colonial sciences | Nazi anthropology | Travel literature | First half of the 20th century | Children’s drawings
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