Georg Thilenius

Georg Christian Thilenius ( born October 4, 1868 in Soden am Taunus, † December 28, 1937 in Hamburg ) was a physician and anthropologist. From 1904 he was director of the Museum of Ethnology Hamburg.

Life

Thilenius studied from 1888 onwards Medicine at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms University in Bonn and Berlin. He habilitated in 1896 in the field of anatomy at the University of Strasbourg.

In the following years Thilenius undertook extensive research trips to Tunisia and several years in the South Pacific. 1900 Thilenius was appointed extraordinary professor of anthropology and ethnology at the University of Breslau.

Work in Hamburg

In 1904 he was appointed the first director of the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg, a position he held until 1935. Thilenius built the museum swiftly from: 1912 the new building on Rothenbaumchaussee was completed in 1929 and cultivated an extension.

In order to increase the museum's collections planned Thilenius since 1904 a large expedition. 1907 allowed the newly founded Hamburg Science Foundation through the provision of 600,000 Mark this project. From July 1908 to April 1910 could take place with interruption Grosse Hamburger South Sea Expedition, which mainly researching Melanesia and Micronesia devoted to areas were the then German colonies. Thilenius itself was not suitable for tropical climate, he coordinated the expedition from Hamburg. Known members of the expedition were: Friedrich Fülleborn, Otto Reche, Franz Emil Hellwig, Paul Hambruch, Augustin Krämer, Ernst Sarfert and Wilhelm Müller. The expedition was a success, the museum was filled, about 15 000 objects were brought. By 1938, 23 volumes of the scientific results were published.

Thilenius was instrumental in the founding of the Hamburg Colonial Institute, in 1907, he negotiated on behalf of Senator Werner von Melle with State Secretary of the Imperial Colonial Office Bernhard Dernburg in Berlin on the establishment. In 1908 the Colonial Institute was founded and since then Thilenius belonged to the faculty of that institution. From the Institute should later the University of Hamburg emerge, the board Thilenius in the academic year 1920/21 as rector. In 1923 he was appointed Professor of Ethnology. Thilenius was next to Felix of Luschan one of the most influential anthropologists of the early 20th century in Germany.

Policy

Thilenius had become a member of the German People's Party after the First World War and was for these 1921 to 1924 a member of the Hamburg Parliament. In the "seizure of power " of the Nazis, he was on 11 November 1933, the signatories of the commitment of the professors at German universities and colleges to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state.

Works (selection)

• Results of the South Sea Expedition 1908-1910, Hamburg 1927
• The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology, Berlin 1916
• The importance of ocean currents for the colonization of Melanesia, Hamburg 1906