Franz Boas in Kiel

Abstract

This paper sheds light on two crucial phases of Franz Boas’s life linked to Kiel: his early academic pursuits leading to his PhD in 1881 and his return fifty years later to deliver a lecture that would become a seminal text in the fight against racism. Boas initially arrived in Kiel in 1879 and completed his PhD on the optical properties of water in 1881. During that time, he had to deal with anti-Semitism, sometimes even with the rapier. In 1931, Boas returned to Kiel University to receive an honorary doctorate for his achievements. At this occasion, he gave a lecture entitled ‘Race and Culture,’ which directly opposed the racist ideologies gaining traction in Germany. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Boas wrote an open letter to Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg, bemoaning the restrictions on freedom and the anti-Semitic actions in Germany. As a result, Boas was blacklisted, and his books were removed from the Kiel University Library, even allegedly burnt. Irrespective of his global significance as a founding father of four-field anthropology, Boas’s connection with Kiel remains little known, perhaps long overshadowed by Kiel University’s reluctance to address its problematic past.