Rathausausstellung 2026 - Tafel 11: »Rassenkunde« im Museum | Town-hall Exhibition 2026 - Panel 11: Race Theory in museums

Case in point: The Hamburg Museum of Ethnology During the German Empire, museums of ethnology focused on foreign cultures and peoples. Works of art and everyday objects from the colonies supposedly gave an insight into cultural life there, while implying an inherent European superiority. Colonial rule was justified more and more on the basis of assumptions about ‘human races’. In 1917, the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology established an Anthropological Department. Walter Scheidt, a leading exponent of German ‘race theory’, took over as director in 1924. In 1933, Scheidt was appointed professor of racial and cultural biology at the University of Hamburg. His Institute of Racial Biology remained on the museum's premises until 1943. Thereafter it was called the Institute for Anthropology, and he remained its head until 1965.