Lothar Zotz and the archaeology in the „Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia“

Abstract

Based on the biography of the German prehistorian Lothar Zotz this paper deals with the archaeology related to university and other archaeological institutions during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia (the „Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia“) between 1939 and 1945. Zotz had been appointed at the German University in 1939 for taking over the prehistoric seminar within a temporary professorship. From here he managed to navigate himself on the top of the academic field by cooperating with different politic actors and institutions such as the „Ahnenerbe“, the Reichserziehungsministerium [Reich Ministry of Education] (REM) and the Reinhard-Heydrich- Foundation. On behalf of the „Ahnenerbe“ he worked with a high degree of self-initiative on bringing the Czech archeology under his, respectively under German control. To forward his own career and for taking part in the research of the „Ahnenerbe“ on paleolithic sites in Moravia he willingly dedicated himself to the national socialist policy. By the example of his biography it is shown, how policy and archaeology during the era of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia have been entangled and how the Germans expanded their influence on the Czech research systematically.