Otto Höfler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Höfler (born 10 May 1901, died 25 August 1987, in Vienna) was an Austrian scholar of German studies. He was a student of Rudolf Much, and adopted Much's racist "Continuity Theory", based around the idea of continuity of antiquity into the present. Höfler was a friend of Jan de Vries and Georges Dumézil.

After lecturing at the University of Kiel (Sweden) he was appointed professor in Kiel from 1935 to 1938, in Munich from 1938 to 1945, and from 1951 to 1971 in Vienna. His contributions center on studies of Germanic paganism, the continuation of Germanic cultural strata, the Germanic sacral kingship and Männerbünde (secret societies), and Germanic historical phonology.

Höfler published his professorial thesis of 1934, "Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen" (Secret Cultic Societies of the Germanic Peoples) with volkisch publisher Moritz Diesterweg in Frankfurt. Höfler's theses met opposition from Friedrich von der Leyen and Friedrich Ranke, but the book became a favorite of Heinrich Himmler's and became a highly active collaborator in Himmler's project "Ahnenerbe" and a regular contributor to the magazine Germania. In 1937 Höfler joined the NSDAP, rising to prominence as a leading National Socialist academic, overseeing the German translation of Vilhelm Grønbech's World of the Teutons. Höfler's treatment of "Germanic continuity" in the spirit of Much appeared as the lead article in the prestigious Historische Zeitschrift in 1938.

Höfler had been a member of the Nazi Students' Organization since 1922 and an active supporter of the ideology of the SS. But after the war, he was officially categorized as a "geistiger Mitläufer", an official category ascribed to people neither actively involved with, nor actively opposed to Nazi crimes. Höfler view's remained pronouncedly racist during his postwar tenure in Vienna.