Anthropos Heritage

Wilhelm Schmidt was able to inspire and mobilise a number of the young SVD members to undertake a study of ethnology, cultural anthropology, linguistics and/or other related disciplines. Moreover, he was able to convince the SVD leadership of the need for such an education of some of the SVD members. Schmidt had his own thematic interests in that endeavour but the SVDs – inspired by him one way or another – developed their own scholarly interests and were not “mere apprentices fulfilling solely the tasks assigned by the master.”
It is sometimes believed that Schmidt created “a school” of like-minded scholars/researchers who worked for the development and spread of his ideas under his guidance. This is, however, debatable. Perhaps, it would be more appropriate to say that there was a circle of scholars/researchers whom Schmidt inspired, and who worked under that inspiration for some time but quite early on in their careers ventured into researching cultures in their own way. They often felt obliged to make their research material available to Schmidt but were not always happy with the way he employed it. They were, of course, marked by their Roman Catholic priestly formation of their time but they were as well exposed to influences coming from the international connections of the SVD. On the other side, increasingly, these scholars/researchers obtained their academic formation in centres where Schmidt’s ideas were not the agenda of the day (Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig) and they themselves were not very keen on spreading them.

One could draw a following chart to position the SVD scholars from the early generations (i.e. born before 1920) to Schmidt:

See the chart

(only the scholars belonging to the Anthropos circle and later to Anthropos Institute are considered)