The Exile of Wilhelm Schmidt, S.V.D., from Austria
Causes and consequences

Ernest Brandewie


Wilhelm Schmidt was a man who wore many hats. Born in 1868 in West¬phalia, he joined the religious congregation of the Society of the Divine Word in Steyl, Holland, where he was ordained a priest in 1892. After teaching in a mission seminary (Holy Cross in Silesia) for one year, Fr. Arnold Janssen, the Founder of the congregation, gave Schmidt permission to study at the University of Berlin; after three semesters he was transferred in 1895 to St. Gabriel’s, the Society’s new major seminary in Mödling near Vienna, where he spent the next 43 productive years of his life, until he was forced to go into exile in 1938; he was 70 years old at the time. Why was he forced, or at least strongly encouraged, to go into exile? Four main reasons can be offered, none of them related to what had made him so well-known in the first place, namely his work as an ethnologist of the religions of early people.

Schmidt as Theologian

Before inquiring into the reasons for Schmidt’s exile, it might be enlightening, and perhaps surprising, to see to what extent Schmidt was, indeed, a theologian. Surprising, because most who know Schmidt at all probably think of him as an ethnologist, first of all, who used the method of culture circles to prove, at least to his own satisfaction, that the representatives of the ethnologically oldest people all had in their religious repertoire the notion of a Highest Being, someone who resembled a High God, a Supreme Being, an Ultimate Reality, or simply God. In addition, he postulated, this time wearing the hat of a theologian, that the widespread nature of this ethnographic fact could be explained by causal thinking, but he would go further and say it could most economically and really only be explained by a primitive revelation, by an Uroffenbarung, for which he was roundly criticized. This was not science but theology, which had no place in science in the thinking of the time; therefore, Schmidt, who claimed to be scientific in his work, was not being scientific because he was not doing science.
The theological interest of Schmidt was much more basic and extensive, however, than primeval revelation. All of his work as an ethnologist, in one sense, was theological; he intended, simply, to offer a sixth proof of the existence of God, an ethnological proof, to supplement the five proofs of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Ursprung der Gottesidee, all twelve volumes, could be read as an extended apologetics. This is reinforced in the work of Constantin Gutberlet, who wrote a very popular manual of apologetics which was used by generations of seminarians in its various editions. The first volume of this three-volume set influenced Schmidt’s later work the most. In the first edition (1888), which would have been the one Schmidt used as a seminarian, Gutberlet says in the introduction that he intends to defend the faith in the context of the times, which attacks religion from the perspectives of science and of history, which have combined in the new science of comparative religion. Among other issues that challenged the apologetics of the time, the existence of God and the fact of revelation as well as the immortality of the soul and free will were very prominent. In concluding his introduction, Gutberlet states that:

„The tremendous growth of the science of comparative religion offers apologetics the opportunity to pay special attention to this dimension and not to leave the laying of the foundations and the defense of natural religion to philosophy. This new science [of comparative religion] can be made to serve the defense of religion, as I hope to show in the following pages. Most comparative religionists use their science to explain the essence, origin [Ursprung], and development of religion in a purely natural way, as a product of the human mind and nothing more, or even as a confused mistake of human reasoning.“ (1888,5)

In the second section of the first volume, Gutberlet occupies himself with questions of the existence of religion. In the comparative religion part he mentions the Australian aborigines and Tasmanians, the Melanesians and Andaman Islanders, Hottentots, Bushmen, American Indians, as well as others, many of them the same groups Schmidt dealt with so extensively later on, precisely, as here, from the perspective of religion. As later editions appeared, Gutberlet spent proportionately more time on primitives. The range also increases. In the fourth edition, published in 1914, Schmidt’s own work in comparative religion is widely quoted. The student is beginning to outstrip the master, at least in this one domain. Gutberlet influenced Schmidt in many ways and many of his ideas found a clear echo in his work.
After Schmidt had finished three semesters at the University of Berlin, he wrote a report to the Superior General, at the time Fr. Arnold Janssen, who was also the founder of the Society of the Divine Word, in which he explained why he emphasized linguistics and Middle Eastern languages during his studies. The first reason was their importance for the study of the Sacred Scriptures whence came many attacks against the Church. The third reason given was to study the special relationship which scholastic philosophy, then the official philosophy of the Church, had with Jewish and Muslim philosophy. The second reason, quoting Schmidt’s own words, was:

„2. For the scientific study of comparative religion. This, too, is an arsenal from which the enemies of the Church take their arguments in order to prove that all religions are only the result of natural factors and natural development, whereas the proper study of this science places the supernatural character of our religion as well as the preeminence of its inner nature and its external reality in a much brighter light. It seems to me that a mission society should be all the more engaged in this study because it comes into direct contact in its work with so many different religions.“

In this report we can read the program of much of Schmidt’s productive life, beginning with the work he did in comparative religion and the reasons why he founded the Anthropos journal. He contributed, moreover, to Apologetics directly in the lengthy piece he wrote for another popular work directed at educated laity.
It can hardly be said that Schmidt was a professional theologian. As an applied, pastorally-oriented theologian, however, he had much more influence. During the 1920s, for example, he was heavily engaged in the Volksliturgie movement. In 1918, in Kiev, he and Fr. Pius Parsch, who became world-renowned in this movement, discussed Schmidt’s ideas in this area. Later, writing about the pamphlets which Schmidt prepared in German and Latin for Sunday High Mass at St. Gabriel’s, Parsch had the following to say about Schmidt’s role:

„From this mustard seed grew a great tree which has cast its shadow over the entire world, the people’s liturgical movement.“

This influence is confirmed by K. Amon in an article written about the people’s liturgical Mass reform:

„The plan [on the part of Pius Parsch] to prepare small booklets containing the High Mass responses for Sundays and Feast days [Hochamthefte] which would consist of both the changeable and unchangeable parts of the Mass, to make it [the liturgy] more understandable to participants, was developed as the consequence of a conversation with the ethnologist W. Schmidt.

Schmidt was also engaged in organizing and directing retreats, concen¬trating especially on people from Vienna and the university. He also preached several series of sermons one night a week over a year’s time on the life of Christ. Sometimes as many as 900 people came to listen to him. He assembled this into a two-volume book titled Ein Jesus-Leben, which finally got published in 1948. The book did not have much success. It was a very pious and personal book, but the time for this sort of life of Christ had passed. It remains as an example of Schmidt’s piety, which is difficult to appreciate today. His was the piety of solemn High Masses with polyphony and incense, the piety of Benediction and the rosary, a piety that was very devotional and had much sentimentality connected with it. Perhaps too much was thrown out with Vatican II with its new approach to piety. Certainly the present-day approach to piety does not make it easier to understand Schmidt or the impact he could have on his intellectual contemporaries.
Though Schmidt was not a professional theologian, in the pastoral work he did he got in contact with many people and exercised much influence over them. This would be enough to make the Nazis aware of his existence. But Schmidt did not have to go into exile in any direct way because of his theology. Why then did he go into exile when he did?


First Reason: Antisemitism

The first reason to be discussed for his exile has to do with the antisemitism of his time. Schmidt’s writings on race alerted the attention of the Nazis. Ever since he wrote his early book on the place of pygmies in the evo¬lutionary history of mankind, Schmidt fancied himself an expert on racial matters. In later years, much of his interest in racial issues was prompted by State-Church politics. This was evident already in an interesting book he wrote in 1920 on the need and salvation of the German spirit in which he looked for the root reasons why Germany lost the First World War and what needed to be done to remedy Germany’s condition. In this book also his antisemitism can be clearly detected. This came strongly to the fore again in Austria in the 1920s and 1930s, the time of the First Republic. The relations between Church, State and antisemitism, especially in politics, were involved and complex and constantly kept changing.
Schmidt lived in Vienna at the turn of the century, when the city and the country were in ferment. Vienna was one of the creative hot spots in Europe at the time with a leading university in the forefront of almost everything. Its political life was equally dynamic. It was here, at this time, that Schmidt got his education in practical politics. His choice of party would have been the Christian Social Party under the leadership of Dr. Karl Lueger. Every party, and there were many of them, in one way or the other, related themselves to Jews; in one way or the other they were antisemitic and used this as part of their political platform to further their cause.
Without doubt Schmidt, too, was antisemitic. He blamed the Jews for their disproportionate influence in the media and education, for secularism, materialism, liberalism, growing immorality, freemasonry — you name it, the Jews were blamed for it. Schmidt would also go along with the widespread Christian notion common at the time that the Jews were largely responsible for their own problems by calling down upon them the curse of Christ’s crucifixion: „Let his blood be upon us and upon our children!“ (Mt 27,25). Because of their two thousand year long dispersal, Schmidt also claimed that the mental structure of the Jews was so different that they were no longer a Volk, and all this could well have a secondary and negative effect on their physical nature, whatever that was supposed to mean. In all of this Schmidt was expressing in his own work the ambivalence and confusion of many others in Austria at the time of the Nazi Anschluss, or Union.
Yet there was a catch. In the final edition of a book, Rassen und Völker (1946 edition), topics on which he had written and lectured over the years since at least 1926, Schmidt himself describes the history of this work, especially in its 1935 edition. The work was put on the Nazi index of forbidden books. Why? Because he was adamantly opposed to the extreme Nazi version of racial history as applied more and more harshly to the Jews as the Nazis consolidated their power. He refused to go along with the growing physical, racial, inborn, genetic basis the Nazis claimed for all of the evil influence of the Jews. In the eyes of the Nazis this rejection was made worse because Schmidt was widely known and respected; by many he was recognized as one of the Catholic authorities on racial questions.
Because Schmidt was so prominent, and a Catholic priest as well, he has been chosen and quoted by several people as a good example of those who, by their Christian antisemitism, contributed to the cultural base and way of thinking about the Jews on which the more radical racist antisemitism of the Nazis could be more easily constructed. Although actually opposed to Nazi ideology even to the point of being forced into exile, Schmidt, and others like him, facilitated the Nazi takeover by their own writings against the Jews. They were a good preparation for the subsequent successful acceptance of the Nazi radical ideology. Another article by Edouard Conte also uses Schmidt as an example of one who fostered Nazi racist thinking by showing that different groups of people can be placed on a hierarchical scale, some being more advanced than others. His argument is subtle, sometimes hard to follow, and not always convincing. In part he tries to address too many issues while part of the difficulty is Schmidt himself, who was not always consistent in his thinking over time, most inconsistent perhaps in his understanding of two key terms, namely culture and race. Add the term Volk to this mix and the changes, scientific, political and popular, which these expressions underwent over Schmidt’s long life time, then the possibilities of confusion and misunderstanding multiply.
To sum up, there remain basically three positions regarding Schmidt’s position on race, each of which can be documented:
1. Because he opposed the Nazi hard-line position on race, he was forced into exile;
2. His position on race had little impact on his exile;
3. Schmidt’s work on race was well-known and actually helped promote the Nazi position. For those who take this last position his views on race were certainly not the reason for his exile.


Second Reason for Exile: the Catholic University of Salzburg

This brings us to the second possible reason why Schmidt had to leave Austria as suddenly and surreptitiously as he did, namely his work to develop a Catholic University of Salzburg. This effort almost certainly played a part in Schmidt’s exile. The day after Hitler’s troops marched over the border of Austria on March 11, 1938, the police and Nazi storm troopers (SA) came to St. Gabriel’s to look for weapons. After they left, Schmidt and others began to burn anything in their correspondence and files that might be incriminating. „I did the same thing,“ he writes, „and burned many items that had to do with [the university of] Salzburg.“
Spearheaded by the Benedictines, there had long been an interest in developing higher Catholic education in Salzburg. Schmidt got involved in the 1930s and was put in charge of the commission to begin the immediate preparations to open such a university. He was also supposed to become the first president. There was much opposition to the idea from various quarters, but when the bishops of Austria took over the project, with the blessing and support of Pius XI and of Rome, it began to move forward. Schmidt became closely and very visibly identified with the university, which was to be Catholic in every sense. It was to show the world that Catholics could do good science, a point he had vigorously made already in preparation for the appearance of the first volume of the Anthropos journal he founded in 1909. Science and Catholicism were mutually supportive and each could benefit from the insights and discoveries of the other. The Catholic University of Salzburg would also be a bulwark against the new heathenism of the Nazis, which was marked by their attempt to build a religion out of the sentimental mists of old German and Teutonic heathenism. He had often mentioned this thrust of the Party in his speeches and writings. Also, as the one whom the bishops had made responsible, Schmidt set about contacting and hiring people for the new university. These were well-known in their fields, most of them German, many of whom, for one reason or another, had been retired (read fired) from their position as soon as the Nazis had established themselves firmly in control in Germany. None of this activity, conducted with the leading ecclesiastical and civil authorities of Austria, would have raised Schmidt’s esteem in the eyes of the Nazis.
Schmidt put a great deal of effort in his attempts to found the Catholic University of Salzburg. The project faced opposition from many quarters, but it moved forward slowly. That it moved forward at all when it did was largely due to Schmidt’s efforts and political skills, until the Nazi takeover put the whole notion on hold — on hold, because once Schmidt began some¬thing, he rarely left it drop until it was finished. He could not just let an undertaking so near and dear to his heart die out. His ability to organize and synthesize vast amounts of data and large numbers of people to achieve the goals he set for himself was prodigious and surely his strongest suit. In 1945, therefore, immediately after the war, Schmidt again took up the idea of opening a Catholic university in Salzburg. But times had changed and even though Schmidt continued to exert great efforts to gather support, to ensure funding for the projected university, to round up professors, all was finally to no avail. Post war conditions made it impossible for the Austrian church to support such an enterprise and Schmidt himself was by now quite an old man. In 1953, at the age of 85, he was finally forced to give up his efforts on behalf of the university. The final end to the idea of establishing a Catholic university in Salzburg came in 1964 when a State university opened its doors to students in Salzburg. There was no more need for a Catholic university.


Third Reason for Exile: Church-State Politics

The final two reasons for Schmidt’s exile are closely related and are probably the main reasons why he chose to leave his beloved Austria. Schmidt was intensely involved in politics, had been all his life, had written on political issues and been enmeshed in political controversies. This time, how¬ever, to be engaged in politics could literally be deadly.
In some political ways Schmidt was very close to Nazi ideology. When Germany was in the process of annexing Austria in 1938, many of Schmidt’s Greater Germany sentiments which he had cultivated before he had even moved to Austria came back. Austria, truncated after the First World War, would again be strong if united with Germany. When the Anschluss was officially proclaimed on March 13, 1938, Schmidt immediately wanted to give a lecture to the SVD community on the World Historical meaning of the union of Austria and Germany, returning to the thesis of two political books he had written during the First World War. Now, as then, he was impressed with the geopolitical possibilities of the union. He never got to give the lecture. His religious superior saw to that by asking him for a complete, written copy of what he was going to say.
Schmidt thought there was a possibility of working with the Nazis for the improvement of family life. In the early 1930s Schmidt became heavily involved in matters that related to the family and family welfare issues. Austria, and especially Vienna, was suffering a sharp decline in birth rates, because of contraception, because of abortion, even because of infanticide. Large families, becoming more rare every year, needed more State and other community support, Schmidt felt. Hitler, too, fostered large families; the Nazis had a Bund der Kinderreichen (League for Large Families). Their basic starting points, however, were quite different. Schmidt’s concerns were summed up in Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii published on December 31, 1930. Hitler’s interest was to have soldiers, cannon fodder if you will; he could care less how or by whom they were produced, as long, of course, as they were Aryans. The Lebensborn movement in Germany should be sufficient proof of this.
Schmidt also thought the Church and the Nazis could cooperate in their concern for the physical and spiritual betterment of workers. The Nazis had successfully alleviated the unemployment of workers when they came into power in Germany. Austria and its Church were also concerned about the condition of workers, evidenced in Schmidt’s work by his proposals and efforts to build more churches and to bring the Church closer to the workers where they lived. It was a tenuous link, but Austria kept stretching to accommodate Hitler and the Nazi party. The same could be said of each other’s interest in the youth and youth movements, again, however, for very different reasons.
Schmidt — and Hitler — were both against Bolshevism and communism. Whether this made Schmidt feel a positive affinity with Hitler and the Nazis would be difficult to prove, but there is an interesting wrinkle related to this relationship. From 1922 to 1924, dangerous times in Russia, Pope Pius XI sent an SVD priest, a Fr. Gehrmann, to Russia to direct papal relief services. This priest had been a student of Schmidt’s. When he returned from Russia to make a report to Pius XI, the Papal Secretary of State said he should feel free to consult with Schmidt before writing his report. He did so and Schmidt convinced him to move from a policy of reconciliation with Russia, which was also the Vatican’s policy at the time, to one in which he suggested to the Pope to: „proceed against the Communism in control now in Russia, to present it as reprehensible, and to condemn it.“ Hitler, in the meantime, had been presenting himself as the savior of Western Civilization against the Bolshevik threat. This stance and claim must have justified many Catholics to support Hitler, especially after the Pope did finally condemn Communism on March 19, 1937. Shortly before this, however, on March 11 of the same year he had also condemned Nazism as racist and anti-Christian, hence Schmidt’s concern with the revival of old Teutonic paganism under the Nazi regime.
In many ways, it seemed that Schmidt, initially at least, felt he could coopt the Nazis and turn them to help the Church and its work. He approached Franz von Papen, the Nazi-German ambassador in Vienna, for example, to enlist his help in sending money from Germany to Fu Jen University in Peking and to help Steyl in other currency exchange problems the Society was having. He knew Josef Bürckel, the Nazi Gauleiter of Vienna, as well as Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who became chancellor of the new Nazi government of Austria. Another close colleague and collaborator in the University of Vienna, the archeologist Oswald Menghin, was a fervent Nazi, a rather secret one until the Anschluss, who was appointed Minister of Education. Dr. Emil Möller, Schmidt’s friend and classmate from early years in Westphalia, a priest and convinced Nazi, had been involved in the negotiations that had gone on between the Nazis and the Catholic Church in Germany; Schmidt thought the two of them might be able to work out an arrangement between the Church in Austria and the Nazis, which could then become a model for the Church in Germany. Schmidt also tried to enlist him in the effort to lay aside the money that had been collected for the Catholic University of Salzburg (300,000 Marks). Nothing of this, needless to say, was successful.
One might raise the question: if Schmidt knew so many high-ranking Austrian and German Nazis, he should have had nothing to fear. Why did he not remain in Austria? He „knew“ them, yes. He had worked with some of them before, e.g. Oswald Menghin who had applied Schmidt’s theory of culture circles to archeology, and Dr. Emil Möller, an art historian, he had known from his youth. Given Schmidt’s long, active interest in politics, dating back at least to his seminary years and especially during World War I and after, it should not be surprising that he knew and interacted with many prominent politicians of his day, e.g. I. Seipel, E. Dolfuss, K. von Schuschnigg, as well as many others, some of whom were devoted Nazis before Hitler marched on Austria. Throughout all of his own political efforts, however, Schmidt remained first and foremost an ecclesiastic, a dedicated man of the Church, sensitive to its needs and its difficulties in difficult times. It was because of this that he became especially involved in Church-State matters. To further the benefit of the Austrian Church and his own religious congregation directed his contacts with the Nazis he knew.
During this time events moved rapidly with the hierarchy constantly playing catch up. Cardinal Innitzer had been busy, on his own, trying to build bridges between the Austrian Church and Nazism, much to the dismay of Pius XI who knew, from many sources, that the attempt to appease was useless. Innitzer was peremptorily recalled to Rome. Schmidt, too, realized soon enough that he was getting nowhere. His last involvement in Church-State politics, which never really affected affairs, was to draft a set of guidelines for the Austrian hierarchy to direct further negotiations with the new Nazi government.


Fourth Reason for Exile: Pope Pius XI

The long and short of all these efforts were to urge Schmidt to go himself into exile. Having been put under house arrest for several days immediately after the Anschluss, during which he had been questioned about his Anthropos library and its ownership and composition at some length, he himself realized that restrictions would be put on him and his work. In the meantime, Pius XI, through a Jesuit whose name was Tacchi-Venturi, who was the Pope’s liaison with Mussolini, had intervened for the release of Schmidt, of Wilhelm Miklas, the President of the Republic, and of the Chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg. Indeed, Schmidt was sitting in a police car waiting to be taken to the police station on Sunday the 13th of March, 1938, when word came that he was to be set free. All these events must have convinced Schmidt for he was happy to listen to the advice — to the insistence — of his old friend Pius XI to leave Vienna and Austria. At the time he was 70 years old. He accompanied Cardinal Innitzer to Rome under the pretext that his own obligatory trip to Rome as Director of the Vatican Museum was long overdue. Once in Rome the question arose: where would he, the library and the Anthropos Institute go? Pius XI suggested the Vatican; Schmidt demurred. He thought he would be too close and too much constrained by his own religious superior if he remained in Rome. America or England were realistic possibilities, especially America. But he felt his speaking and writing command of the English language was too limited. Switzerland seemed ideal, and again with the recommendation and support of Pius XI, he found a home for himself and his Institute and library at the University of Fribourg in Fribourg, Switzerland. In every which way it proved to be a good choice — not an easy one, mind you — but a good one for everybody involved. By the end of December 1938 most of the library had been packed in large crates and shipped to Switzerland, part directly and part by way of Rome and England. Not all of the officials in Austria were Nazis and St. Gabriel’s utilized the services of custom officials who knew the house and were willing to help. In early summer of 1939 the Gestapo came to St. Gabriel’s making inquiries about the library and were convinced after much interrogation that it really did belong to the Generalate and not to St. Gabriel’s. What remained behind was then put under State seal and moved to Vienna, where it was kept in the Museum of Ethnology. After the war these books were released and returned to the Anthropos library.


Consequences of Exile:

Pius XI must have been glad to have his old friend safe from the Nazis. He must also have been relieved to have him out of Church-State politics. His continued presence, given his vigor and forceful way of dealing with whatever he was engaged, could have been disastrous.
Exile did not affect the direction of Schmidt’s scientific work. There was no sudden change of direction in his theory or approach. After he was settled in at Froidville outside of Fribourg he actually found more time to write. There was, in short, no rupture in his work as an ethnologist of religion as a result of his exile, but rather continuity. There was clearly a break in his political interests; he was removed from his involvement in Austrian-Church politics, which is what Pius XI no doubt intended when he made his special appeal for Schmidt.
Schmidt’s exile did, however, have a significant impact on the University of Fribourg. A Chair and an Institute of Ethnology were quickly established; Schmidt became the first professor of Ethnology in the university. He developed an interest in folklore and fostered this also in his work on Swiss farm houses, which formed the basis later for a museum. In his years at Fribourg he directed fourteen doctoral dissertations. Also by moving the Anthropos journal to Fribourg, he helped make Fribourg something of a center for ethnology in Switzerland. Schmidt was also the moving spirit behind the founding of the Institute of Missiology in October of 1944. It was intended to train new missionaries. The Institute still exists. In the second volume of the history of the University of Fribourg Schmidt is given credit for the development of missiology, stating that the Institute of Mission Studies was the fruit of Schmidt’s coming to Fribourg with the Anthropos Institute, the Anthropos library and its collections.
One other result of Schmidt’s move to Switzerland must briefly be mentioned. As the war dragged on, more and more of the people in Germany and Austria were dragged into misery with it. Schmidt became very involved in helping people who were in need. By May 1943, after the Germans lost Stalingrad and North Africa, it was clear to any sensible person that Hitler would lose the war. Schmidt began to prepare for this time; he sent an assessment of what he thought should be done to Pope Pius XII (Pius XI had died in the meantime). In the same document he described how many young people, some of whom had been in concentration camps because of their opposition to Hitler, had made their way to Switzerland and were now living in work camps. If he had money he could bring some of them out of these camps and learn from them about the conditions in Germany and in the concentration camps. The Pope responded to Schmidt’s appeal with 12,840 Swiss francs. Part of this money he used to make trips through Germany and Austria, to see for himself how desperate things were and to try to make whatever contacts he could to enlist help for those in need. It was obvious that the need was great. He knew so many people, having been in the public eye for so long. With permission from the Superior General Schmidt went into overdrive. He wrote his contacts all around the world. Besides individuals, the Association of American Anthropologists helped out, as did the Viking Fund. The Royal Irish Academy in Dublin was also very generous. Most of the money he collected went into food packages for those in need, but he also supplied clothes, shoes ... whatever he could. The more he sent out, the more requests he received. His favorites were those academics who had lost their position under Hitler, many because they had opposed him. They were not able to find work for some time after the war and most were desperately in need of even basic subsistence. Following are some comments from notes which Schmidt wrote down describing those whom he was able to help:
1. An official in the Ministry for Culture and Education. Specialty: Protestant Theology and Comparative Religion.
2. Historian and Geographer.
3. Respected Austrian poet and literary figure. Belonged to the group who prepared the conspiracy of 1944 [attempt to assassinate Hitler]. Spent time in the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald; he underwent severe torture.
4. Area of expertise: psychology and philosophy; many publications.
5. One of the first sacrifices of Naziism; removed from his position because his biology and genetics went against the Nazi teaching; has lived for years in the greatest need.
6. Driven out of Lithuania by the Russians; all he had, including his library, was lost; now has a very poor position in the so-called Baltic University in the British zone.
7. Most worthy doctor living in the country with his big family; lost almost everything he had.
8. Professor of Physical Anthropology and Genetics, formerly in Breslau, but removed from this position and lost his livelihood and all the results of his many research trips.
9. Removed by the Nazis immediately after they took power because his physical anthropology and biology were contrary to the Nazi version.
10. Driven from the East with his wife and children; lost everything.
11. One of the best of Austria’s journalists; sent to the concentration camp in Dachau immediately after the Nazi arrival.
12. Minister of Education and Social Work under earlier Austrian governments; immediately after the invasion was thrown into Dachau, where he survived eight years, until he was freed by the Americans.
13. One of the earliest conspirators against National Socialism; used vice-chancellery of von Papen for this purpose without his awareness.
And the comments go on. Schmidt also received many appeals for help during these times, most of which were for the most basis items. A few of these will make the point:
1. We were bombed out of our place on March 12, 1945. Since then we’ve lived for two and a half years in bombed-out ruins, surrounded by rubble, rats and dirt-borne germs. We lack practically everything.
2. It’s now four years since I was dragged from my bed by the Gestapo, kicked and beaten with rubber hoses, to the point that I am a broken man. I used to weight 163 pounds; now I’m down to 112. Can you help me? For example, some margarine, also rice? As you see fit and are able. I have to look after family of four. I will be forever grateful, even though you do not know me.
And it went on. Schmidt helped those he could, whether Nazi or not. These charitable efforts of Schmidt lasted until around 1949. Schmidt died on February 10, 1956; he was six days short of celebrating his 86th birthday.

This is not quite the end of the saga. The Anthropos journal and Institute moved again in 1962, this time to Saint Augustine’s near Bonn. Quarters at Froidville, especially space for the ever-growing library, were becoming much too small. It was either build or move elsewhere. In the meantime expansion was underway at St. Augustine’s. A new Institute of Missiology was being built; an ethnological museum, Haus Völker und Kulturen, was already on the drawing board. Fribourg was still a small place, quite isolated, while St. Augustine’s was more central to many universities and other scientific institutes. To move the Institute, library and journal to St. Augustine’s made much sense, and so it was done in 1962. It was another kind of exile, or better, a homecoming of sorts. The library and the Anthropos journal, the two greatest lasting achievements and contributions of Schmidt, found their home not too far from where he himself was born. The journal, though still general in the articles it accepts, has also continued to stress its concern with religious ethnology and ethnography. As the religious world continues to move more and more in the direction of ecumenism, so will this journal continue to grow in value and utility as a rich source of knowledge of other religions, for without that, any talk of the sincere ecumenical meeting of minds is impossible.
The Anthropos journal, founded by Schmidt in 1906, still appears twice a year and totals about 700 pages. The library, open to researchers and students, comprises about 75,000 volumes. In addition to this, it contains 20,000 bound periodicals and subscribes to 300 current, specialized periodicals. In the same complex can be found the Institute of Missiology with its own specialized library of about 40,000 volumes and periodicals. Here also is located the very specialized Monumenta Serica library emphasizing East Asian, especially Chinese, history and culture. Schmidt was not directly responsible for these last two institutions, but his example surely must have stimulated the development of the other two institutes and library collections.
Indeed, Schmidt lives!

This text is taken from the volume on Theologians in Exile