The foundation for German ethnological and cultural archaeological research in Leipzig was established in October 1926. Its predecessor organisation was the German Central Office for Ethnological and Cultural Archaeological Research, founded by Wilhelm Volz (1870–1958). The foundation worked in close co-operation, both in terms of personnel and funding, with the Foreign Office (AA) and the Reich Ministry of the Interior (RMI). It was officially dissolved on 8 August 1931.

The Foundation for Research into German Folk and Cultural Heritage was established as an umbrella organisation for “the academic study of German folk and cultural heritage”^[1] and thus represented the institutionalisation of the influential research paradigm of German folk and cultural heritage research. The foundation’s work served to “provide a scientific basis for policy”,^[2] particularly with regard to the revision of the Treaty of Versailles. According to its statutes, this task was to be pursued through

“a. the organisation of academic conferences

b. by publishing and promoting scholarly works

c. by encouraging and supporting scientific research

d. by disseminating research findings in specialised academic journals”.^[3]

The foundation’s remit comprised, on the one hand, the implementation of its own research and publication projects and, on the other, the funding of research and publication projects by third parties that were relevant to folklore policy.

Map 9: Necessary road construction works, ‘
’ as at 1 April 1929 [In: Wilhelm Volz, Hans ‘
’ Schwalm, *Die deutsche Ostgrenze*, ‘
Unterlagen zur Erfassung der Grenz-
zerreissungschäden’, Langensalza 1929].

A key research project of the foundation was the compilation of a ‘Concise Dictionary of German Communities in Border Regions and Abroad’, a culturally and geographically oriented ‘comprehensive work on German communities in border regions and abroad, summarising the wide-ranging individual research projects’.^[4] In addition to a bibliography of“German communities on both sides of the borders”, it was to comprise a multi-volume encyclopaedia containing thematic and regional articles. The foundation was also commissioned to investigate the “damage caused by the tearing down of borders” in the East. As part of the project, which resulted not only in a publication but also in a comprehensive set of maps,^[5] a scholarly assessment was to be carried out of the extent of the damage caused by the new border demarcation to the administrative, economic and social infrastructure of the eastern border region, thereby demonstrating the untenability of the new border. The Prussian Government attached great propaganda value to this project.^[6]

It was, above all, by taking on the role of research management that the foundation became a leading institution in the field of folklore research during the second half of the 1920s. By organising conferences, it provided a forum for leading scholars in the field of folk and cultural heritage research; through close cooperation with other bodies involved in folk culture policy, it established a dense research network that contributed to the establishment of the concept of ‘folk and cultural heritage’ in academia and teaching. Substantial state subsidies for printing costs financed the publication and promotion of numerous monographs, anthologies, maps and handbooks. In this process, the foundation acted as an intermediary, channelling funds received from the Foreign Office (AA) or the RMI to projects deemed worthy of support. Furthermore, it carried out expert assessment work for quasi-governmental bodies and ministries.

The foundation comprised a board of directors, a scientific advisory board and a scientific committee. The Board of Directors comprised the geographers Albrecht Penck (1858–1945) as President, Wilhelm Volz as Managing Director and, at the time of its foundation, Friedrich Metz (1890–1969) as Secretary. However, Metz resigned in October 1928 due to differences of opinion. The Board of Directors comprised one representative each from the RMI, the AA and the Saxon state government; representatives from all three institutions also regularly attended the scientific conferences. The Board of Trustees elected the Scientific Advisory Board (comprising a maximum of nine members), which was made up of academics from the relevant border regions, including Austria. The Scientific Committee (comprising around 30 people) had an advisory role in decisions regarding the financing of larger projects. The foundation’s financing was provided by the RMI and the AA.^[7] The close personnel co-operation and state financing of the foundation gave it a semi-official character, even though it presented itself to the outside world as independent and strictly academic. There was also close co-operation with other bodies involved in folk culture policy, such as the Deutscher Schutzbund and the Deutsches Auslandsinstitut. From 1930 to 1933, the *German Hefte für Volks- und Kulturbodenforschung* were published; initially edited by the foundation, they were continued after its dissolution in 1931 by Carl Petersen and Hans Schwalm (1900–1992) “in the form of an independent publishing enterprise”.^[8]

The foundation for research into German ethnic and cultural heritage was established on 30 October 1926 at the RMI in Berlin.^[9] Volz had been working since 1921 to organise a central body for the scientific study of the cultural and economic-geographical implications of the border demarcations in Upper Silesia. In 1921, the Central Office for Inter-European Work was established, a standing committee to which, alongside Volz, Penck, Joseph Partsch (1851–1925), as well as Karl Christian Loesch (1880–1951) and Albert Wacker, both members of the German Schutzbund. The term ‘Inter-Europe’, reminiscent of the designation ‘Axis Powers’, was eventually superseded by the concept of ‘national and cultural territory’. In October 1926, due to the increasingly onerous financing burden of funding the German Central Office for Research into Ethnic and Cultural Heritage, the RMI initiated its conversion into a foundation.

The foundation’s work was characterised by personal and professional differences between Penck and Volz. The chief editorship of the *Handwörterbuch*, for example – which was supported by an editorial committee comprising up to 800 staff members – changed hands several times between 1926 and 1931 due to these differences; the handbook was not published until after the foundation had been dissolved.^[10] In February 1931, the NSDAP organ *Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte* launched a press campaign against the foundation. In addition to the delayed publication of the *Handwörterbuch*, the campaign – in which Metz and Penck were also involved – centred on allegations of embezzlement and squandering of the foundation’s funds by the foundation’s accountant and by Volz. On 8 August 1931, the Reich Minister of the Interior decided to dissolve the foundation. Volz stepped down as managing director on 15 October 1931 and requested disciplinary proceedings against himself, which were, however, discontinued on the grounds of nullity. In November 1931, the geographers Metz and Hugo Hassinger (1877–1952) spearheaded the establishment of a new ‘central body with the same scientific programme’^[11] in Berlin, to which the Leipzig inventory was also to be transferred. Coinciding with the end of the foundation was the establishment of the Volksdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (VFG), for which the foundation had served as a precursor in many respects.

• Michael Fahlbusch: ‘Wherever the German … is, there is Germany!’ The Foundation for Research into German Folk and Cultural Heritage in Leipzig, 1920–1933. Bochum 1994 (Essays on the History of the Geosciences and Religion-Environment Research, Supplement 6).
• Michael Fahlbusch: Foundations, Context and Success of Geopolitics before 1933. Position paper presented at the 39th Annual Conference of the Society for Intellectual History, held from 30 October to 1 November 1997 in Potsdam. URL: hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/beitrag/diskusio/nszeit/nszeit11.htm (accessed 30 July 2021).
• Ingo Haar: Historians under National Socialism. German Historical Scholarship and the ‘Struggle for National Identity’ in the East. Göttingen 2000 (Critical Studies in Historical Scholarship 143).
• Ingo Haar: The Leipzig Foundation for Research into Ethnic and Cultural Heritage. In: Ingo Haar, Michael Fahlbusch (eds.): Handbook of Ethnic Sciences. People – Institutions – Research Programs – Foundations. With the collaboration of Mathias Berg. Munich 2008, pp. 374–382.
• Albrecht Penck: German Ethnic and Cultural Heritage. In: Karl Christian von Loesch (ed.): A People Among Peoples. Breslau 1925 (Books of German Culture 1), pp. 62–73.
• Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research into German Ethnic and Cultural Heritage (eds.): The Conferences of the Foundation for Research into German Ethnic and Cultural Heritage, Leipzig, 1923–1929. Langensalza 1930.

Agnes Laba: Foundation for Research into German Ethnic and Cultural Heritage, Leipzig. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2012. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32765 (as at 30 July 2021).