Walther Wust German orientalist, Indologist, SS Standartenführer, director of the Ahnenerbe. Date of Birth: 07.05.1901 Country: Germany

Biography of Walter Wüst

Walter Wüst was a German orientalist, indologist, SS Sturmbannführer, and director of the Ahnenerbe. He was born in a family of a prison warden. His brother died during World War I. Wüst attended public schools in Kulmbach and Lichtenau. In 1920, he graduated from a humanities gymnasium in Kaiserslautern and entered the University of Munich that same year. He studied indology, which he had been fascinated with since his time in gymnasium. In addition to indology, Wüst attended lectures on philosophy, literature, general and comparative religious studies, Indo-Germanic linguistics, and geopolitics. He was a polyglot, proficient in Gothic, Old Norse, several dialects of German, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Pali. In 1926, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the history of ancient Indian poetry. From 1926 onwards, he worked as a lecturer, and from 1927 he taught the history of Indian literature, history, languages, and paleography of Ancient India. He wrote a series of articles on his specialization for the Brockhaus encyclopedia. In 1932, he became a professor. In 1935, Wüst became the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich. In 1936, he joined the SS, and the following year he was invited to take the position of president of the Ahnenerbe Society. However, the position was ultimately assumed by Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, and Wüst effectively served as the director and scientific curator of the society. He also headed the research and education department of Indo-Germanic Aryan culture and languages, as well as the department of Indo-Germanic Aryan linguistics and cultural studies. From 1941 to 1945, he served as the rector of the University of Munich. Wüst was one of the leading scholars who supported National Socialism. He personally participated in the investigation of the underground group White Rose, which operated at the University of Munich. In the summer of 1945, Wüst was arrested by the American military police. He was interned in camps in Moosburg, Landsberg, and Dachau. On November 9, 1949, he was sentenced by the Munich High Court to three years of forced labor camps, but he avoided the sentence because his previous period of imprisonment was taken into account. He was also deprived of the right to work freely in his field, but later resumed publishing.