Who did Wolfram von Soden work for in Oct 1943?
Wolfram von Soden Wolfram Theodor Hermann Freiherr von Soden ( 19 June 1908 in Berlin – 6 October 1996 in Münster ) was the most notable German Assyriologist of the post–World War II era . Life and work . Born in Berlin , Wolfram von Soden was a student of the ancient Semitic languages who studied under the Jewish Assyriologist , Benno Landsberger at Leipzig . He received his doctorate in 1931 at age 23 with his thesis Der hymnisch-epische Dialekt des Akkadischen ( The Hymnic-Epic Dialect of Akkadian ) . In 1936 , he was appointed a professor of Assyriology and Arabic studies , a new position at the University of Göttingen . When his mentor , Landsberger , was forced to leave Germany due to National-Socialist racial policy , von Soden joined the Sturmabteilung in 1934 . He was a fervent German nationalist . He joined the NSDAP in 1937 From 1939 to 1945 , von Soden served in the military , primarily as a translator , and in 1940 this work prevented him accepting the offer of a chair in Ancient Near Eastern studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin . Von Soden published works that implicitly supported Nazi cultural and racial policy . Following the Second World War , von Sodens former activities as an involuntary member of the Nazi Party initially barred his reentry to the teaching profession . Because of his extraordinary abilities , however , and thanks to his Doktorvater , Benno Landsberger , who wrote in his support , von Soden was appointed to an academic position at the University of Vienna in 1954 . In 1961 , he accepted the offer of a professorship at Münster , where he served as director of the Oriental Seminar until his retirement in 1976 . At his death in 1996 , he left his scholarly library to the newly revived Institute for Near Eastern Studies at the University of Leipzig , where he had earned his doctorate . Scholarship . After World War II , von Soden became a prominent scholar in the world in ancient Semitic languages , and his scholarship greatly influenced his field the post World War II era . He was an integral member of the history of religions ( Religionsgeschichte ) school at Goettingen , and disproved the long-standing claim that the Babylonians had believed in their creator god , Marduk , as a dying , rising god . Instead , he was able to show that the texts that purveyed this view were polemical Assyrian works deriding the chief god of their chief rival state . Von Sodens philological works , particularly the Akkadisches Handwörterbuch ( AHW ) , in which the Dutch scholar Rykle Borger assisted , laid the basis for the detailed philological contributions that later appeared in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary . His Grundriss Akkadischer Grammatik ( GAG ) and the AHW remain the definitive foundational works of Assyriology today and establish von Soden as the dean of ancient Near Eastern Studies in the world . His work has been alleged to promote the Nazi ideology . His early works , especially Der Aufstieg des Assyrreiches als geschichtliches Problem from 1937 , do promote racist concepts of Aryan superiority over the influence of Semitic culture . Another example is Leistung und Grenze sumerischer und babylonischer Wissenschaft ( 1936 ) . In the 1965 edition , page 122 , the conclusion is : “daß Wissenschaft im strengen Sinn des Wortes nur unter den bei den indogermanischen Griechen und Indern gegebenen besonderen Voraussetzungen Gestalt gewinnen konnte” . In the 1936 edition , page 556 , the conclusion is : “daß Wissenschaft im strengen Sinn des Wortes etwas ist , das nur von den durch die nordischen Rasse bestimmten Indogermanen geschaffen werden konnte” . His Einführung in die Altorientalistik ( 1985 ) also contains an obsession with skincolour : über die vermutlich immer hellhäutigen Bewohner Vorderasiens während der Kupfersteinzeit ( p . 14 ) . Works ( partial ) . - Das akkadische Syllabar ( 1948 , rev . 1967 , 1976 , 1991 , ) - Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik ( 1952 , ) - Das Gilgamesch-Epos ( 1958 , with Albert Schott ; ) - Akkadisches Handwörterbuch ( 1965–1981 , 3 vols ; ) - Das akkadisch-hethitische Vokabular KBo I 44+KBo XIII 1 ( 1968 , with Heinrich Otten ) - Einführung in die Altorientalistik ( 1985 ; ) ; translated ( by Donald G . Schley ) into English as The Ancient Orient : An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East . Grand Rapids : Eerdmans , 1994 . References . - Rykle Borger , Wolfram von Soden . In : Archiv für Orientforschung 44/45 , 1997/98 , pp . 588–594 . - Gary Beckman , von Soden , Wolfram ( 1908-1996 ) . In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History 2018 , pp.1 . - Jakob Flygare , Assyriology in Nazi Germany : the Case of Wolfram von Soden . In Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies . 2020 , p . 44-60 .