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The article highlights the transformation of wartime imprisonment research into broad ethnographic and media practices, alongside propaganda, espionage, and diversion. Frobenius is used as a focused prism: secret-mission leader, researcher, propagandist, and camp director, combining popular influence with controversial, non-mainstream academic standing.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/an-ethnologist-on-the-warpath-leo-frobenius-and-the-first-world-war-richard-kuba/141291/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/an-ethnologist-on-the-warpath-leo-frobenius-and-the-first-world-war-richard-kuba/141291.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Bintang","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-18","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why did the First World War create unusual research opportunities for ethnologists?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The war allowed ethnologists to access prisoners of war in established camps without long, costly travel to “distant peoples.” Camps also offered repeatable opportunities to question and document subjects at leisure.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What kinds of work did ethnologists perform related to prisoners of war during the war?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Their programmes included physical anthropological measurements, visual documentation, audio recordings on wax cylinders, and ethnographic interviews. Many were also active in propaganda and dangerous espionage or diversion missions.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does Leo Frobenius illustrate ethnology’s engagement with the war?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Frobenius spent the war years as a leader of a secret mission, serving simultaneously as researcher, propagandist, and director of a prisoner-of-war camp, revealing a distinctive and unusually multifaceted form of engagement.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},141291,1787652913,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":41,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":143},962085564381,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","An Ethnologist on the Warpath: Leo Frobeniusand the First WorldWar  \nRichard Kuba  \nFrobenius-Institut für Kulturanthropologische Forschung, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt 2020  \nPOUR CITER CET ARTICLE  \nKuba, Richard, 2020. « An Ethnologist on the Warpath: Leo Frobenius and the First World War », Encyclopédie Bérose des histoires de l'anthropologie.  \nVersion PDF générée le 2026.  \nISSN 2648-2770  \nOpen access publication under the Creative Commons License-CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Creative Commons: Attribution-Non-commercial use-No derivative works 4.0 International. This license applies unless otherwise stated for certain content (photographs, illustrations or files whose specific rights are specified) .  \n[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)  \nPublié dans le cadre du thème de recherche « Histoire de l’anthropologie et des ethnologiesallemandes et autrichiennes », dirigé par Laurent Dedryvère (EILA, Université de Paris, site ParisDiderot), Jean-Louis Georget (Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris), Hélène Ivanoff (Institut Frobenius, recherchesen anthropologie culturelle, Francfort-sur-le-Main), Isabelle Kalinowski (CNRS, Laboratoire Pays germaniques UMR 8547, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) Richard Kuba (Institut Frobenius, recherchesen anthropologie culturelle, Francfort-sur-le-Main) et Céline Trautmann-Waller (Université Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris 3/IUF) .  \nDossier “Leo Frobenius” coordonné par Hélène Ivanoff et Richard Kuba  \nGerman-speaking anthropology was still in the process of establishing itself as an academic subject, field research among distant peoples was unusual, and long-distance travel was complicated and expensive when the First World War opened unsuspected research possibilities at home. In the first year of the war, numerous soldiers from the worldwide British and French colonial empires had already been captured by the Germans as prisoners ofwar on the European fronts and interned in specially established camps. In these camps, the renowned Zeitschrift für Ethnologie exulted, there was “gathered together splendid material, which one has at hand without having to take bothersome and time-wasting trips to seek it out, and which one can question repeatedly at leisure without it making off”. [1]  \nProbably in no other country participating in the world war were ethnologists as heavily involved in the war as in Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary. [2] Their extensive research programmes included physical anthropological measurements ofthe prisoners of war,[3] but also visual documentation of them, audio recordings on wax cylinders, and ethnographic interviews. In addition, ethnologists were active on the propaganda front, in the “culture war”, and in dangerous espionage and diversionary missions.  \nIn the process, scholars tried to strike a balance between making use of the chances offered by the war situation to pursue their own research interests and applying their research in favour of the Central Powers’ war aims or presenting it as useful for those aims. The thesis that a  \n1 / 30  \nGerman ethnology founded on liberal traditions was changed into an increasingly racist discipline by the experience of the First World War is one that can hardly be dismissed out of hand. [4]  \nThe example of Leo Frobenius (1873–1938) offers the possibility of studying the ethnological discipline’s engagement in the war as if through a prism, since he spent the war years as the leader of a secret mission, as a researcher, propagandist, and director of a prisoner-of-war camp. At the same time, the multiplicity of his engagement is also unique and hardly representative of the ethnologists of his time. Behind this is the fact that while Frobenius was indeed one of the best known and, on account of his popular books, most read ethnologists of his time, he also was controversial and certainly not part of the academic mainstream. Leo Frobenius had just turned 24 when in 1897–98 he publis","cbCaiiPbGoniTRxo","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiiPbGoniTRxo","pdf",706164,"English","# The war as a research opportunity\n## Captivity camps and ethnological materials\n## Wartime measurement, documentation, and interviews\n# Ethnology’s wartime entanglement\n## Balance between research aims and war utility\n## Racism and disciplinary change\n# Frobenius as a prism\n## Secret mission and multiple roles\n## Influence, controversy, and institutional entrepreneurship\n# Expeditions before 1914\n## Long African trips and field documentation\n## Ethnographic practice and outsider status","[{\"question\":\"Why did the First World War create unusual research opportunities for ethnologists?\",\"answer\":\"The war allowed ethnologists to access prisoners of war in established camps without long, costly travel to “distant peoples.” Camps also offered repeatable opportunities to question and document subjects at leisure.\"},{\"question\":\"What kinds of work did ethnologists perform related to prisoners of war during the war?\",\"answer\":\"Their programmes included physical anthropological measurements, visual documentation, audio recordings on wax cylinders, and ethnographic interviews. Many were also active in propaganda and dangerous espionage or diversion missions.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Leo Frobenius illustrate ethnology’s engagement with the war?\",\"answer\":\"Frobenius spent the war years as a leader of a secret mission, serving simultaneously as researcher, propagandist, and director of a prisoner-of-war camp, revealing a distinctive and unusually multifaceted form of engagement.\"}]","An Ethnologist on the Warpath - Leo Frobenius and the First World War - Richard Kuba | PDF",76]