Die Zeitschrift „Raumforschung und Raumordnung“ (RuR) von 1936 bis 1944 als Medium akademischer Forschung im „Dritten Reich“

Abstract

As journal of the “Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung” (Reich Working Group for Space Research), “Raumforschung und Raumordnung” communicated political specifications and academic guidelines of National Socialist science policy from 1936 onwards. The magazine regularly presented projects and research that had been carried out in the newly founded “Working Groups for Spatial Research” at the universities and colleges of the German Reich. With its thematic priorities corresponding to the territorial expansion of the “Third Reich” and through a close orientation in its selection of articles to the requirements of the National Socialist conquest and occupation policy, the journal fulfilled a relevant instructional function, which had a repercussing impact on university research practice. This paper addresses the importance of the journal for the mobilization and self-mobilization of academic personnel as well as the role as a mouthpiece for racist, antisemitic, and culturally derogatory views, which were an important basis for the genocide of European Jews and the destruction of Central and Eastern Europe- and Eastern Europe during the Second World War.