When the Nazis came to power in 1933, one of the first acts was to set up an institute to produce biographies of Alexander von Humboldt. He was beautifully blonde and blue-eyed, the ideal Aryan. And such an accomplished man! Never mind that most of his Berlin friends were Jewish. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi period, many biographies of Humboldt appeared.
Of course, when the communists took over East Germany, Humboldt's support for the poor and oppressed and even support for a short lived insurrection made him a very attractive hero for Communist East Germany, and many more biographies followed. In all, there are just over 5,000 biographical publications on aspects of Humboldt's life.
On Monday, March 3, at 11 a.m., Kip Anastasiou will discuss this man whose name graces hundreds of locations and institutions world wide.
