The German Archaeological Institute Between Transnational Scholarship and Foreign Cultural Policy

The article analyzes the antagonism between the idea of the German Archaeological Institute as a transnational research institution and the political ambitions various German governments invested in this organization. The almost exclusive state funding of the Institute’s work was intended, on the one hand, to promote a type of scholarship which continuously fascinated the public at large with its spectacular finds and promised answers to one of the central questions of humanity: Where do we come from? This objective required that scholarship be granted the greatest possible independence and generous funding. On the other hand, the work of the German Archaeological Institute was always conceived as part of German foreign cultural policy and financed primarily from the budget of the Foreign Ministry. The political aims the Institute was meant to serve were very different as well: sometimes they were imperialistic or steered close to Aryan-Germanic racism; at other times, they were to promote international understanding and cultural development.