Die Fortsetzung des Sammelns mit anderen Mitteln. Aufsammeln im Rahmen der Deutschen Wehrmachtsexpedition nach Kreta 1942

This contribution to the history of science is located in the field of science in times of war and shows the military occupation of an area as a condition for the success of science and museum collecting by means of a collecting and research trip by Berlin and Viennese botanists and zoologists to the Greek island of Crete and the Peloponnese, which were occupied by the Nazi state as part of the war of aggression in the spring and summer of 1942. Using the example of the scientists of the Natural History Museum Vienna involved, “collecting” is examined as a scientific, social, and political activity. The strategies for acquiring objects, the social networks used for this purpose, the role of the military in an occupied territory, and, finally, the political and economic conditions that framed the journeys are made visible. On the one hand, the expedition seemed successful to the actors because of the acquisition of objects for museum collections in Berlin and Vienna. On the other hand, because of the scientific utilization of these objects, which promoted careers, as in the case of the botanist Karl Heinz Rechinger, and crowned that of the herpetologist Otto Wettstein.