The Eugenics of the Tinker Experiments: Part three
Introduction
In part one of this series of articles I addressed Wolfgang Abel’s work and rapid rise through the ranks of both anthropological research and the Third Reich [the Reich], with a particular focus on his attempts to situate Gypsies and Travellers as enemies of the Reich and a danger to the purity of the ‘Aryan race’. Attempts which included Abel and his team interrogating and carrying out invasive examinations on members of Gypsy and Traveller communities, wherever they could find them. Data gathered was added to existing records collated from church and civil registers and other sources, and thus a database of Gypsies and Travellers living in Germany, which could be used for any means considered necessary by the Reich, was created.
In two distinct parts, this article first examines the breadth and depth of the Reich’s support for Abel’s work:
Drawing on my research and examination of the archives of a number of German Universities, Societies and National Archives, I consider Abel’s, and the Nazi elites who supported his work, intentions for extending their programme of work to eradicate Gypsies and Travellers outwith Germany in preparation for what they believed would be a Europe controlled by the Reich.
Second, the article takes a look at the connections Abel made in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK with the Authorities [the Police, the Scottish Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children [colloquially known as ‘the Cruelty’] Churches, Charities and the Aristocracy] connections which enabled him to undertake his first phase, and lay the ground for further phases, of racial studies in the far North East of Scotland. A scoping exercise if you like designed to make contact and build relationships:
This part includes excerpts from the annual reports of Gordon Shennan, the then SSPCC Inspector for the Highlands and Islands and testimonies and commentary from those, and the now adult children of those, studied [NB: names have been changed for ethical purposes].
1. Gypsies and Travellers: The Final Solution?
I have for some time asserted that a key aim of Abel’s fieldwork elsewhere in Europe would be to have a national database, similar to that referenced above, embedded across the continent. A database which, following the Reich’s belief that it would successfully invade and occupy the UK and other European States, would enable the introduction of programmes such as the Tinker Experiments, a programme designed to assimilate Gypsies and Travellers residing in the Reich territories, by any means necessary. And thus, the Reich’s plans for the minority ethnic cleansing of the continent would gather pace and their desire to create and sustain an ‘Aryan’ Europe would be realised.
Contrary to what some would wish people to believe, Abel’s visit to Scotland in 1938 was not a one off ‘visit’ to consolidate the findings of racial studies of Gypsies and Travellers undertaken elsewhere in Europe. Rather, as my, and others’, research demonstrates, it was part of Abel’s well documented and well supported longer term plans [and indeed the longer term plans of others, including two of the major protagonists working to progress the theories of ‘racial hygiene’ purity of race beliefs and have them embedded in the Reich’s legislation and practice, namely Eugen Fischer, his then superior and head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Anthropology Department [KWI-A], and Wolfram Sievers, General Secretary, then Director, of the Ahnenerbe of the SS] both strong advocates of the classification of Gypsies and Travellers as ‘primitive, as sub-human, as deviant’ and, consequently, if the purity of the ‘Aryan’ race was to be sustained, their extirpation was necessary.
Eugen Fischer (1874–1967). Courtesy of the Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem.
The publication of his co-authored book, Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene, in 1921 (Baur, E., Fischer, E. and Lenz, F.) and it’s multiple updated editions saw Fischer elevated to the position of ‘expert’ on eugenics and led directly to his appointment as Director of the newly founded KWI-A in 1927. The book quickly rose to become the ‘gold standard’ text justifying and driving Nazi ideology (Weindling, P. 2022:248) with co-author Lenz [who later joined Fischer at the KWI-A] “proudly” drawing attention to the fact that parts of it were reflected in Hitler’s speeches (EMBO reports, Vol. 2, 2001:872).
Quick to spot a potential protégé, Fischer engaged Abel first as an assistant at KWI-A then quickly moved him up the ranks to the status of co-researcher and examiner, including providing him with the opportunity to represent KWU-A’s high level research and presentations at prestigious conferences and events, something normally delivered by himself as Director. By 1942, at Fischer’s behest, Abel was promoted to Director of the Department for Race Science.
Fischer’s support for Abel’s racial studies of Gypsies and Travellers ensured it was embedded in the KWI-A current and future plans by way of an application for Abel to return to Scotland to continue his racial studies [1] and regular updates and inclusion in the KWI-A’s annual reports:
The theoretically important (for now only theoretical) works on the environmental influence of skull shapes (Fischer and numerous students) as well as some racial studies [on Gypsies] in various parts of Germany and Romania and Scotland (Abel) have gone on for all these years and continue (Fischer, E. Report to the KWI-A Board, 9 January 1941, 2_1_001A_2400, Archives of Max Planck Society).
Portrait of Wolfram Sievers as a defendant in the Medical Case Trial at Nuremberg. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust memorial Museum.
On becoming Director of the Ahnenerbe Sievers used his powers to change the direction of the organisation – shifting from [pre]historical studies to that of human experiments via the establishment of the Institute for Military Scientific Research [IMSR]. Quick to see the opportunities that this shift offered him and his work, Abel opened up regular communication channels with Sievers, informing him of his work and soliciting opportunities to collaborate. Writing to Sievers in June 1942, the year the Ahnenerbe began sponsoring pseudo-scientific medical experiments including the study of the skulls of Jews and Gypsies murdered at Auschwitz, Abel informed him that he was pursuing the idea “of an instructive collection for the race history of Europe and the world [and] the development of race, population movements domestic and international [ … ]”. This and his racial studies of Gypsies attracted interest and the offer of opportunities for collaboration from Sievers. Indeed, Sievers was so ‘impressed’ with Abel’s studies that he mentioned him in dispatches to the Personal Staff of Heinrich Himmler, the then Reichsfuehrer-SS, commenting on Abel’s expert opinions and noting that he was regularly “mobilized for collaboration by the Ahnenerbe” (In a letter of 29 June 1943).
As the then Director of the Ahnenerbe, of which the IMSR was an integral part, Sievers was held to account during the Doctors’ Trial at Nuremberg and whilst not being found directly responsible for undertaking the human experiments he was accused and found guilty as aiding and abetting crimes against humanity – a Schreibtischtäter [desk killer] – and sentenced to death by hanging.
2. Scotland: 1938
This was no ‘under the radar’ visit. Abel’s studies were reported across the media and official visits to discuss his studies were arranged:
I worked on a whole series of other projects during those years, such as the influence of the environment on human beings, and I chose the Gypsies as a group to test. They were supposed to have first crossed the Bosphorus in 1400, and in 1480 they were already described as being in Scotland. I needed a trait which was genetically recognizable for my tests, and I chose fingerprint patterns. […] I paid students to do investigations for me in eastern Europe. My first wife’s aunt, who was married to the founder of Shell, Job Kessler, helped with the money necessary for these trips and investigations. Thus, I travelled to Rumania in 1935 and to Scotland in 1938. I was invited, with the help of A. Haushofer, [see the Fixer] to the house of the British Ambassador [Nevile Henderson]. The Archbishop of Canterbury [Cosmo Lang] was also present, and I was able to explain the nature of my investigations” (Muller-Hill, B. (1998) Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies and Others, Germany 1933 -1945 :131, Oxford University Press).
That neither the ‘man of the cloth’ nor the government official questioned Abel’s intentions and the obvious connection to eugenics and the Reich’s ongoing persecution of Gypsies speaks volumes to the prevailing attitudes of many of the UK elites at the time.
On arrival in Scotland, Abel’s first port of call was the local Constabulary who quickly passed him on to Gordon Shennan the then SSPCC Inspector for the Highlands and Islands who agreed to meet with him at a local museum. Shennan considered the meeting of sufficient intrigue and importance that it should be recorded it in his annual report to SSPCC headquarters.
One day the County Police ‘phoned me to say that a German Professor, visiting Scotland, wanted information about Tinkers. They sent him to me. We met in the local Museum. He produced his card which bore the inscription: “Wolfgang Abel, Professor of Anthropology, University of Berlin”. He said he would be very grateful if I could tell him where he might be able to meet gypsies, primitives and cave dwellers. As an Anthropologist he wanted to take certain head measurements – for scientific purposes. I could only think of the [name removed by author] of Caithness, indicating from a map their most likely abodes, and if in doubt, to consult the Police in Wick or Thurso (GD409_29_14 Report by Inspector G H Shennan [Shannon] on his work with the Royal Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1938-39:3).
Armed with names and directions, Abel embarked on a tour of Gypsy Traveller camps in Caithness. A tour which saw him measuring the skulls, facial features and taking hand prints and photographs of children and adults alike.
James – with grateful thanks to James’ family for permission to share this photograph.
James was thirteen years old when Abel visited his family’s camp in Caithness. James and his family were used to a steady stream of Gypsylorists, anthropologists and amateur photographers turning up unannounced and offering payment for permission to take photographs, but Abel’s request was so very different that it stayed with James into adulthood and it was a cautionary tale that he told on many an occasion to his children and other community members.
Two of his now adult children, Hammie and Belle, spoke to me of James’ recollections of Abel’s visit and, following my sharing of my first article on Abel with them, their thoughts on the man and his work.
I feel repulsed reading it, given what it was likely to lead on to. The insidious, clandestine intent is bone-shuddering. I feel lucky to be here, despite how I’ve been tortured by the Tinker Experiments. I can’t help wondering if the tests were to ready the subjects for these, and if what we are experiencing is the culmination of Wolfgang Abel’s plans, or whether worse was intended for us. I guess I’ll never know. Dad told us that he had his head measured by a German Nazi scientist when he was thirteen, going on fourteen, and that he got something like a thrupence/sixpence – can’t remember which – for co-operating. [..] We assumed it was a tall tale, how wrong we were (Hammie, son of James).
I have been looking at Wolfgang Abel and apart from the severe cut of his hair, at the side and back, which is reminiscent of the ‘ Hitler Haircut’, he just looks like an ordinary human being. An ordinary human being who perpetrated such extraordinary harm motivated by racial supremacy and a desire to ethnically cleanse. I felt a great welling up of sadness that one human being could inflict such physical, emotional and psychological damage on the vulnerable but glad that my dad escaped to serve against such Nazi ideology in WW11 with nothing more than his head measured and a sixpence for the flicks. Others were not so lucky. It’s ironic, really, that a Nazi instigated war saved my dad and the other poor kids in Wick from such eugenic horrors for which Abel was famed (Belle, daughter of James).
As Shennan’s annual report of 1938-39 attests, James was not the only person to question the purpose and intent of Abel’s studies.
A year or more passed and the Country was at War, but the Wool Fair was on in Inverness. I was mixing with the crowd, especially Tinker groups with children, when, in a quieter place, I was hailed by a six-foot [name removed by author] – “Can a hev a word wi’ ye Master Shannan” “Of course” I said. “Can ye tell me who yon man was that cam’ to wir tent and wanted to measure wir heids. A asked him what for. He said he was a learned man and was wanting to fin oot wha wir the oldest fowk in the world – he said he was telt they lived in the Smoo Cave. He said he wad pay us if we wad let him dae it. He gied a shullan for every heid he measured. A funny thing yon, – a ken fowk gie ye a shullan or twa fur takin yir foto – but measuring yir heid beats me (GD409_29_14 Report by Inspector G H Shennan [Shannon] on his work with the Royal Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1938-39:4).
Concluding comments
This article includes just a small part of the evidence I have gathered vis a vis Wolfgang Abel’s intention to return to Scotland to continue his racial studies as part of his, and others’, plans to establish a Europe wide database which would inform longer term plans for legislation that would see Gypsies and Travellers and the culture and practice of nomadism extirpated from what they believed would be a Europe controlled by the Reich, whether that be by forced assimilation, sterilisation or euthanasia.
This evidence has always been out there. Those whose have had access to it had a moral choice to make – either to acknowledge it as the most evil wrong directed towards Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers and their Roma, Sinti and Jenische cousins elsewhere in Europe and apologise on behalf of those who aided and abetted it, or to consign it to a mere footnote in the history of those who arguably remain the most persecuted communities in Europe. Sadly the scrutiny panel consisting of government officials and Neo-Gypsylorists[2] set up by the Scottish Government to oversee commissioned research on the breadth, depth and impact of the Tinker Experiments, chose the latter. A choice which led to me leaking the original unedited/unredacted version of the report. I do not regret this action. I did this out of loyalty to my great aunts who were removed from their family and trafficked to Canada and to my friends and all others impacted by the Tinker Experiments.
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[1] In 1939, the KWI-A made application to the UK for Abel to return to continue his studies on Gypsy Travellers. However due to the countries being at war, and as noted to the chair of the KWI-A Board in 1941 “His [Fischer’s] application for Professor Abel is still pending, so there is currently nothing to be done for him.” (Telschow to State Secretary Conti, 24 January 1941), the application remained pending for a number of years before finally lapsing (2_1_001A_2400, Archives of Max Planck Society).
[2] Neo-Gypsylorism is a term that builds on the concept of Gypsylorism, which historically refers to the romanticised, exotified portrayal of Romani [Gypsy] and Traveller communities, often by outsiders. Gypsylorism emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries through literature, art, and early ethnographic studies – casting these groups as mysterious, free-spirited, or ‘noble savages’. Neo-Gypsylorism is a modern evolution of this mindset. Neo-Gypsylorism manifests when researchers and policymakers focus excessively on romanticised cultural traits [like nomadism or folklore] rather than addressing systemic issues such as discrimination, poverty, or historical abuses. A subtle and intentional form of othering, where these communities are still framed as exotic or separate from mainstream society, rather than as groups with agency and diverse experiences. In short, I define Neo-Gypsylorism as a deliberate practice which side lines authentic voices [those of the victims/survivors themselves] in favour of outsider interpretations, thus dismissing historical and contemporary truths [assimilation camps, child trafficking, intergenerational trauma and so on] and perpetuating power imbalances.
