Portrait of Georg Thilenius

In 1904, Georg Thilenius (1868–1937) became the first full-time director of the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg. After earning his doctorate in medicine in 1892, he had increasingly turned to anthropology and ethnology. In his scientific work he frequently combined questions of ethnology and “racial science”. Supported by Hamburg’s leading political and business figures the Museum developed into one of Europe’s major ethnological museums under his administration.