Eberhard Kranzmayer

Eberhard Kranzmayer (15 May 1897 – 13 September 1975) was an Austrian philologist, dialectologist and, prior to 1945, also ethnologist of the German language. yet his roles in the Third Reich and his perspectives on German, surfacing fully in the early 2020s presents challenges for German dialectology. He learned Slovene, rather atypical for Carinthian native German speakers in the Habsburg Empire, from a local farm family. He studied at the University of Vienna German department, defending his dissertation under Anton Pfalz, who was the leader of the Austrian Academy of Sciences project Dictionary of Austrian-Bavarian Dialects (DABD) in Vienna, in 1926. In 1933, Kranzmayer defended his "habilitation" with anti-Semite Rudolf Much, from which point on he was a full-fledged academic researcher and teacher. Both projects are ongoing and together they define the cross-border Bavarian-Austrian dialects of German.

Nazi connection Kranzmayer's Nazi past has long been left unscrutinized. He is today considered as "definitely" a member of the then illegal Nazi party as of 1 January 1937, though likely much earlier. Until a month before the institute's official and public opening in Klagenfurt, this institute, however, founded during Operation Barbarossa, was called 'Institute for the final solution of the Slovenes'.

Kranzmayer has in the 2020s been shown to have perjured himself in both his denazification proceedings, one in 1945 the other in 1947. Kranzmayer is responsible for providing the rationale behind ethnic cleansing for at least 205,000 Slovenes in Upper Carinola ("Oberkrain").

During his postwar career, Kranzmayer was paradoxically considered to have been a "victim" of the denazification proceedings in accounts that circulate in German linguistics circles, while in fact he got off quite scotfree.

Major Works

Wörterbuch der bairischen Mundarten in Österreich, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1971 (Vol. 1), ongoing (editor from 1926 to 1975). Bayerisches Wörterbuch, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, ongoing (chief editor from 1938 to 45) Kärntner Ortsnamenbuch, 2 vols. (1956–58). Bayerischer Dialektatlas (1956). [in German] Race-biological perspectives on the German language. Textbook (1944–45), manuscript lost or missing, post WWII. Die deutschen Lehnwörter im Slowenischen (1944). Written for the Nazis. Die Sprache der Friauler (1943). Written for the Nazis. Kranzmayer was throughout his life a major proponent of a One Standard German Axiom and was one of the linguists who carried it beyond WWII into post-war German dialectology and linguistics,