Erich Keyser (12 October 1893 – 21 February 1968) was a Nazi activist and far-right nationalist historian connected with the anti-Polish ideology of Ostforschung and the racist Volkisch movement.
He supported German expansion in Central and Eastern Europe and was involved with the planning of ethnic cleansing by the Third Reich during the Second World War.
Another basic principle of his work was the construction of social and racial opposition between Germans and the Jews supposedly dating back to the Middle Ages.
[1] This unit was linked to NOFG ( "Die Nord- und Ostdeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft") headed by the Nazi Albert Brackmann and dedicated to the cause of ethnic reallocation of land in eastern territories.
[11] Keyser was directly involved in Germanization attempts aimed at the Polish population in territories Nazi Germany annexed from Poland and formed in the so-called Danzig-West Prussia region.
[1] In autumn 1940 Keyser attended the conference on "History of Population" in Berlin, representing the Office of Regional Studies in Danzig, alongside other leading Nazi scholars such as Hermann Aubin and Theodor Schieder.
[1] In 1944 when Nazi Germany was losing the war, he praised Adolf Hitler in a Nazi magazine "Wille and Macht" ("Will and Power") stating that "The victory of the German troops of all Germanic tribes under the leadership of Adolf Hitler banished, in autumn 1939, the ghost of Versailles".
[16] He became responsible for the Herder Institute placing its work into the context of Ostforschung and openly declaring that its mission was to change the map of Europe and Germany, stating "Germany does not end at the Elbe, Oder or at the Vistula"; the Institute openly and proudly demonstrated its continuity with past research under Nazi regime.