Paul Grimm (prehistorian)

Paul Grimm (18 August 1907 – 19 November 1993) was a German prehistorian and also a pioneer of Medieval archaeology, especially of the excavation of abandoned villages and castles.

His involvement in the plundering of prehistoric artefacts from the Nazi-occupied territories in Eastern Europe at this time is a matter of controversy.

[2] Well before the Nazi seizure of power he was a member of the Mannus-Society for "Aryan prehistory" and the prehistoric division of the Militant League for German Culture.

[4] After he achieved his habilitation with his work on the Salzmünde Culture he was employed as reader and director of the State Bureau of Volk Studies in Halle from 1939 to 1945.

From January 1942 until November 1942, Grimm was an employee of the "Sonderstabs Vor- und Frühgeschichte" (Task force for Prehistory and Protohistory) at the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce.

After he was discharged in December 1944 due to sickness, Grimm was employed by the Institute for Eastern Studies in Schloss Höchstädt [de], Dillingen.

[8] There, with several colleagues, Grimm managed the most important depot of prehistoric and protohistoric artefacts and Volkish objects plundered from the occupied Soviet territories.

Ernst Klee,[3] Gunter Schöbel,[14] and Thomas Widera[15] accuse Grimm of being at the very least an accomplice in the theft of artefacts from the occupied territories.

After holding several teaching positions, he became professor of the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1955 and from 1957 he was the assistant to the director of the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory at the Academy of Sciences.