“There is No Reliable Evidence to Pass Moral Judgment on Frauwallner.”: Erich Frauwallner, Jakob Stuchlik, Walter Slaje, and the Whitewashing of Austrian Indology During the Time of National Socialism

This paper engages with a little-known controversy between Jakob Stuchlik and Walter Slaje on the involvement of Erich Frauwallner, the renowned scholar of Indian philosophy (1898–1974), with NS institutions. It sheds new light on this controversy and highlights the Aryan-supremacist ideology that is reflected in Frauwallner’s division of the history of Indian philosophy into an Aryan and non-Aryan period. On the whole, the paper sides with Stuchlik and exposes Slaje’s attempt to whitewash Frauwallner and certain aspects of his work, despite his adoption of NS ideology and involvement with NS institutions such as the Gestapo and SA. Moreover, the paper dwells on Frauwallner’s adherence to antisemitism and Aryan-supremacist ideology even after the WWII and as late as the 1960s.