Erika Trautmann

Trautmann was born to a wealthy family in Kreis Konitz, West Prussia. After World War I Konitz was annexed by Poland and the family's estates were confiscated. Moving to Berlin, she trained as an illustrator at the Lettehaus and the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1925 she married Bernhard Trautmann, a civil engineer. In 1933 she got a job at as an illustrator at the Forschungsinstitut fur Kulturmorphologie, led by Leo Frobenius, in Frankfurt. In 1934 she documented parietal art in Spain and France. In 1936, while illustrating the petroglyphs in Val Camonica, she met and fell in love with Franz Altheim, a Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Frankfurt. Trautmann and Altheim published a number of books on history, runes and petroglyphs, and the migration of Indo-Germanic peoples. They joined the Ahnenerbe and received funding for more research at Val Camonica and in the Middle East where they also acted as agents for the Nazi intelligence service. In 1940 Trautmann tried to get Ahnenerbe funding for an expedition to Brittany to study the megalithic monuments there, but was turned down in favor of a male researcher, Herbert Jankuhn. After World War II Trautmann's work for the Ahnenerbe prevented her from continuing her academic career. She co-authored, illustrated, or provided photos for a number of books, with Altheim and others, in the years surrounding World War II.