Karl Maria Kaufmann (b. March 2, 1872, in Frankfurt am Main; † February 6, 1951, in Ranstadt) was a German biblical archaeologist who later embraced National Socialism. Kaufmann also published under the pseudonym Marchese di San Callisto. In addition to his scientific work, he emerged as a writer and author of historical novels.

Kaufmann was the son of a merchant of devotional articles who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and co-founded the Frankfurt Centre Party.^[1] He boarded at Rockwell College near Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland, from the age of eight to eleven.^[2] From an early age he was interested in archaeological excavations. After finishing school, Kaufmann initially studied Catholic theology and Classical archaeology in Berlin, later switching to Fribourg. During stays at the Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome between 1894 and 1902, Anton de Waal and Orazio Marucchi sparked his interest in biblical archaeology. There he also deepened his friendship with Anton Baumstark. During his studies, Kaufmann became a member of the KDStV Teutonia Fribourg of the Cartellverband^[3] in 1892 and later of the KAV Suevia Berlin.^[4] in Limburg^{[clarification needed]} 1899, he was ordained as priest for the Italian diocese of Gerace.^{[citation needed]}

After completing his studies and various archaeological investigations in Rome, Kaufmann conducted several independent research trips from 1905 onwards. The rediscovery of the pilgrimage site (Abu Mena) of the early Christian martyr Menas of Egypt in the Libyan desert in 1905 became an initial highlight of his career. Kaufmann, who led the excavations there until 1908^{[citation needed]}, undertook another research trip to Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and Sudan from 1911 to 1912. In the Fayum area, he managed to recover about a thousand ostraka in Greek, Demotic, Coptic, and Arabic. He reported on his research findings in various publications. In 1911 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Münster for his research.^[5] In 1919 the Prussian Ministry of Education granted him the title of professor. Married since 1922, he worked in Frankfurt as a private scholar and for some years (1932–1940) with a teaching assignment at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. He failed to obtain a professorship and his financial situation remained permanently insecure.^{[citation needed]}

Since Kaufmann's research trips were largely financed by the city of Frankfurt am Main, he first donated a collection of artifacts from the Menas excavation to the Frankfurt Liebieghaus in 1905, including about 1200 terracottas. During his second stay in Egypt, he acquired another 800 terracottas from middlemen and grave robbers in the Fayum, which he also made available to the Liebieghaus.^[6]

Kaufmann, who already held the honorary title of Monsignor within the Catholic Church,^[7] married "in advanced years" and had a daughter named Annegret among others in this vita nova.^[8]

Kaufmann had been acquainted with the family of Rudolf Hess since 1905/07 and had been friends with Anton Baumstark for a long time. Under his influence, after the Nazis came to power, Kaufmann openly showed himself as a supporter of the Nazi state. According to Helmut Heiber's description, Kaufmann was an Orientalist and 'former priest' who was friends with the Hitler admirer "Abbot Schachleitner".^[10] In 1937, the Nazi Party assessed Kaufmann as a "true and enthusiastic National Socialist." He was one of the individuals involved in the Nazi project to "eliminate Jewish influence" in Frankfurt am Main in 1937.^[10]

In 1934, Kaufmann aimed to establish a Germanic ancestral heritage museum in Heddernheim, inspired by the local group leader of the Heddernheimer Nazi Party, with departments for Geology, Germanic Prehistory, Germanic Era, and Local History, and described the project in a memorandum. Ultimately, the project was rejected by the city's cultural office "on moral grounds": "... in Heddernheim stood the Roman stronghold of our homeland, directed against the Germanic people."^[11]

During the Nazi era, Kaufmann wrote various songs and hymns for the Hitler Youth and the Nazis,^[10] including the cantata "Prayer of Youth" ("Schon will ein goldner Morgen tagen") in 1933, which was set to music by Hermann Zilcher and premiered under Zilcher's direction during a radio concert in November 1935.^[12] The press announced the work as follows: "The poem of this small choral work is a tribute to the Führer and the Reich. Created in 1933, the poet K. M. Kaufmann leads the youth in awakening nature to fervent prayer..."^[13] This Nazi cantata, in which the youth were supposed to "dedicate our hearts, our souls under the swastika"^[14] to Hitler, was announced to end with a "jubilant Sieg Heil to the Führer."^[13]

No scientific books by Kaufmann from the Nazi era are known. However, Hubert Kaufhold recently demonstrated that the content of the (celebratory) publication "Karl Maria Kaufmann, Sketch of a German Scholar's Life" (Leipzig 1937), published under Anton Baumstark's name, was primarily authored by Kaufmann himself. He hoped to win over Adolf Hitler personally for the permanent financial provision for himself and his family with this publication, covered by his personal and political friend.^{[citation needed]}

After the end of World War II, Kaufmann lived in Ranstadt. There, he wrote his last work, "Allah is Great!", an autobiographical review in which he mainly focused on the time before World War I and his experiences with locals, guests, and traders during his research trips and excavation campaigns. This book was published by Herder Publishing House the year before his death. Looking back, he spoke of "forced followership" during the Nazi era: "Those who have been thoroughly tossed around by life usually remain prepared for changes of course of various kinds, even in the intellectual domain, not to mention elemental interventions or even the delusion of a struggle that we had to experience, bloody and cruel, destroying millions, uprooting millions, and under which now half of humanity suffers. Many a good German experienced his odyssey in forced followership, tossed far and wide, suffering much in the Homeric sense of the words."^[15]

Today, Kaufmann is considered, along with Adolf Furtwängler, as a "collector-archaeologist." Since 2008, a permanent exhibition on the upper floor of the Frankfurt Liebieghaus has been dedicated to both.^[16][17]