Walther Wuest ( Kaiserslautern , 7 as maypole as 1901 – Munich , 21 as March as 1993 ) was a German Orientalist and scholar specializing in Indian studies and Indo – Europeans in general. He worked especially on the study of the Rig-veda (the oldest text in India, from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC ), which was the basis of the Vedic religion (which in the 1st millennium BC was replaced by the Hindu religion .
Indo-European studies
Brilliant student, he rose rapidly in his career, obtaining in 1932, with only 31 years of age, the position of Professor.
Ahnenerbe
Only three years later, in 1935 , he became a professor and also dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. In 1936 , he was in the SS and in 1937 he is president of the German Foundation for the Investigation of the Ahnenerbe ancestral heritage, being a close friend of Heinrich Himmler . Thereafter it plays a leading role.
He is also rector of the University of Munich in the period 1941-1945, in which he addresses an important work of modernization.
In 1945 Wuest is detained by the occupation authorities and until 1948, he remains in the Dachau internment camp.
He is the author of numerous books of Indo-European studies.
