Arnold BURGMANN (1909–1987)

Born in Dinslaken (Lower Rhein, Germany), he completed his secondary education at the SVD school in Steyl (1921-1929) and joined the Society of the Divine Word (SVD). He studied for the priesthood in St. Augustin SVD Major Seminary near Bonn (1929-1936). On being assigned to Anthropos Institute, Burgmann followed W. Schmidt’s wish and began his ethnological-linguistical studies at the University of Vienna (1936/1937) but continued them at the Institute for the African and Oceanian Languages in Hamburg, where he graduated in 1939. His studies focused on Austronesian languages.
He moved to Chateau de Froideville near Posieux in the Swiss canton Fribourg, where Anthropos Institute found its new home after Austria was taken over by the Nazis. Burgmann helped to re-establish the library and contributed book reviews to the journal Anthropos.
Under the pressure from the Nazi officials, he moved back to Germany in 1941 and took up a job in a parish on the German-Dutch border near Nijmegen. In the chaos of the war years, he lost his private library and notes. When the war was over, the SVD superiors appointed him to teach at the newly re-established SVD Major Seminary at St. Augustin. He moved back to Anthropos Institute in Switzerland in 1948 but run block courses at St. Augustin until 1951. In Chateau de Froideville, he worked in the library and on the editorial board of the journal. He subsequently took up administrative responsibilities in the house (first as treasurer, then as rector, 1951-1956). At that time, he also worked on preparation of a microfilm series of linguistic research material entrusted to the Institute by various researchers.
In 1956, he left for Leiden, where he was busy with preparations for a research expedition to Timor in Indonesia. Unable to finalize the plan, he went back to Chateau de Froideville and was entrusted with the position of the chief editor of Anthropos (1959-1968). Burgmann played an important role in the actual moving of the Anthropos Institute to St. Augustin in 1962. In 1968, he became the rector of the SVD Major Seminary at St. Augustin and held that position until 1974. After completing his term as the rector, he worked again on the editorial board of Anthropos. He also took up some priestly duties in a newly organized parish in Sankt Augustin. Altogether, he wrote some 280 book reviews for Anthropos.
He died in a hospital in Bonn-Beuel on 17 July 1987.