Carl Rathjens

Carl August Rathjens (born 11 March 1887 in Elmshorn, Germany; died 29 July 1966 in Hamburg, Germany) was a German geographer whose primary interests were in South Arabian historiography, geology and ethnography. He made several visits to Yemen, in the years 1927, 1931, 1934 and 1938. He is considered the greatest scholar of Yemeni research in the 20th century. He contributed more than any other in conducting scientific and ethnographic research, resulting in a wide range of findings, and he has left over 2500 ethnographical items and some 4000 positive and negative photographs from South Arabia.

Born the son of a teacher, Carl Rathjens began his academic studies in 1906 in the University of Hamburg, and then continued to expand his higher education in the universities of Kiel, Berlin and Munich on the subjects of geography, geology, cartography, meteorology, astronomy, botany, zoology, demography, sociology and economy.

Rathjens travelled to Egypt as a young German student of geography, geology, astronomy, meteorology and biology. At short notice, and without planning, he continued on his journey and traveled to Ethiopia in 1908, accepting a friend's proposal to visit his uncle who officiated there as a priest. During his stay in that country, he met Jews in the Tigré region of Abyssinia and studied their history, religion and culture.

In 1911 he earned his doctorate under Erich von Drygalski with the thesis, Beiträge zur Landeskunde von Abessininen ("Contributions to the Geography of Abyssinia"), in which he proposed to his professor the writing of a follow-up thesis for a habilitation degree, entitled, Die Juden in Abessinien, which would permit him to instruct as a professor. His study on the Jews of Ethiopia was published in 1921. After a short period at the State Zoological Institute in Munich, Rathjens worked from 1911 to 1921 at the Hamburg Colonial Institute and then worked for the World Economic Archives (Welt Wirtschaftsarchive), until his dismissal on political grounds in 1933, for refusal to join the Nazi party. During his years with the World Economic Archives, he would also lecture in the Geographical Department at the University of Hamburg.

In 1927, Carl Rathjens, Hermann von Wissmann and an orientalist by the name of Erika Apitz travelled to Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia, with an aim to make a geological survey of that country and to document the fauna and flora in regions between Jeddah and Mecca. At Jeddah, Daniel van der Meulen, who was a Dutch diplomat and Consul at Jeddah, invited them to stay in his house while waiting for the visa from King Ibn Saud. The king’s answer reached them after ten days, in which he explicitly forbade them from entering the interior of his country. The three scholars were disappointed and frustrated. They left Jeddah on a ship which brought them to East Africa. There, they felt uncomfortable with the idea about returning at that time to Europe, having not fulfilled their mission. Therefore, they decided to visit South Arabia, which was not originary a part of their itinerary.

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