Hugo Adolf Bernatzik (Vienna, March 26, 1897 - 9 March 1953) was an Austrian ethnologist, traveler and photographer.
Hugo Bernatzik, son of a constitutional lawyer, volunteered under arms for his final examination and served for his country in Albania. After World War I, he began studying medicine at the University of Vienna, but broke it off to travel. His trips brought him to Spain, Egypt and other parts of North Africa, Sudan and Somalia. He would write books on some of these early journeys. Only in 1930 Bernatzik resumed his studies in Vienna and specialized in ethnology, geography and psychology. After his promotion in 1932, he resumed his travels, now to Asia, the Great Ocean and West Africa. He researched the Bissagos (1930-1931), Solomon Islands (1932), New Guinea (1933) and in Southeast Asia (1936-1937). In 1939 he was appointed professor at the University of Graz, a nomination that was probably facilitated by his membership of the NSDAP, already dating that to the Anschluss. From 1949 Bernatzik was on his way back. He pulled through Morocco, parts of the Balkans and through Lapland. In 1953 he died of a disease he had incurred in North Africa.
Hugo Bernatzik left a massive oeuvre, including a multiple-edged tripartite overview of the peoples and cultures around the world. But much of his publications consist of well-illustrated, popular written travel and research reports. In addition, he was a talented photographer. His books were translated into many languages and their nature and popularity in the fifties showed great agreement with the well-known Afrikaans travel reports by Dutchman Paul Julien, who, like Hugo Bernatzik, was an inexhaustible traveler and a meritorious photographer. Bibliography Dutch translations Literature
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