Career
His principal field of research, and the subject of several books, was the Native American mythology and literature of North America, though his studies of the sacral patterns in the founding of European settlements (eg Kreis und Kreuz, 1938: Die heilige Stadt, 1961) were also substantial. He obtained his doctorate in 1930 under Carl Clemen and was appointed university lecturer in 1942 in Ethnology at the Straßburg Reichs-University.