Education
Schwidetzky studied history, biology and anthropology in Leipzig and Breslau.
Schwidetzky studied history, biology and anthropology in Leipzig and Breslau.
From the 1930s, she worked as the assistant of Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt, one of the leading racial theorists of Nazi Germany. Schwidetzky married Bernhard Rösing in 1940. The couple had three children, among them ethnologist Ina Rösing and anthropologist Friedrich Wilhelm Rösing.
Bernhard Rösing was killed in a bombing raid on Nuremberg in 1944.
Schwidetzky worked at the newly founded Anthropological Institute at Mainz University from 1946, succeeding Eickstedt as Mainz Professor of Anthropology in 1961 until her retirement in 1975. Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann: Ilse Schwidetzky zum 65.
Ilse Schwidetzky was member or honorary member in numerous academic associations: Permanent Council der International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (1974 vice president) Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz Société d’Anthropologie de Paris Anthropologische Gesellschaft, Vienna Société Royale Belge d’Anthropologie Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa Sociedad Española de Antropologia Biologica Akademie für Bevölkerungswissenschaft Hamburg Herder-Forschungsrat, Marburg Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anthropologie und Humangenetik (chair 1968–1970) honorary doctorate of the University of Crete (1990).
