Georg Forster - Legacy

Legacy

After Forster's death his works were mostly forgotten, except in professional circles. This was partly due to his involvement in the French revolution. However, his reception changed with the politics of the times, with different periods focusing on different parts of his work. In the period of rising nationalism after the Napoleonic times he was regarded in Germany as a "traitor to his country", overshadowing the perception of his work as an author and scientist. This attitude rose even though the philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel wrote about Forster at the beginning of 19th century:

Some interest in Forster's life and revolutionary actions was revived in the context of the liberal sentiments leading up to the 1848 revolution.

Remembering Forster was ostracised in the Germany of Wilhelm II and more so in the Third Reich, where interest in Forster was limited to his stance on Poland from his private letters. Interest in Forster resumed in the 1960s in East Germany, where Forster was interpreted as a champion of class struggle. The GDR research station in Antarctica that was opened on 1987-10-25 was named after Forster. In West Germany, the search for democratic traditions in German history also lead to a more diversified picture of him in the 1970s. A scholarship program of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation for foreign scholars from developing countries is named after him. His reputation as one of first and most outstanding German ethnologists is indisputable, and his works are seen as crucial in the development of ethnology in Germany into a separate branch of science.