Josef Wastl

Austrian swimmer Josef Wastl qualified for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. He won the 200 metres breaststroke in a time of 3:13.2 at the Austrian selection competition held in Vienna (Dianabad) on 5 May 1912. At the Games he failed to reach the second round of the 200 metres breaststroke and did not finish his 400 metres heat.

Wastl fought in World War I, which ended his sports career. After the war he studied anthropology and ethnography at Wien (Vienna). He graduated in 1925 with a dissertation concerning “anthropologic investigations in 525 Bashkir prisoners-of-war”. In 1928, he became an Austrian civil servant in the Ministry of Education.

In 1932, Wastl became a member of the German NSDAP and was inducted as the organisational leader of the Wien (Vienna) section. In 1934, Wastl became anthropologic employee of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien and took over the lead in 1936. Three years later he led the anthropologic registration of 440 Jews. Immediately after the German capitulation he was released but was later denazificated as “less burdened”. Until his death in 1968 this was never charged.