on 5 January 1942 in Detmold and is buried there. A street was named after him until 1969. In 2010, the city posthumously revoked his status as honorary citizen. Theories Teudt's interest in "Germanic archaeology", in particular the discovery of Germanic pagan sacred sites, developed in the 1920s. He trusted in his paranormal faculty of picking up the "vibrations" of his ancestors helping him visualize ancient sceneries of the sites he was researching. Teudt was particularly interested in the natural stone formation of the Externsteine near Detmold, which he suggested was the location of a central Saxon shrine, the location of Irminsul and an ancient sun observatory. He assumed that the Germanic buildings there had been made from wood and thus left no traces. Teudt was put in charge of the excavations at the site and appointed to head the work done there by the Reichsarbeitsdienst in 1934/35. Teudt thought that the Externsteine had served as an observatory until its destruction by Charlemagne. He initiated the demolishing of tourist infrastructure (tramway, hotels) and the creation of a "sacred grove" nearby. In Teudt's view, the Christianisation of the Saxons after 800 AD was nothing less than a cultural genocide. He thought that a highly advanced Germanic civilization had predated contact with the Romans. References Uta Halle: „Die Externsteine sind bis auf weiteres germanisch!“. Prähistorische Archäologie im Dritten Reich. Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld 2002. Harald Lönnecker: Zwischen Esoterik und Wissenschaft. Die Kreise des „völkischen Germanenkundlers“ Wilhelm Teudt. In: Einst und Jetzt, Jahrbuch des Vereins für corpsstudentische Geschichtsforschung 49, 2004, 265–294; pdf copy. Iris Schäferjohann-Bursian: Wilhelm Teudt im Detmold der 1920er Jahre: seine Suche nach Orientierung. In: Hermann Niebuhr & Andreas Ruppert (eds): Krieg – Revolution - Republik. Detmold 1914 - 1933. Bielefeld 2007, , 415–458. Jürgen Hartmann: Vom „völkischen Vorkämpfer“ zum Nationalsozialisten „bis auf die Knochen“. Der politische Werdegang des „Germanenkundlers“ Wilhelm Teudt. In: Rosenland. Zeitschrift für lippische Geschichte, 11, 2010, 23–36; pdf copy. External links Postcard and tickets to the Externsteine, Bundesarchiv 1860 births 1942 deaths People from Schaumburg People from Detmold German National People's Party politicians Nazi Party members German military personnel of World War I