Otto Höfler

Otto Eduard Gottfried Ernst Höfler was an Austrian philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. A student of Rudolf Much, Höfler was Professor and Chair of German Language and Old German Literature at the University of Vienna. Höfler was also a Nazi from 1922 and a member of the SS Ahnenerbe before the Second World War. He was a close friend of Georges Dumézil and Stig Wikander, with whom he worked closely on developing studies on Indo-European society. He tutored a significant number of future prominent scholars at Vienna and was the author of works on early Germanic culture. Julia Zernack refers to him as the "perhaps most famous and probably most controversial representative" of the "Vienna School" of Germanic studies founded by Much.