JENSEN, ADOLF E. Adolf Ellegard Jensen (1899–1965) was a German ethnologist and historian of religions. He was born January 1, 1899, in Kiel. After World War I, Jensen studied mathematics, natural science, and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Kiel. He received a doctorate in 1922 with a dissertation on the writings on natural philosophy of Ernst Mach (1838–1916) and Max Plank (1858–1947).

In the following year, Jensen took a position as research assistant at Leo Frobenius's newly founded Institute for Cultural Morphology in Munich. This position proved to be a turning point in Jensen's scientific ambitions, which from then on were directed toward the ethnological perspectives of Frobenius. When the institute was moved to Frankfurt in 1925, Jensen became a recognized lecturer at the university there. His thesis, "Beschneidung und Reifezeremonien bei Naturvölkern" (Circumcision and puberty rites among primitive peoples), was completed in 1933.

After the death of Leo...