Trautmann was born to a wealthy family in
Kreis Konitz,
West Prussia. After
World War I Konitz was annexed by Poland and the family's estates were confiscated. Moving to Berlin, she trained as an
illustrator at the
Lettehaus and the
Berlin University of the Arts. In 1925 she married Bernhard Trautmann, a
civil engineer. In 1933 she got a job at as an illustrator at the
Forschungsinstitut fur Kulturmorphologie, led by
Leo Frobenius, in
Frankfurt. In 1934 she documented
parietal art in Spain and France. In 1936, while illustrating the
petroglyphs in Val Camonica, she met and fell in love with Franz Altheim, a Professor of
Classical Philology at the
University of Frankfurt. Trautmann and Altheim published a number of books on history,
runes and petroglyphs, and the migration of Indo-Germanic peoples. They joined the
Ahnenerbe and received funding for more research at Val Camonica and in the
Middle East where they also acted as agents for the
Nazi intelligence service. In 1940 Trautmann tried to get Ahnenerbe funding for an expedition to
Brittany to study the
megalithic monuments there, but was turned down in favor of a male researcher,
Herbert Jankuhn. After
World War II Trautmann's work for the Ahnenerbe prevented her from continuing her academic career. She co-authored, illustrated, or provided photos for a number of books, with Altheim and others, in the years surrounding World War II. ==Publications==