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Albrecht Penck was one of the eminent representatives of Quaternary research in the first half of the twentieth century. But apart from this, there was a political-geographical side to Penck, which, since 1945, has long been ignored or downplayed by geographers. Today, given his concept of <i>Volks- und Kulturboden</i>, he is considered as having ushered in German geography the <i>völkisch</i> (ethno-nationalistic) turn. Thus, critics say, he paved the way for Nazi <i>Lebensraum</i> policies and became an accomplice in the resulting crimes. The present contribution examines Penck's political-geographical worldview and reaches an ambivalent conclusion regarding the accusations.