Gotthard Neumann

Gotthard Arno Ernst Neumann (* 8. June 1902 in Schwabsdorf , Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , † 29. April 1972 in Jena ) was a German prehistorians , who from 1934 to 1941 and from 1953 to 1967 as a professor of prehistory at of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and played an essential part in the development of prehistory and early history research and the preservation of monuments in Thuringia.

Training, studies and first job

Gotthard Arno Ernst Neumann was born on June 8, 1902 in Schwabsdorf in what is now the Weimarer Land district (Thuringia). After attending school in Apolda and Jena , he studied from 1921 in Jena (four semesters) with Gustav Eichhorn and Wilhelm Dörpfeld , Munich (one semester) and Marburg (six semesters) the subjects of prehistory, history and German (especially Germanic religious history). During his studies he became a member of the St. Pauli Jena singers . In addition, Neumann also dealt with classical archeology , art history , diluvial geology , anthropology , philosophy and church history as well as auxiliary historical sciences . Even as a student he had at Möller Armin in excavations of the Municipal Museum of Prehistory participated in Weimar, as a student he was under Walther Bremer in Bodendenkmalpflege in Hesse worked and worked at one of the first large-scale excavations in Germany on the Goldberg in Nördlingen under Gerhard Bersu with . In 1926 Neumann received his doctorate under Gustav Behrens (for the late Walter Bremer) with a thesis on "The Aunjetitz Culture in Central Germany " . In 1927 he took up the position of a scientific assistant at the State Museum for Mineralogy, Geology and Prehistory in Dresden . In Saxony Neumann led several modern excavations , especially on large Bronze Age burial grounds - including Leuben and the Slavic fortress "Alte Schanze" in Köllmichen in Mutzschen by and created, "to help the education of youth" , after the excavation of two grave mounds of Younger Bronze Age in Gävernitz near Priestewitz 1930 an archaeological open-air museum with a reconstruction of the two hills. Starting in the summer semester of 1929, Neumann offered, as an assistant to the Institute for Mineralogy and Geology ( Eberhard Rimann ), exercises in prehistory at the Technical University of Dresden .

Neumann as director of the Germanisches Museum and professor in Jena from 1930 to 1945

In 1930 Neumann accepted the call of the first National Socialist Thuringian minister Wilhelm Frick and went to the Germanic Museum of the University Institute for Prehistory in Jena as a director. He continued his teaching activities as a volunteer assistant at the history seminar with his former teacher Alexander Cartellieri . In 1932, the Thuringian Ministry of Public Education appointed him on the basis of the first Thuringian excavation law of July 1, 1932, as a shop steward for cultural and historical monuments and in 1934 as a state shop steward for the prehistoric and early history of Thuringia.

Under Neumann's direction, a number of larger archaeological research and rescue excavations were carried out with students, including the use of the Reich Labor Service, such as the Upper Paleolithic open-air settlement of Oelknitz , part of the Rothenstein community in 1932, Late Bronze Age cremation graves and an early medieval row cemetery in 1933 and 1936 in Zöllnitz , in the medieval water castle Kapellendorf 1933, on the medieval tower hill castle Jenalöbnitz 1934, in the medieval Reichsburg Kyffhausen 1934 to 1938 and the castle Camburg 1935, six ceramic burial mounds each in Lucka- Breitenhain 1935/1936 and 1941/1942, another young neolithic burial mound in Stobra 1935/1936, an urn grave field from the early Iron Age and early medieval row grave field in Dreitzsch 1936, ceramic burials as well as settlement pits and burials of the Aunjetitz culture in Arnstadt 1937, Bronze Age burial mounds in Willmanns 1 940 and others more. These were excavations that were modern for their time, made significant advances in knowledge and the results of which are mostly still valid today.

In 1934, Thuringia's governor Fritz Sauckel appointed him as a civil servant extraordinary professor for prehistory at the University of Jena, without prior habilitation . At 32 he was one of the youngest professors of prehistory in Germany, although such young scientists were not unusual due to the relatively late institutionalization of the subject at universities. In 1935 Neumann took over the honorary trustee of the Municipal Museum for Prehistory in Weimar and in 1937 he was appointed as a full member of the newly created Thuringian Historical Commission.

In January 1941, Neumann became the Wehrmacht convened and served during World War II as a sergeant ( Sergeant ) a signal corps. To what extent Neumann took part in so-called “raids” during the war, especially during his deployment in the Ukraine , cannot yet be clearly determined. According to his own statements, he was involved in the activities of the “Special Staff Prehistory” in the “ Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg ” (ERR), but without assuming a leading position there.

After several failed attempts at the Jena rectors Abraham Esau (1939) and Karl Astel to rise (1944) Neumann to full professor, took place shortly before the war ended in February 1945 he was appointed professor by the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Culture, but no longer took effect.

Activities and memberships in professional and political organizations in the " Third Reich "

Gotthard Neumann came from a Christian - conservative environment and, like his father Dr. phil. Arno Neumann († 1926), the Protestant pastor in Schwabsdorf near Weimar, later director of the Realgymnasium in Weimar and from 1920 to 1924 member of the state parliament of the German People's Party (DVP), originally oriented towards national liberalism. According to his own admission, however, at the beginning of the 1930s he "under the influence of the events in the fatherland [...] turned more and more from liberal views [from] and [...] to the NSDAP " . The hopes associated with the name Adolf Hitler for many prehistorians were also high for Neumann, who was strongly committed to his subject. Accordingly, Neumann took on a number of higher positions in professional associations, which, however, can be seen less as a commitment to the NSDAP and its organizations, but more as an attempt to further popularize prehistoric research.

As a long-standing member of the " Society for German Prehistory " (since 1919), Neumann went over to the " Reichsbund für Deutsche Prehistory " in 1934 . As early as 1933, he had been appointed regional director of Thuringia by Hans Reinerth and was appointed to the extended advisory board. Also in 1933 he joined Alfred Rosenberg's “ Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur ” ( Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur ) and became head of the “Prehistory Section” in Jena, with the function of country manager merging a little later with the same function in the Reichsbund, which was already occupied in a personal union. From 1933 until he was called up in 1941, Neumann was a member of the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB) and from 1938 also worked here as a regional clerk for history. From 1933 onwards he gave a large number of lectures at the state schools in Egendorf and Blankenhain , the SS , the SA , the NSDAP, the Hitler Youth , the BDM , the Reich Labor Service and the rural peasantry, and organized exhibitions, guided tours, educational hikes and the like in order to “acquaint thousands of old and young comrades with the ideological content of prehistory” .

In April 1934 he joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a supporting member (F.M.). According to his own statements, Neumann was a candidate for the NSDAP from 1937 to 1941. It has not yet been possible to determine with certainty whether and when his entry was realized by the party. His initial euphoria for the regime quickly evaporated, however, and the archive records suggest an increasingly tense relationship with the NSDAP and the SS. In the course of denazification , Neumann gave his discharge in 1947: “So my position as a university professor, although I only wanted to administer a completely non-political office in a strictly scientific manner, was at risk. In short, if I did not want to lose work and authority at all, I had to declare myself ready to join the NSDAP, ” and named a number of predominantly otherwise verifiable conflicts and disputes. Examples of this are controversies with the SS leadership over responsibilities and ethnic interpretations of the prehistoric findings during the excavations at the Reichsburg Kyffhausen (1934–1938) or attacks on him and his students Heinrich Rempel and Erwin Schirmer because of their research on the archeology of the Slavs become. Others may also be related to the fact that Neumann "undeterred committed to the Protestant Church". As director of the Germanisches Museum, he officially passed denunciations against his taxidermist Georg Sorm to the Thuringian Ministry of Education. Sorm was convicted, imprisoned, and released in 1937; it ended as a "social case".

His activity at the University of Jena during the Soviet Zone and the GDR

After the surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945 and American captivity , Neumann returned to Jena in June 1945 and immediately began to reorganize the institute. In mid-September he took on the task of establishing the connection between the anti-fascist student committee and the faculty. Under the Soviet Military Administration of Thuringia (SMATh) Neumann was first confirmed as a scientist in November 1945, but on December 15, 1945 due to his membership in the NSDAP together with his assistant Dr. Heinrich Rempel dismissed from his job , although the state president Rudolf Paul and several university members advocate his continued employment. In December 1945 Neumann joined the LDP . For the later period a predominantly passive social attitude can be determined, but he was still active as a synodal in the Protestant Church in Thuringia .

He initially worked as a freelance writer and casual worker, but was able to return to the Prehistoric Museum of the University of Jena as a "taxidermist" in 1947 . In 1950 he became a research assistant and in 1953 finally a senior research assistant in Jena. In the same year Neumann was appointed professor with a full teaching position for prehistory and early history and director of the Prehistoric Museum, Institute for Prehistoric Archeology, at Jena University, and in 1956 he was appointed professor with a chair. As such, he was department head for prehistory and early history and member of the scientific advisory board at the State Secretariat for higher education and technical schools in the GDR. In 1967 Neumann retired . The closure of his institute and museum and the relocation of the collection in the course of the “Third University Reform of the GDR” in the following year meant a heavy blow for him. Gotthard Neumann died on April 29, 1972 in Jena.

Of his excavations between 1953 and 1967, the following are particularly noteworthy: the research excavation of the medieval desert of Gumprechtsdorf in the former state forest of Klosterlausnitz from 1952 to 1953, the urban archaeological investigations in Jena from 1953 to 1956 (St. Michael Church, Pauline Monastery and Jenergasse), the excavations of a shallow burial ground in Einhausen 1954 and from early Iron Age burial mounds in Harras 1955 to 1956, the investigations of the Bronze Age and early medieval castle ramparts on the Johannisberg near Jena-Lobeda in 1957 and 1959, the rescue excavation of a ceramic burial mound in 1960 in Dornburg . In his final working years devoted himself almost exclusively to medieval archeology , as in the study of medieval castle in Gerstungen in 1960, the St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf in Arnstadt in 1962 and the Schillerkirche in Jena East in 1963 and the medieval castle and the Benedictine monastery on the Petersberg in Saalfeld 1964.

Neumann was elected a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in 1953 and a full member in 1956 . He was also a member of the Section for Prehistory of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (1952), the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig (1964) and the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory .

Significance for prehistory and early history research and the preservation of monuments in Thuringia

In Thuringia, Neumann partially completely reformed prehistory research and the preservation of monuments in the 1930s. He played a key role in the new excavation laws of 1932 and 1933, initiated the reorganization of the prehistoric collections in several important museums in Thuringia such as Gera and Gotha and built up the state-wide state archaeological preservation from the Jena University Institute as a state institute for prehistory. Between 1930 and 1944, Neumann carried out numerous important excavations and emergency salvages in the non-Prussian parts of Thuringia and, with his studies of medieval castles, churches, towns and desertions, is considered one of the fathers of medieval archeology . In order to make the results of his research and those of his students known in the field and the public, Neumann published the journal “Der Spatenforscher” (1936–1943) and the prehistoric yearbook “Irmin” of the Germanic Museum of the Friedrich Schiller University (1939–1942) published.

An analysis of the literature showed that even during National Socialism, with a few exceptions, Neumann tried to be scientific in the presentation of his findings and results, thus the ideologization of prehistory took a back seat. He did not deviate from his convictions and was not prepared to even recognize the possibility of the superiority of one culture over another culture, let alone that of the Teutons . For the “Germans” of the La Tène period , he spoke provocatively at a public event of “strongest Celtic cultural influences” and completely rejected folkish sentiments and “Germanomania” . In excavations and in lectures, lectures or publications he dealt several times with the Slavs in the area of ​​Germany , to whom he not only granted their own culture, but also a share in the history of the German people.

Even after 1945, after a short break, Neumann worked again as a university lecturer and continued his excavations and research in Thuringia. However, he increasingly had to cede the leading role of his institute to what is now the Thuringian State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology in Weimar. After the death of Alfred Götze , following his request, he took over the exploration of the Steinsburg near Römhild and thus continued his research into prehistoric and early historical and medieval castle complexes. Both his excavations and the topics dealt with in his lectures and scientific work covered almost the entire breadth of prehistory in Thuringia. The latter are the result of careful, primarily descriptive and comparative archaeological research based on the finds and thus of lasting value for prehistoric and early history research, especially in the Central German landscape.

Fonts

• The structure of the bell beaker culture in Central Germany . In: Prehistoric Journal. Volume 20, de Gruyter, Berlin 1929, pp. 3-69. ISSN  0079-4848
• The development of Aunjetitz ceramics in Central Germany . In: Prehistoric Journal. Volume 20, de Gruyter, Berlin 1929, pp. 70-144. ISSN  0079-4848
• The great grave of Gävernitz, Amtshauptmannschaft Grossenhain, Saxony. Messages from the Museum of Mineralogy, Geology and Prehistory in Dresden. Prehistoric series. Volume 13. Dresden 1930.
• The prehistory and early history of Central Germany . In: The Thuringian Flag. Volume 7, Neuenhahn, Jena 1938, pp. 362-369.
• Seven castles of the same mountain according to the research status of 1952 . In: Early castles and cities. Contributions to research on castles and town centers. Festschrift Wilhelm Unverzagt. German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Writings of the Section for Prehistory and Early History. Volume 2. Berlin 1954, pp. 7-16.
• Several brief overviews of different prehistoric and protohistoric cultures, In: Excavations and Finds . Volume 3, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1958. ISSN  0004-8127
• Gotthard Neumann: The primers from the Kleiner Gleichberge near Römhild . In: Treatises of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 64, Issue 3, Leipzig 1973. ISSN  0080-5297

A bibliography ( memento from July 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) was found on the website of the area for prehistory and early history of the FSU Jena.

Obituaries and tributes

• Werner Coblenz : Gotthard Neumann † . In: excavations and finds. Volume 17, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1972, pp. 97f. ISSN  0004-8127
• Werner Coblenz: Gotthard Neumann June 8, 1902 to April 29, 1972. With bibliography Gotthard Neumann based on documents from Dr. phil. Karl Peschel. In: Yearbook for regional history and cultural studies. Edited by of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Böhlau, Weimar 1971-1972 (1974), pp. 316-332. ISSN  0085-2341
• Werner Coblenz: Prehistoric in the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Your contributions to historical research. In: Ways and Advances in Science. Contributions from members of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig on the 150th anniversary of its foundation. Berlin 1996, pp. 421-436, here pp. 428f. ISBN 3-05-003134-4
• Roman Grabolle, Uwe Hoßfeld and Klaus Schmidt: Prehistory and early history in Jena 1930–1945. Teaching, researching and digging for Germania? In: Uwe Hoßfeld, Jürgen John , Oliver Lemuth, Rüdiger Stutz (eds.): Combative science. Studies at the University of Jena under National Socialism . Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2003, pp. 868–912, ISBN 3-412-04102-5 .
• Rosemarie Müller : Gotthard Neumann and the problem of the Celts and Teutons in Thuringia. In: Heiko Steuer (Ed.): An outstanding national science. German prehistorians between 1900 and 1995. Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 29. Berlin 2001, pp. 89-107, ISBN 3-11-017184-8
• Wolfgang Pape: Ten prehistorians from Germany. In: Heiko Steuer (Ed.): An outstanding national science. German prehistorians between 1900 and 1995. Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 29, Berlin 2001, pp. 55-88, ISBN 3-11-017184-8
• Karl Peschel : Obituary Gotthard Neumann 1902–1972. In: Journal of Archeology. Volume 6, Hüthig, Heidelberg 1972, pp. 286f. ISSN  0044-233X
• Karl Peschel: Gotthard Neumann and the preservation of ground monuments in Thuringia 1930 to 1947. In: Archäologische Gesellschaft in Thüringen e. V. (Ed.): 100 years "The prehistoric and early historical antiquities of Thuringia". Contributions to the history of archaeological monument preservation in Thuringia (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Volume 59 = New excavations and finds in Thuringia. Special volume 2009). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2010, ISBN 978-3-937517-83-4 , pp. 69-116.

Further appreciations and obituaries in the bibliography ( memento of July 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paul Meißner (Ed.): Alt-Herren-Directory of the German Singers. Leipzig 1934, p. 218.
2. ↑ Jena University Archives, Collection D, No. 3194.
3. ↑ Hartleb, Margit: “Discharges” at the University of Jena between 1932 and 1938. A research problem, in: Berger, Katrin / Blaha, Dagmar / Boblenz, Frank / Mötsch, Johannes (eds.): “Oldest preserved with loyalty, friendly conceived New". Festschrift for Volker Wahl, Rudolstadt 2008, pp. 543–557, here p. 546.

Web links

• Literature by and about Gotthard Neumann in the catalog of the German National Library

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on September 14, 2004 in this version .