Adam Schlitt

Adam Schlitt (born April 3, 1913 in Szakadát near Pécs , Kingdom of Hungary , Austria-Hungary , † February 5, 1990 in Sinsheim ) was a teacher and philologist. In 1959 he founded the Hungarian-German academic association Suevica Pannonica and was the editor of its archive publication for over ten years. He has also earned services as a homeland researcher in the area of ​​the large district town of Sinsheim, where he has lived since 1951. He was a founding member of the Heimatverein Kraichgau and designed and edited its series.

Life

Adam Schlitt was born to Hungarian-German parents in the then purely German municipality of Saggetal (Szakadát). In the year of his birth, the family emigrated to the USA , where his father worked as a bricklayer in Milwaukee and Akron . After a few years, the mother and the children returned to Hungary, while the father stayed in the USA. From 1924 Schlitt attended the Progymnasium in Gyönk , later the Cistercian High School in Pécs , where he graduated from high school in 1932. Immediately afterwards he began to study philology in Budapest , but got into difficulties due to his German-Hungarian attitude and therefore moved to Debrezin , where he also studied law. In 1938 he graduated as Dr. phil. , his dissertation dealt with the “dialect of Szakadát”.

After completing his studies, Schlitt devoted himself to researching Hungarian-German nationality. With the German scholar Richard Huss he created a collection of Hungarian-German folk songs (lost in World War II).

In the National Socialist People's Union of Germans in Hungary (VDU), for which he began to get involved in 1938, he initially took over the "State Office for Culture". In 1941 he also took over the "Deutsche Volkshilfe", the social affairs office of the VDU. There he provided people and soldiers' aid during the Second World War. In November of the same year he married Gerda Kessler, the daughter of a professor from Transylvania. The marriage had two daughters.

After the end of the Second World War and with the expulsion of the Hungarian Germans, Schlitt and his family first came to Upper Austria. In the summer of 1946 the family finally came to Schönau near Heidelberg . Schlitt took up another degree in German, English and history at the University of Heidelberg . After the state examination in 1948 he was first a teacher in Heidelberg, in 1950 he switched to teaching German and history at the Wilhelmi-Gymnasium in Sinsheim, where he moved with his family in 1951. Within the Volksbildungswerk of the district of Sinsheim , he began giving lectures on Hungarian-German topics. From 1953 to 1966 he was the head of the Sinsheim branch of the Volksbildungswerk. In 1959 he founded the Hungarian-German academic association Suevia Pannonica , whose archive publication he published from 1964 to 1981.

Schlitt was also one of the founding members of the Kraichgau home association . He planned and edited the Kraichgau series , which appeared from 1968 and for which he wrote numerous articles himself. In 1963 he also published the commemorative publication for the 1200th anniversary of Sinsheim. Including newspaper articles, the list of his contributions and publications includes around 400 titles.

In 1973, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his "services to local research in the Kraichgau and the maintenance of the Hungarian-German folk culture" . In 1981 he was awarded the Hungarian German Culture Prize. In 1984 he was the first holder of the golden Karl Wilhelmi commemorative coin awarded by the city of Sinsheim.

literature

• Michael Ertz: Dr. Adam Schlitt. The co-founder and first editor of the “Kraichgau” yearbook. An appreciation , in: Kraichgau 10, 1987, pp. 13-19.
• Ingeborg Doll: Obituary for Dr. Adam Schlitt, the co-founder and first editor of the yearbook "Kraichgau" , in: Kraichgau 12, 1991, p. 215f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sled, Adam . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)