Adolf Grohmann (Arabist)

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Adolf Grohmann (born March 1, 1887 in Graz , † September 21, 1977 in Innsbruck ) was an Austrian Arabist , Semitist and Egyptologist .

Life

Adolf Grohmann devoted himself to filed Matura studies of Semitic Philology, Egyptology , cultural history of the Middle East and the Eastern Archeology at the University of Vienna . In 1911 Grohmann was promoted to Dr. phil. doctorate , in 1916 he received his habilitation for linguistics and antiquity of the Near East, in 1921 he was appointed associate professor .

In 1918 Grohmann became head of the papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library .

In 1923 Grohmann accepted a professorship for Semitic Philology at the German University in Prague , which he held until 1945, where he headed the "Oriental Institute" of the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation . He subsequently held a professorship for Muslim History and Archeology at Fuad I University, now Cairo University, from 1949 to 1956 . In addition, Adolf Grohmann taught from 1949 to 1962 as an honorary professor at the University of Innsbruck .

Grohmann - he took part in the Austro-Hungarian excavation in Balata in Palestine in 1914 - had been entrusted with the publication of the Arabic papyri of the Royal Egyptian Library in Cairo since 1930 . From 1930 to 1939 he spent a few months in Cairo every year for this purpose. In the spring of 1939 Grohmann was in Egypt . In 1938 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (full member in 1961) and as a member of the Institut d'Egypte in Cairo.

In December 1938, Grohmann, who was teaching in Prague at the time, joined the NSDAP (membership no. 6.652.055). In March 1941 Grohmann was commissioned to “ inspect a 4,000-volume Jewish library in Mähr.-Ostrau and, if necessary, to“ take over ”the seminar in Prague. In October 1941, Grohmann was informed by the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education (REM) that Adolf Hitler had “appointed him full professor in the Reichsdienst for life with reference to the civil service” that the REM in agreement with the Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia with effect from August 1, 1941, the vacant position of a full professor in the Philosophical Faculty of the German Charles University in Prague and that he was also appointed director of the seminar for Semitic Philology and Islamic Studies at the university.

When asked by the Hamburg orientalists Arthur Schaade and Carl Rathjens to take on the German-Jewish doctoral candidate Hedwig Klein , who had unsuccessfully tried to emigrate to India via Antwerp in 1939 and who had been deported to Auschwitz on July 11, 1942 , Grohmann responded negatively ; he does not believe “that further cooperation of the named is an option, if only for reasons of prestige.” Klein was murdered in Auschwitz. Shortly before the end of the war, Grohmann submitted a request to the curator of the German academic universities in Prague “for an exemption from service for the period from 15.3. until April 20, 1945 "," for the purpose of carrying out a research assignment I was given as part of the Reinhard Heydrich Foundation and the Oriental Institute ". At this point Grohmann had already initiated his escape to Austria and the rescue of his private library. In 1945 Grohmann fled to Innsbruck.

Adolf Grohmann was regarded as an expert on ancient South Arabic and Arabic papyrology .

Fonts (selection)

  • On the origin and development of the Ethiopian script, 1914
  • South Arabia as an economic area . Volume 1, series: Writings of the Philosophical Faculty of the German University in Prague, 7. Rohrer, 1930
  • Status and tasks of Arabic papyrology in the context of Arabic studies. 1939
  • Arabic Papyri in the Egyptian Library, Egyptian Library Press, 1955
  • Introduction and Chrestomathy to Arabic Papyrus Studies / Volume 1, Státni pedagogické nakladelstvi, Prague 1955
  • Studies on the historical geography and administration of early medieval Egypt, Rohrer, 1959
  • Paleographic problems in the context of Arabic papyrology, Rohrer, 1960
  • Papyrological studies: on private and social life in the first Islamic centuries, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1995

literature

  • Ludmilla Hanisch: The successors of the exegetes. German-language research into the Middle East in the first half of the 20th century, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003 ISBN 3-447-04758-5 p. 188
  • Pavel Kolář: History of Central Europe. The Universities of Prague, Vienna and Berlin around 1900 Volume 1, Academic Publishing House , 2008 ISBN 3931982548 pp. 115, 237
  • Wolfdieter Bihl : Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna. Research between the Maghreb and East and South Asia. The professors and lecturers, Böhlau, Vienna 2009 ISBN 978-3-205-78371-8 p. 99

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 485.
  2. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 219.
  3. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 38.
  4. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux Mondes Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 163; Ellinger quotes here from a letter from Grohmann to the curator of the German scientific universities in Prague of March 12, 1941 (BArchB, R 31/548).
  5. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 162; Ellinger quotes here from a letter from REM to Grohmann dated October 16, 1941 (BArchB, R 31/548).
  6. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 70.
  7. ↑ Stefan Buchen: The Jewess and "Mein Kampf" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . February 28, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 5 ( taz.de [accessed on February 28, 2018]).
  8. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 73; Ellinger quotes here from a letter from Grohmann to the curator of March 6, 1945 (BarchB, R 31/548).
personal data
SURNAME Grohmann, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Semitist and Orientalist
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1977
Place of death innsbruck