Agathe Lasch

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Agathe Lasch in the mid-1920s

Agathe Lasch ( July 4, 1879 in Berlin - August 18, 1942 in Riga ) was a German Germanist and the first female professor at the University of Hamburg and the first to specialize in German studies in Germany. It established the historical research into the Middle Low German language . Lasch was Jewish and was murdered during the Holocaust .

Life

Stumbling stone in front of the main building of the University of Hamburg
Memorial plaque , Agathe-Lasch-Platz, in Berlin-Halensee

Lasch was born in 1879 as the daughter of a Jewish merchant family. Like her three sisters, she first completed a teacher training course (1898) and then taught at various girls' and trade schools until 1906. In 1906 she made up her Abitur at the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in Berlin-Charlottenburg . She was then able to study German in Halle and Heidelberg and did her doctorate in 1909 under Wilhelm Braune , while in Berlin in 1908 she was not admitted to the courses as a woman. Her very good performance earned her a reputation as an Associate Professor at the Bryn Mawr College Women's University in Pennsylvania / USA . It was there that she wrote her Middle Low German Grammar (1914), which is still a standard Germanistic work today. When the USA entered the war, she returned to Germany in 1917 and became an assistant at the German seminar in Hamburg. After her habilitation (1919), Lasch was the first woman to receive the title of professor at the University of Hamburg in 1923 and the first female Germanist in all of Germany. In 1926 an extraordinary chair for Low German Philology was created for her at the University of Hamburg . In Hamburg, Lasch continued the studies on the history of Berlin's language that she had begun in her dissertation and published in the book Berlinisch (1928). She also worked with Conrad Borchling on two large dictionary projects for the systematic development of the vocabulary of the Hanseatic era and the Hamburg dialect. She was able to publish the first deliveries of the Middle Low German Concise Dictionary herself from 1928, the Hamburg Dictionary only began to appear from 1956 on the basis of her preparatory work.

Their immediate release following the takeover of National Socialism could be prevented only briefly by the intervention of foreign scientists. In 1934 she lost her chair after all. She moved to her sisters in Berlin in 1937 and tried to do further research. She was banned from publishing and was no longer allowed to enter public libraries. On December 8, 1938, Jewish scholars were also withdrawn from special permits authorizing the use of university libraries. Her own library of around 4,000 volumes was confiscated on July 9, 1942. 60 volumes from this library were found in the search for Nazi looted goods in the library of the German Department of the Humboldt University in Berlin . The acceptance of calls to foreign universities (1939 to Dorpat and later to Oslo ) was prevented by the German government. On August 13, 1942, she and her sisters were summoned to the assembly camp and deported to Riga on August 15 . They did not reach the ghetto , but were murdered in the surrounding forests after their arrival in Riga-Šķirotava on August 18, 1942.

Honors

Memorial stone for Agathe Lasch in the memory spiral in the women's garden

In 1970 the Agathe-Lasch-Weg in Hamburg-Othmarschen was named after her.

A lecture hall at the University of Hamburg has been named after her since 1999.

In 2004, Agathe-Lasch-Platz near Kurfürstendamm was dedicated in Berlin-Halensee .

In 2007, on the initiative of the Association for Hamburg History, a stumbling block was laid for Agathe Lasch in Hamburg in front of house No. 9 on Gustav-Leo-Straße (formerly Rehagen). There is also a stumbling block in front of the main building of the University of Hamburg at Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1. In 2010 a stumbling stone was laid in front of the house at Caspar-Theyß-Straße 26 in Berlin-Schmargendorf for Agathe Lasch and her sisters Elsbeth and Margarete Lasch.

In 2009, the women's garden association set up a memorial stone for Agathe Lasch in the women's garden at Hamburg's Ohlsdorf cemetery.

Agathe Lasch Prize

Since 1992, the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg has awarded the Agathe Lasch Prize, endowed with € 5,000, every three years to young scientists who have made outstanding achievements in the field of Low German language research.

Prize winners:

  • 1992: Ingrid Schröder , University of Hamburg
  • 1995: Jürgen Ruge, University of Hamburg
  • 1998: Matthias Vollmer , University of Greifswald
  • 2001: Christian Fischer, University of Münster
  • 2004: Birgit Kellner, University of Flensburg
  • 2007: Markus Denkler, University of Münster
  • 2010: Wilfried Zilz, University of Göttingen (now Gymnasium Walsrode)
  • 2013: Tom Smits, University of Antwerp
  • 2016: Viola Wilcken, University of Kiel
  • 2019: Marie-Luis Merten, University of Paderborn

Publications (selection)

  • History of the written language in Berlin up to the middle of the 16th century , dissertation, University of Berlin 1909 ( PDF )
  • Middle Low German Grammar (1914)
  • The proportion of Low German in the Lower Elbian intellectual life in the 17th century , habilitation thesis, University of Hamburg 1919
  • "Berlinisch". Eine Berlinische Sprachgeschichte (Berlin, 1928; 2nd volume of: Berlinische Forschungen. Texts and studies published on behalf of the Society of Berlin Friends of the German Academy. ). Digitization: Central and State Library Berlin, 2007. URN urn: nbn: de: kobv: 109-opus-63273
  • Central Low German Concise Dictionary. (Delivery 1 to 7, Hamburg 1928 to 1934), continued by Conrad Borchling. Edited by Gerhard Cordes and Annemarie Hübner by Dieter Mohn and Ingrid Schröder. Hamburg 1928 ff., Neumünster / Kiel 1956 ff.

literature

  • Conrad Borchling: Agathe Lasch in memory. Address to the annual meeting of the Association for Low German Language Research in Goslar on September 28, 1946. In: Niederdeutsche Mitteilungen. Published by the Niederdeutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft zu Lund , Vol. 2, 1946, pp. 7-20.
  • Matthias Harbeck, Sonja Kobold: Securing evidence - provenance research on the library of Agathe Lasch. A project by the university library of the Humboldt University in Berlin. In Stefan Alker u. a. Ed .: Libraries in the Nazi era. Provenance research and library history. VR Unipress, Göttingen u. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-89971-450-0 .
  • Martta Jaatinen: Professor Dr. Agathe Lasch in memory. Address to the New Philological Society in Helsinki on March 29, 1947 . In: Neuphilologsche Mitteilungen 48 (1947), pp. 130–141.
  • Christine M. Kaiser, Agathe Lasch (1879–1942): Germany's first female German professor , Teetz et al .: Hentrich & Hentrich / Berlin: New Synagogue Foundation, Centrum Judaicum, 2007, (Jewish miniatures; vol. 63), ISBN 3-938485 -56-6 .
  • Christine M. Kaiser: 'I have always loved Germany ...' Agathe Lasch (1879–1942) . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8378-2000-3 , pp. 65-98.
  • Utz Maas : Persecution and emigration of German-speaking linguists 1933–1945. Entry on Agathe Lasch (accessed: April 15, 2018)
  • Jürgen Meier:  Lasch, Agathe. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 645 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Lax, Agathe. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 15: Kura – Lewa. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-22695-3 , pp. 170-174.
  • Mirko Nottscheid u. a. (Ed.): The Germanist Agathe Lasch (1879–1942). Essays on life and impact , Nordhausen: Bautz 2009 (bibliothemata; 22). ISBN 978-3-88309-500-4 .

Web links

Commons : Agathe Lasch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Agathe Lasch  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Commemorative book victims of the persecution of the Jews under the Nazi tyranny in Germany 1933-1945. Retrieved August 11, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Christine M. Kaiser: I've always loved ... "Agathe Lasch Germany ... . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8378-2000-3 , pp. 66/67.
  3. ↑ See the information from Agathe Lasch in Yadvashem
  4. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: The "deportations of Jews" from the German Reich 1941–1945: a commented chronology. Marix, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-059-5 , pp. 251 and 255.
  5. ↑ Agathe-Lasch-Platz. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  6. ↑ Agathe Lasch Prize , accessed on December 10, 2019.
  7. ↑ Press release of the City of Hamburg: Tenth Agathe Lasch Prize for Low German Language Research awarded. Hamburg Senate Award goes to Dr. Marie-Luis Merten from the University of Paderborn , accessed on December 10, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Lax, Agathe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German specialist in German and Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1942
Place of death Riga