Albert Huyskens

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Albert Huyskens (born July 30, 1879 in Mönchengladbach , † October 26, 1956 in Aachen ) was a German historian , archivist and librarian .

Live and act

Albert Huyskens, the offspring of an old, strictly Catholic Rhenish merchant family, studied history after graduating from high school in 1898. During his studies he became a member of the KDStV Rheno-Franconia Munich in 1899 in the CV . After receiving his doctorate in 1901, he passed the state examination for archive services in 1904 and was appointed director of the Aachen city archive in 1911 . Ten years later, Huyskens received his habilitation at RWTH Aachen University and then taught first as a private lecturer and from 1925 as associate professor for German and Rhenish history at the historical institute of the TH. During this time he joined the Philistine Circle of the KDSt.V. Franconia Aachen , a Catholic German student association of RWTH Aachen University in the largest Cartell Association in Europe, which he ultimately headed for 22 years as chairman.

After his appointment as director of the Aachen City Library in 1931, he was able to increase its holdings to a total of 200,000 individual copies by taking over the specialist library of the art historian Georg Humann (1847–1932), the library of the Aachen School of Applied Arts after its dissolution by the National Socialists and other smaller private libraries. It was also part of his responsibility to relocate and save large parts of the library from the war-related destruction on October 17, 1943. But he only succeeded to a limited extent and the inventory was reduced to 125,000 volumes as a result of the war.

In the 1920s Huyskens became a member of the West German Society for Family Studies , which he then chaired from 1927 for 17 years. As chairman of the Aachen History Association from 1934, he also published its magazine.

Huyskens made a name for himself as an extremely competent history researcher and history teacher, specializing primarily in the Middle Ages. During his time in Aachen he mainly dealt with topics from the medieval history of Aachen, but also with homeland and family research.

Processing of his activities during the time of National Socialism

Despite these historical achievements, Albert Huyskens was personally not without controversy. With the end of the Second World War, it was necessary to review and review his role during the Nazi era , and for this reason Huyskens, who in the meantime had moved to Nordenau in the Sauerland in 1944 , was forced to suspend all his posts and functions until further notice allow. He was accused of having misused his knowledge and above all his genealogical family data, especially from the documents of the city archive, in order to denounce families on the basis of their possibly non-Aryan descent and thus also to adapt and integrate the West German Society for To have carried out family research at the Volksbund der Kippenkundlichen Verein (VSV) in 1935.

Albert Huyskens, meanwhile officially retired from 1945 due to his poor health, went through a denazification procedure by the military authorities and submitted letters of discharge from highly respected personalities. This first attempt at rehabilitation failed on October 9, 1946, but he appealed. In February 1948, the appellate court initially classified him in category IV, fellow traveler status without asset freeze, and in January 1950, following a decree by the special commissioner for denazification issues, in category V, i.e. as an exonerated person.

After Huysken's temporary rehabilitation, he was re-elected as chairman of the Aachen History Association from 1948 to 1955. His Nazi activities were largely ignored in the numerous obituaries and appreciations after his death in 1956, but also in later technical articles about that time in Aachen. In 1977 the city council of Aachen finally decided to name a street after him.

However, with the renewed reappraisal of the activities of former RWTH members during their Nazi period after the scandal surrounding the double identity of the former rector Hans Ernst Schneider alias Hans Schwerte, Huysken's thinking and work were also led by historians Stefan Krebs and Werner Tschacher by Professor Armin Heinen based on documents, notes and letters. As a result, the RWTH came to the current view that Huyskens was more heavily burdened than previously assumed. This in turn led the city of Aachen to decide to reverse the naming of the Huyskensweg.

Publications (selection)

  • Philipp the Magnanimous and the Deutschordensballei Hessen , in: Journal for Hessian History and Regional Studies 38, 1904, pp. 99–184
  • Source studies on the history of St. Elisabeth , Landgrave of Thuringia . Marburg, 1908
  • The so-called Libellus de dictis quatuor ancillarum s. Elisabeth confectus , Kempten a. Munich 1911
  • The monasteries of the landscape on the Werra: Regesta and documents . Elwert, Marburg 1916,
  • Aachen life. In the Baroque and Rococo ages . Fritz Klopp Verlag, Bonn 1929
  • Caesarius von Heisterbach : Writings on St. Elisabeth of Thuringia , ed. by Albert Huyskens, in: Die Wundergeschichten des Caesarius von Heisterbach , ed. by Alfons Hilka, Vol. 3 (Publications of the Society for Rhenish History 43), Bonn 1937
  • The Aachen crown of the Golden Bull , the symbol of the old German Empire . German Archive for the History of the Middle Ages, Vol. 2, 1938
  • The old Aachen. Its destruction and its reconstruction . Aachen Contributions for Building History and Local Art, Volume 3, Aachen History Association, Aachen 1953.

literature

  • Heinrich Savelsberg: Professor Dr. Albert Huyskens. A picture of life. In: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein 57, 1936, pp. 7–12.
  • Stefan Krebs / Werner Tschacher: In the spirit of the racial renewal of our people - Albert Huyskens, the West German Society for Family Studies and the Aachen City Archives under National Socialism. In: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein 109, 2007, pp. 215–238.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Complete directory of the CV The honorary members, old men and students of the Cartell Association (CV) of the cath. German student associations. 1912, Strasbourg i. Els. 1912, p. 265.
personal data
SURNAME Huyskens, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian, archivist and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Mönchengladbach
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 1956
Place of death Aachen