Albert Leitzmann

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Carl Theodor Albert Leitzmann (born on August 3, 1867 in Magdeburg ; died on April 16, 1950 in Jena ) was a German philologist and literary historian . Leitzmann was best known for his extremely extensive edition work , including the first text-critical edition of the Sudel books by the experimental physicist and philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg .

Youth until graduation

Albert Leitzmann was born as the second son of Karl Hermann and Elisabeth Leitzmann (née Naumann), his father was a high school professor of mathematics and physics. Due to health problems, he initially received private tuition and only started school at the traditional neo-humanist pedagogy in Magdeburg at the age of ten . Diary entries from this period show that Leitzmann became interested in older German literature very early on; in October 1881, at the age of 15, he made a note of the decision to become a Germanist.

Leitzmann implemented the decision made as a high school student in 1886 when he began studying German at the University of Freiburg . Leitzmann's most important teacher and initiator there was Hermann Paul , who was one of the so-called young grammarians ; His first scientific publications emerged from a housework with Paul in Leitzmann's second semester in 1888: an essay on the Middle High German teaching poetry Der Winsbeke and, as the first independent publication - pointing the way for Leitzmann's other scientific work - a text-critical edition of the same work.

After two semesters at Berlin University , Leitzmann received his doctorate in Freiburg in the spring of 1889, the title of his dissertation was an examination of the language in Middle High German prose sermons , then he studied for a year in Halle with Eduard Sievers . In the spring of 1891 - not 25 years old - he completed his habilitation in Jena with studies on Berthold von Holle .

Immediately after completing his habilitation, Leitzmann became engaged to Else Altwasser, the daughter of Hugo Amandus and Elise Altwasser (née Gerlach), and the wedding followed in 1892.

From habilitation to retirement

After completing his habilitation, Leitzmann initially taught as a private lecturer at the University of Jena , from autumn 1894 he worked for two years at the Goethe and Schiller Archives in Weimar, followed by another two years of private lectureship in Jena in 1896, until the scholar was appointed associate professor there in 1898 has been. A civil service in this position did not take place until 1918, Leitzmann became a full professor in 1923, and professor of German studies in Jena in 1930 as the successor to Victor Michels . He held this position until his retirement in 1935.

In the years following his habilitation in 1891, Leitzmann began extensive editing activities - even extraordinary for contemporary positivist humanities - "ceaselessly feeling for unprinted sources of German intellectual history". First of all, the study editions of the works of Wolfram , Walther and Hartmann in the Old German Text Library , which remained standard study reading for medieval studies students for decades, deserve special mention . Leitzmann had the eye and the energy to unearth treasures from German intellectual and literary history and make them accessible to the public for the first time; To this day (as of 2016) his editions of previously unknown works by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg occupy an exceptional position .

After his retirement in 1935, Leitzmann concentrated on looking after the new editions of the above-mentioned study editions on Wolfram, Walther and Hartmann. After 1945 he also tried to be reactivated as a university teacher in order to improve his living situation, but this apparently did not succeed. Towards the end of his life his personal situation had become so precarious that Leitzmann had to bequeath his own study library to the University of Jena in return for a pension.

Leitzmann died shortly after his wife in 1950 at the age of 83 in Jena.

In the course of his life he had published almost 800 works, including almost 500 monographs , most of them careful editions of correspondence and works by writers and musicians, but little that was “self-written”; Leitzmann practically never interpreted or commented on the aesthetic quality of the works he published. Leitzmann's biographer Ulrich Joost suspects that the unwillingness to be creative in the humanities and the conspicuous willingness to be completely absorbed in the business of the publishing houses, which is not very scientific, could have been linked to Leitzmann's precarious economic situation.

Awards

Publications (selection)

literature

  • Ulrich Joost: Albert Leitzmann the editor . In: Roland S. Kamzelak , Rüdiger Nutt-Kofoth, Bodo Plachta (eds.): New Germanic editors in a scientific context . Biographical, institutional, intellectual framework in the history of academic editions by newer German-speaking authors. De Gruyter , Berlin, Boston 2011, pp. 129–152, ISBN 978-3-11-025136-4 .
  • Ulrich Joost: Restlessly feeling after unprinted sources of German intellectual history . Albert Leitzmann, philologist and literary historian. In: Berthold Friemel (Ed.): Brothers Grimm Gedenken , Vol. 14, Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 46–79, ISBN 978-3-7776-1104-4 ( Online (PDF) , Lichtenberg Society).
  • Fritz Braun, Kurt Stegmann von Pritzwald (ed.): Thank you for Albert Leitzmann . Jena 1927 (= special volume of Jena German Research).
  • Ernst Vincent, Karl Wesle (ed.): Festschrift for Albert Leitzmann . Jena 1937.
  • Herbert Kolb:  Leitzmann, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 176 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Spelling of first names according to Joost 2011, Albert Leitzmann der Editor , p. 129. Variants: Theodor Karl Albert (Joost 2001, Rastlos nach unprinted sources ... , p. 6); Albert only (Kolb 1985, NDB entry ); Karl Theodor Albert (Markner 2005, MBL entry ).
  2. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 6; accessed March 26, 2016.
  3. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 7; accessed March 26, 2016.
  4. ↑ On the criticism and explanation of Winsbeke and Winsbekin . In: PBB 13 (1888), pp. 248–277, digitized version from http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dbeitrgezurgesc13halluoft~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D248~ double-sided%3D~LT%3DDigitalisat~PUR%3Dthe Internet Archive , accessed March 26, 2016.
  5. ↑ Volume 9 of the Old German Text Library : König Tirol, Winsbeke and Winsbekin , Halle 1888.
  6. ↑ the explanations in this section follow Joost: Rastlos according to unprinted sources ... , p. 8f; accessed March 26, 2016.
  7. ^ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 9; accessed March 26, 2016.
  8. ↑ published in 1892 in: PBB 16 (1892), pp. 1–48 and pp. 346–360, digitized version from http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dbeitrgezurgesch11unkngoog~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn16~ double-sided%3D~LT%3DDigitalisat~PUR%3Dthe Internet Archive, accessed March 26, 2016; Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 15; accessed March 26, 2016.
  9. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 9 u. P. 11; accessed March 26, 2016.
  10. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 17ff u. P. 30; accessed March 26, 2016.
  11. ↑ so Ulrich Joost in the title of his fundamental biographical treatise on Leitzmann; For his part, Joost is referring to a bon mot by the Germanist Bernhard Seuffert from a review of the first volume of an edition of Lichtenberg's letters , see p. Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 1, FN on the title; accessed March 26, 2016.
  12. ^ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 24; accessed March 26, 2016.
  13. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 18; accessed March 26, 2016.
  14. ^ Joost, Leitzmann der Editor , Berlin 2011, pp. 144ff.
  15. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 25f; accessed March 26, 2016.
  16. ^ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 26; accessed March 26, 2016.
  17. ↑ Joost: Restless according to unprinted sources ... , p. 5; accessed March 26, 2016.
  18. ^ Joost, Leitzmann der Editor , Berlin 2011, p. 131.
  19. ^ Joost, Leitzmann der Editor , Berlin 2011, p. 142.
personal data
SURNAME Leitzmann, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leitzmann, Carl Theodor Albert; Leitzmann, Karl Theodor Albert; Leitzmann, Theodor Karl Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Germanist and literary historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1950
Place of death Jena