Alfred Hermann (Egyptologist)

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Oskar Bernhard Alfred Hermann (born May 11, 1904 in Leipzig , † February 3, 1967 in Cologne ) was a German Egyptologist .

Life

After graduating from the Nicolaigymnasium in Leipzig, he studied literary history, history, art history and philosophy in Leipzig, Munich and Marburg and received his doctorate in 1928 at the University of Leipzig under André Jolles with a thesis on Joost van den Vondel's "Gijsbrecht van Aemstel". Jolles also pointed out Egyptology to him. So he studied Egyptology and Oriental Studies from 1928 to 1932. The first result of dealing with this subject was the essay on the question of an Egyptian literary history ; From 1930 he continued his studies in Berlin with the Egyptologist Heinrich Schäfer and received a position as a scientific assistant at the Egyptian Department of the State Museums in Berlin . In autumn 1932 he went to the German Institute for Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo as a consultant , where he came into contact with Hermann Junker . From here he could travel from Egypt to Nubia and also take part in excavations.

On July 1, 1933, he joined the NSDAP in Cairo . In 1934 he married Elfriede Krahn in Cairo, daughter of an engineer who had lived in Egypt since 1931 and later became a national group leader of the NSDAP in Egypt, and returned to Berlin. In 1941 he was called up for military service and served mostly as an interpreter for Arabic in the entire North African war zone until the end of the war. In 1945 he became an American prisoner of war and was arrested in the British internment camp Staumühle in the Senne near Paderborn. At the end of 1947 he was released from captivity and from then on lived in the birthplace of his wife in Malente . A return to his subject was initially denied due to his National Socialist past. From 1953, Theodor Klauser brought him in for the collaboration and editing of the Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum (Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity) and then got him a position as a research assistant at the Franz Joseph Dölger Institute of the University of Bonn , which was founded in 1955 , where he wrote numerous articles in specialist journals for the Reallexikon in volumes 2 (1954) to 7 (1967) compiled a total of 39 extensive articles on keywords from a wide variety of specialist areas. In 1958 Hermann completed his habilitation at the University of Cologne with the thesis "Ancient Egyptian Love Songs" and was able to set up an Egyptological library here. In 1961 he was appointed to the Scientific Council and in 1963 to an associate professor. When a full chair for Egyptology was established at the University of Cologne in 1965, Hermann was appointed to this position.

From volume 2 (1959) until his death, he was one of the editors of the Yearbook for Antiquity and Christianity with Theodor Klauser and Alfred Stuiber .

Hermann died in 1967 at the age of 62 in Cologne-Bayenthal .

Fonts (selection)

  • Joost van den Vondel's “Gijsbrecht van Aemstel” in his relationship to Virgil's second book “Aeneis” , dissertation Leipzig 1928.
  • Guide to the Cairo Museum of Egyptian Antiquities , Cairo 1935.
  • The Egyptian King's Novella , Glückstadt / Hamburg / New York 1936.
  • Guide to the Antiquities of Memphis and Saqqara , Berlin 1938.
  • The stelae of the Theban rock tombs of the 18th dynasty , Glückstadt / Hamburg / New York 1940.
  • with Wolf Schwan: Egyptian Cabaret , Berlin 1940.
  • The cult of the dead among the ancient Egyptians. Introduction to the display collection of Ancient Egypt (Hamburg, Museum of Ethnology and Prehistory) , Hamburg 1949.
  • with Martin Schwind : The Princess of Samarkand. Fairy tales from Azerbaijan , Cologne 1951.
  • The world of the fellahs. Guide to ethnology . Guide to the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology and Prehistory 2, Hamburg 1952.
  • Ancient Egyptian love poetry . Wiesbaden 1959.

literature

  • Walther Wolf : Alfred Hermann, May 11, 1904 - February 3, 1967. In: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde , Volume 95, 1969, pp. XI-XIII.
  • Manfred Weber: Directory of his writings , ibid. Pp. XIII-XVI.
  • Baudouin van de Walle: Alfred Hermann (1904-1967). In: Chronique d'Égypte , Volume 42, 1967, p. 354.
  • Susanne Voss: The history of the Cairo department of the DAI in the field of tension between German political interests , Volume 2, 1929-1966 (= People - Cultures - Traditions. Studies from the research clusters of the German Archaeological Institute, Vol. 8, 2). Publishing house Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2017, ISBN 978-3-86757-396-2 , pp. 123-128.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Death certificate no. 237 from February 7, 1967, registry office Cologne old town. In: LAV NRW R civil status register. Retrieved June 21, 2018 .
  2. ^ In: Journal of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft 83, 1929, pp. 44–66.
  3. ↑ Membership number 1.698.421.
  4. ↑ Thomas Schneider , Peter Raulwing (ed.): Egyptology from the First World War to the Third Reich in the Google Book Search, ed .:, Brill, Leiden / Boston 2013, pp. 165–168.
personal data
SURNAME Hermann, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hermann, Oskar Bernhard Alfred (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Egyptologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1967
Place of death Cologne