Alfred deaths

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Alfred Tode, 1986

Alfred Heinrich Otto Tode (born August 11, 1900 in Lübeck ; † May 4, 1996 in Braunschweig ) was a German prehistoric scientist and director of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum from 1945 to 1965 .

Life

Alfred death attended from 1909 to 1918, the School Johanneum zu Lübeck , where he in June 1918 towards the end of the First World War , the High School took off. He then did a short military service until the beginning of 1919 and in the same year began studying geology , archeology , ancient history as well as prehistory in Kiel , which he completed in Berlin in 1922 with a doctorate as the youngest prehistoric doctor in the German Empire . During his studies he became a member of the AMV Albingia zu Kiel (in the special houses association ). Between 1923 and 1936 he devoted himself to the archaeological land survey, which he developed and used for the first time, with the systematic recording of the prehistoric and early historical sites of Schleswig-Holstein . He carried out his project in an exemplary and exemplary manner for other German regions.

During an excavation in Dahlhausen in Brandenburg , he met the pastor's daughter in 1923 and married her in 1925. His wife Irmgard gave birth to a son in 1926 and 1929, and later two further sons and a daughter.

Towards the end of the Weimar Republic and at the beginning of the National Socialism , deaths clashed with partisans of the NSDAP due to the emerging German cult among prehistorians. After the " seizure of power " in 1933, the Kiel Gauleiter dismissed Alfred Tode because he viewed his archaeological survey as a private activity.

During a speech by Alfred Tode at a prehistoric conference in Ulm in 1936, the Braunschweig Prime Minister Dietrich Klagges noticed him and in 1937 appointed him as a state archaeologist in Braunschweig, where he received his habilitation in 1938. At the instigation of death, the Borwall was placed under protection in 1937 as the first archaeological monument in Braunschweig. In Braunschweig, Tode built the house of prehistoric times as a prehistoric museum. According to the will of the National Socialists, it should be a museum for Germanic archeology, which, in the sense of National Socialist ideology, advertises the cultural height of primitive Germanism. Instead, Tode and his staff in the museum tended to depict the Indo-European or Nordic megalithic culture. In addition, Tode ran teacher training at the Braunschweig University of Education .

Alfred Tode was drafted during the Second World War . He took part in the attack on Poland in 1939 and took part in the western campaign in France in 1940 . He then returned to Braunschweig to take care of protecting the museums from bombing . Death's apartment was destroyed in a bomb attack in 1944. His family had already been evacuated to Eilum am Elm . The Haus der Vorzeit museum that he built was completely destroyed in the bombing raid on Braunschweig on October 15, 1944 . He had previously had the stocks relocated to villages on the Elm. After the war, they formed the basis of the department for prehistory and early history of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum built up by Alfred Tode and opened in Wolfenbüttel in 1959 . At the beginning of 1944 he was called up again for military service.

Alfred Tode with the book The Wehranlagen Nordalbingiens , 1986

After the war, in contrast to many of his colleagues, Alfred Tode was classified as unencumbered in the denazification process . As early as the spring of 1945 he was appointed director of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum. He held the office until his retirement in 1965. At the Technical University of Braunschweig he held a teaching position for prehistory and early history. In 1970 he was one of the founding members of the Archaeological Commission for Lower Saxony .

After his retirement, Alfred Tode was a member of the Council of the City of Braunschweig for the FDP from 1964 to 1972 and at times chairman of the culture committee. From 1955 onwards, he was in charge of the Prehistory Museum in Bremen, which moved to Worpswede in 1971 as the Ludwig Roselius Museum . Tode played a key role in the new construction and furnishing of the museum.

Excavations

In addition to his museum and teaching activities, Alfred Tode was an active excavator. Paleolithic research gained a strong impetus through his excavation work . He achieved greater fame in Lower Saxony in 1952 when he excavated the archaeological site in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt as a Middle Paleolithic camp for mammoth hunters . He carried out further excavations, for example, at the Vorsfelde castle wall (1946) and the Reitling fortifications (1954). Alfred Tode devoted himself to researching the Neolithic stone chest of Bredelem , the megalithic grave of Groß Steinum and the grave of the Walternienburg-Bernburg culture near Liebenburg . Further research focuses were the early Middle Ages and castles , such as the excavation of the Kansteinburg .

Publications (selection)

  • Together with Hermann Hofmeister: The prehistoric monuments in the Lübeck state territory. M. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1930, DNB 573815992 .
  • Prehistory of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Lübeck. JJ Augustin , Glückstadt 1933/1934.
  • Lower Germany. Life and research. Deutsche Volksbücherei, Goslar 1948, DNB 453579515 .
  • The excavations in the medieval Schulerode near Harzburg. (illustrated brochure). Harzburg 1950.
  • Mammoth hunters 100,000 years ago. Nature and people in northwest Germany during the last Ice Age due to the excavations near Salzgitter-Lebenstedt. Appelhans, Braunschweig 1954, DNB 455081182 .
  • The Palaeolithic site in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt. Böhlau, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-412-10982-7 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Tode  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of Alter SVer (VASV): Address book and Vademecum. Ludwigshafen am Rhein 1959, p. 124.
  2. ↑ Blonde warriors. (on the misuse of archeology by National Socialism) in: Junge Welt. from November 27, 2004 for the exhibition in Wolfenbüttel Staged Germanism - The archaeological museum “Haus der Vorzeit” 1937–1944.
personal data
SURNAME Death, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tode, Alfred Heinrich Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prehistorian
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1996
Place of death Braunschweig