André Wedemeyer

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Gottfried André Wedemeyer (born March 29, 1875 in Bremen ; † February 13, 1958 in Leipzig ) was a German Japanologist , sinologist and historian . As a professor he taught at the University of Leipzig .

Life

André Wedemeyer was born on March 29, 1875 as the son of the businessman Heinrich Wedemeyer in Bremen, where he also attended the humanistic grammar school.

From 1894 to 1903 he studied history , law and economics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin (today: Humboldt University in Berlin ) and the University of Leipzig . After doing research as a private scholar after completing his studies, he became a volunteer assistant at the Institute for Cultural and Universal History at the University of Leipzig in 1905. Its director Karl Lamprecht made him head of the East Asian department. During this time, under August Conrady, he began to study Sinology and, on the side, Japanese Studies.

After receiving his doctorate in 1913, he worked first under Conrady, then later under his successor Erich Haenisch as an assistant and finally as a senior assistant at the East Asian seminar.

After his habilitation in Japanology in 1924, he initially held lectures as a private lecturer, in February 1932 he was made a non-scheduled adjunct professor of Japanese studies at the Philological-Historical Department of the Faculty of Philosophy, and in 1934 he was appointed as a regular associate professor for East Asian philology, simultaneously with East Asian Seminar Director appointed. Horst Hammitzsch and Wolf Haenisch were among his students .

Even after his retirement in 1947, he worked until 1957 as head of the Japanese department of the East Asian Institute of the Karl Marx University in Leipzig, which was newly founded after the war, where he held Japanese and sinological lectures until his death.

research

After completing his studies, Wedemeyer first dealt with the history of the Middle Ages . His research as a private scholar led him to the archives of the cities of Hamburg , Lübeck and Rostock .

After accepting the position as a volunteer assistant in Leipzig, he began to be increasingly interested in the history of East Asia, with China initially being the focus. He wrote his dissertation on the subject of the locations and events of Chinese history against the outcome of the Third and in the Second Millennium BC. Chr. But soon Japan began to move his attention to the center. The title of his habilitation thesis was Studies on Early Japanese History , and subsequently Japanese early history and mythology , but also Man'yōshū, were his most important research areas.

When the Institute for Cultural and Universal History, and with it the East Asian Seminar , were destroyed in an air raid in December 1943 , Wedemeyer's numerous unpublished manuscripts and large parts of his private library also went up in flames. He continued his lectures without further ado in his private apartment, but his writings and thus an important part of his research were irretrievably lost to science.

Fonts (selection)

  • Scenes and events in Chinese history towards the end of the third and second millennium BC BC - Yao, Shun and Yü. In: Asia Major: Hirth Anniversary Volume. London 1923, pp. 456-559.
  • Japanese early history: Investigations into the chronology and territorial constitution of ancient Japan up to the 5th century AD (= communications of the German Society for Natural and Ethnographic Studies of East Asia. Suppl.bd. 11). Tokyo / Leipzig 1930.
  • About the sun flag of Japan. In: Asia Major. Vol. 7 (1932), pp. 529-555 ( online ; PDF; 697 kB).
  • Explanation of a poem by Hitomaro . In: OAG anniversary volume Part II. Tokyo 1933, pp. 134–150.
  • Hiding the Sun Deity in the Rock Cave: Study of Japanese Mythology. In: Communications of the Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia. Vol. XXV (1932-1935), Division B, pp. 76-85 ( online ).

literature

  • Helga Steininger, Hans Steininger , Ulrich Unger (eds.): Sino-Japonica. Festschrift for André Wedemeyer on the occasion of his 80th birthday . Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1956.
  • Horst Hammitzsch : André Wedemeyer in memoriam (1875-1958) . In: Oriens Extremus. Magazine for the language, art and culture of the countries of the Far East . 5. Vol. 2 (1958), pp. 252-254.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Horst Hammitzsch: André Wedemeyer in memoriam (1875–1958) . In: Oriens Extremus. Magazine for the language, art and culture of the countries of the Far East . 5. Vol. 2 (1958), pp. 252-254.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f André Wedemeyer in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
  3. ↑ The Leipzig professor catalog states 1923 as the year of his doctorate, Horst Hammitzsch, however, writes in his obituary for Wedemeyer: “In the years 1913 to 1934, after his doctorate, he held the post of assistant and later of senior assistant at the Osasiatisches Seminar (...). "
  4. ↑ The professor's catalog , however, states 1931 as the year of the appointment.
personal data
SURNAME Wedemeyer, André
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wedemeyer, Gottfried André (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Japanologist and Sinologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1958
Place of death Leipzig