Arnold Oskar Meyer

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Arnold Oskar Meyer (1942)

Arnold Oskar Meyer (born October 20, 1877 in Breslau ; † June 3, 1944 in Berlin ) was a German historian . He mainly worked on the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in England and on the biography of Otto von Bismarck . Influenced by his academic teachers Dietrich Schäfer and Erich Marcks , Meyer worked in the tradition of historicism and, during National Socialism , sought connection to National Socialist historiographical patterns of interpretation.

Life

The father Oskar Emil Meyer was a full professor of physics at the University of Breslau , his brothers Herbert Oskar (1875-1941) and Oskar Erich (1883-1939) a lawyer and geologist. Arnold completed his school education at the Maria Magdalenen High School in autumn 1895 with the Abitur.

He then studied history, philosophy, German and English at the universities of Tübingen , Leipzig , Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau, with Dietrich Schäfer and Erich Marcks among others . In his hometown he received his doctorate in 1900. phil. on English diplomacy in Germany at the time of Edward VI. and Mary . In 1901 he passed the state examination for teaching at high schools (history, philosophical propaedeutics) and middle schools (German and English). An educational trip to England followed , and Meyer worked in the Breslau city archives until 1902. From 1903 he worked at the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome and completed his habilitation in 1908 on England and the Catholic Church from the time Elisabeth took office until the founding of the seminars at the University of Breslau .

As a private lecturer and university archivist, Meyer went to Rostock University in 1910 , where he was appointed extraordinary professor of history in 1913 . When the First World War broke out in 1914, Meyer volunteered for military service , from which he retired in 1916 due to illness. In 1915 he was appointed full professor at the University of Kiel .

From 1922 to 1929 Meyer taught at the University of Göttingen and then until 1936 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In 1936 he was appointed to succeed Hermann Oncken as a full professor for Middle and Modern History at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and retired there in 1944.

Meyer was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Honorary Corresponding Member of the Royal Historical Society . He was a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences since 1923 and an external member since 1929 . From 1919 to 1930 he was a member of the German National People's Party . From 1929 he was President of the German Academy . During the time of National Socialism he was a member of the Advisory Board of the Nazi Reich Institute for the History of New Germany .

Meyer died in a riding accident. The marriage entered into in 1911 had three daughters and one son.

plant

Meyer's view of history was conservative-Prussian-authoritarian and at the same time folkish - racist , pan-German nationalist and anti-Semitic . One of his areas of expertise was the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in England . His book England and the Catholic Church under Elizabeth , published in 1911, was translated into English in 1916. In his work German and English. Essence and becoming in the great history of 1937 Meyer stylized England as a world power competing with Germany. Coming from Germanic roots, they developed a nationwide national consciousness early on and produced leaders who fulfilled the will of the people. As a result, the English had become the people with the greatest living space, while the German people remained a " people without space ".

On the other hand, Meyer has been concerned with the life and work of Otto von Bismarck since the 1920s . In 1944 an extensive biography from his pen was published posthumously. In accordance with Carl Schmitt's understanding of the state , Meyer presented Bismarck as the incarnation of the state that was superordinate to the party quarrels, praised the small German solution and the establishment of the German Empire in 1871. After 1933 he also placed Bismarck in a line of tradition on the “ Third Reich ”. With him, Bismarck became a “master man” and “veteran of the Germanic kind”, whose longing to “be the leader of an inwardly united people firmly united in its national strength” failed because of national particularism and the parties. While Hans Rothfels stated in his foreword to the unchanged new edition of Meyer's Bismarck biography in 1945 that the book was "completely free of bows to the Hitler regime", Helga Grebing sees Meyer as a völkisch-racist argument that was considerably strengthened after 1933. Meyer welcomed the National Socialist racial policy and made an effort to bring out Bismarck's ethnic-national side. She sees “gradual affinities of the folk-nationalistic inflated traditional Prussian conservatism with National Socialism” being expressed.

Meyer continued the handbook of German history ( Brandt -Meyer- Just ) and published articles in specialist journals (for example, Military Science Rundschau , Journal of Schleswig-Holstein History , South German Monthly Issues , Pomeranian Life Pictures . Vol. 2, Communications from the University of Göttingen ). Fritz Valjavec , Günther Franz and Heinrich Scheel were among his students .

Fonts (selection)

  • English diplomacy in Germany at the time of Edward VI. and Mary. M. & H. Marcus in Komm. Breslau, Breslau 1900.
  • Studies on the prehistory of the Reformation. From Silesian sources. R. Oldenbourg, Munich, Berlin 1903.
  • Clement VIII and James I of England. Published by Loescher & Co., Rome 1904.
  • On the history of the Counter Reformation in Silesia. From Vatican sources. Wroclaw 1904.
  • The British imperial title at the time of the Stuarts. Published by Loescher & Co., Rome 1907.
  • England and the Catholic Church. From Elizabeth's accession to the founding of the seminaries ... , Rome 1908.
  • England and the Catholic Church under Elizabeth and the Stuarts. von Loescher, Rome 1911.
  • What is England's fault? German Verl.-Anst., Stuttgart [u. a.] 1914.
  • German freedom and English parliamentarism. F. Bruckmann, Munich 1915.
  • To the historical understanding of the great war. Lectures. Siegismund, Berlin 1916.
  • The University of Kiel and Schleswig-Holstein in the past and present. Lecture given at the first general meeting of the Schleswig-Holstein University Society, Saturday, October 25, 1919 in the auditorium of the university. Mühlau, Kiel 1919.
  • Empress Auguste Victoria. Words of memory [spoken at the funeral of the German National People's Party in Burg auf Fehmarn on the day of the funeral, April 19, 1921]. , 1921, [S. l].
  • Cromwell. German Verl.-Anst., Stuttgart [u. a.] 1922.
  • The objectives in Bismarck's Schleswig-Holstein policy from 1855 to 1864. Vollbehr, Kiel 1923.
  • Prince Metternich. German Verl.-Ges. for politics u. History, Berlin 1924.
  • Bismarck's policy on the Orient. Ceremonial address given at the foundation ceremony of the Georg August University in Göttingen on January 18, 1925. Kästner, Göttingen 1925.
  • Windthorst and the Catholic Church in Holstein. Kiel 1925.
  • Bismarck's fight with Austria at the Bundestag in Frankfurt. 1851 to 1859. Koehler, Berlin 1927.
  • The awakening of the German national consciousness in Schleswig-Holstein. Lecture held at the German celebration to commemorate the voting day in 1920 in Flensburg on March 14, 1928. WG Mühlau, Kiel 1928.
  • England and the British Empire. In: People and Empire of the Germans. Lectures given at the German Association for Political Science Further Education 3 (1929), pp. 247–285.
  • Bismarck's peace policy. Speech given at the foundation ceremony of the University of Munich on January 18, 1930. Max Hueber, Munich 1930.
  • Versailles, commemorative speech given on the occasion of the anniversary of the signing of the Versailles Peace Dictate in the Academic Working Committee for German Construction. Max Hueber, Munich 1930.
  • Bismarck's belief in the mirror of the "Loosungen and teaching texts". Beck, Munich 1933.
  • On the history of the German national feeling. In: Communications from the Academy for Scientific Research and the Care of Germanness , volume 2, year 1934.
  • Purpose and role of the German Academy. Lecture by the Deputy President and Head of the Scientific Department of the German Academy to the Society of Berlin Friends of the German Academy on April 23, 1936. Berlin 1936.
  • German and English. Being and becoming in great history. CH Beck, Munich 1937.
  • The importance of overseas colonization in world history. In: Colonial Problems of the Present. 1939, pp. 24-48.
  • Bismarck. The man and the statesman. Koehler and Amelang, Leipzig 1944.
    • Bismarck. The man and the statesman. Koehler, Stuttgart 1949.

literature

  • Helga Grebing : Between the Empire and the dictatorship. Göttingen historians and their contribution to the interpretation of history and society (M. Lehmann, AO Meyer, W. Mommsen, SA Kaehler). In: Hartmut Boockmann , Hermann Wellenreuther (Hrsg.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures (= Göttinger Universitätsschriften. Series A, Schriften. Vol. 2). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-35831-8 , pp. 204-238.
  • Hans-Christof Kraus : Arnold Oskar Meyer. In: Berlinische Lebensbilder. Edited by Uwe Schaper , Vol. 10: Humanities scholar II. Edited by Hans-Christof Kraus. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2012, ISBN 3-428-13821-X , pp. 245-262.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 167.
  2. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 407.
  3. ↑ a b c Helga Grebing : Between the Empire and the dictatorship. Göttingen historians and their contribution to the interpretation of history and society (M. Lehmann, AO Meyer, W. Mommsen, SA Kaehler). In: Hartmut Boockmann and Hermann Wellenreuther (eds.). History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 9783525358313 (= Göttinger Universitätsschriften. Series A, Schriften . Vol. 2), p. 220.
  4. ^ Helga Grebing: Between the Empire and the dictatorship. Göttingen historians and their contribution to the interpretation of history and society (M. Lehmann, AO Meyer, W. Mommsen, SA Kaehler). In: Hartmut Boockmann and Hermann Wellenreuther (eds.). History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 978-3-52535831-3 (= Göttinger Universitätsschriften. Series A, Schriften . Vol. 2), p. 218.
  5. ^ Helga Grebing: Between the Empire and the dictatorship. Göttingen historians and their contribution to the interpretation of history and society (M. Lehmann, AO Meyer, W. Mommsen, SA Kaehler). In: Hartmut Boockmann and Hermann Wellenreuther (eds.). History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 978-352535831-3 (= Göttinger Universitätsschriften. Series A, Schriften . Vol. 2), p. 221.
  6. ↑ a b Helga Grebing: Between the Empire and the dictatorship. Göttingen historians and their contribution to the interpretation of history and society (M. Lehmann, AO Meyer, W. Mommsen, SA Kaehler). In: Hartmut Boockmann and Hermann Wellenreuther (eds.). History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 9783525358313 (= Göttinger Universitätsschriften. Series A, Schriften . Vol. 2), p. 222.
  7. ^ New edition: Handbook of German History. Lim. by Otto Brandt , continued by Arnold Oskar Meyer, ed. by Leo Just . 6 vols., Konstanz 1957–1985.
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Arnold Oskar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Arnold; Meyer, Arnold O .; Meyer, AO
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH June 3, 1944
Place of death Berlin