Axel Schildt

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Axel Schildt (2011)

Axel Friedrich Schildt (born May 9, 1951 in Hamburg ; † April 5, 2019 there ) was a German historian . His work areas were primarily the intellectual history of the 20th century, the media history of the 20th century and the social and cultural history of the Federal Republic. From 2002 to 2017 he was Head of the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg and Professor of Modern History at the University of Hamburg .

life and work

Axel Schildt grew up in Großhansdorf . In 1970 he graduated from the Stormarn School in Ahrensburg . He then studied political science, sociology, history, literary studies and philosophy in Hamburg and at the Philipps University in Marburg from 1970 to 1978 . Schildt got involved in politics early on. For example, he was the editor of the student magazine published by the Marburg AStA . In 1977 Schildt passed the first state examination in the subjects of German, social studies, philosophy, educational science and in 1982 the second state examination for teaching at secondary schools. In 1980 he received his doctorate in Marburg on the subject of the cross front with the title The cross front conception of the Reichswehr leadership around General Kurt von Schleicher at the end of the Weimar Republic . The work was supervised and accompanied by Gerd Hardach , Frank Deppe and Reinhard Kühnl . From 1983 to 1985 and again from 1987 to 1990 he was a research associate at the Department of History at the University of Hamburg. In 1992 he completed his habilitation in Hamburg on leisure, mass media and "Zeitgeist" in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950s . Schildt worked as a private lecturer at the University of Hamburg from 1992 to 1997. Schildt was a substitute professor for modern history and contemporary history at the University of Hamburg from the summer semester 1994 to the winter semester 1995/96.

From 1997 to 2002 he was deputy director of the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg and an adjunct professor at the Department of History at the University of Hamburg. In 2002 he became director of the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg and Professor of Modern History at the University of Hamburg. From 2008 he was a full member of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg and from 2013 a member of the board of the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation in Berlin, whose international advisory board he had been a member from 2008. From October 1st, 2011 to September 30th, 2013 he was released as director to carry out a research project. During this time, Schildt was represented by Kirsten Heinsohn . After the end of the summer semester 2017, Schildt retired. In Schildt's 15-year era, the focus of the research center was expanded from Nazi history to contemporary history, with National Socialism playing an important role up to the present day. The cultural-historical perspective in particular became particularly striking under Schildt. Of the 120 books that the institute has published in its own series or as individual publications since it was founded, 57 and thus almost half have been published since Schildt started working as director in 2002. Under Schildt, the research center opened up topics related to everyday life, such as the history of sexuality, and the topics became more international, as became clear in works on the history of the Hamburg port or the history of coffee.

His academic focus was on the history of living, leisure, the mass media, especially for the period after the Second World War, the history of suburbanization in Germany after the Second World War, and the history of European youth cultures in the 20th century. In 1988 he published a socio-historical study of the Grindel high-rise buildings that had been built since 1946 . He wrote a biography of Max Brauer for the series “Hamburger Köpfe” . With his habilitation on leisure, mass media and “Zeitgeist” in the Federal Republic of the 1950s, published in 1995, he presented a pioneering study of media and consumer history. Based on his dissertation on Kurt von Schleicher's transverse front concept, he repeatedly dealt with the history of conservatism . In 1998 Schildt published a comprehensive account of the history of German conservatism. The aim of this work is to “try to describe the history of German conservatism - primarily from the perspective of the conservatives and not from the point of view of the respective contemporary critics - as an intellectual and political phenomenon in such a way that its complicated paths and detours are considered adaptive and Change processes become comprehensible ". Schildt turned against the thesis which assumed "that the conservative movement had deformed from a party of ideas to a party of interests". Instead, it is “to be assumed that there will be an ongoing conflict between ideals and interests.” By studying the history of conservatism, he opened up another large area of ​​work from the 1980s onwards, including the history of West German society since 1945.

Schildt's research on everyday and cultural history goes far beyond political history. According to Frank Bösch , Schildt, as director, made the research center for contemporary history “a nucleus for such original and lifelike topics - from the 'bacon belt' to the German 'krautrock'”. In 2007 he published the volume The Social History of the Federal Republic of Germany until 1989/90 for the Encyclopedia of German History . For the same period, he and Detlef Siegfried wrote the complete presentation of German cultural history , which was published in 2009. The dissertations he supervises deal primarily with topics from the social, cultural, media and intellectual history of the 20th century. In his article published in 1999 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the state, there are "five ways to tell the story of the Federal Republic" with the success, failure, burden, modernization or westernization story.

In 1999 the Association for Hamburg History awarded him the Lappenberg Medal for his services to Hamburg's history . On May 9, 2016, on his 65th birthday, Schildt received the Medal for Art and Science from the City of Hamburg for his research in contemporary history . Most recently he worked on an intellectual history of the Federal Republic. Schildt died on April 5, 2019 at the age of 67 in his hometown of Hamburg. He was married and had a daughter.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

  • Military dictatorship with a mass base? The cross-front conception of the Reichswehr leadership around General von Schleicher at the end of the Weimar Republic (= Campus Research. Volume 225). Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt et al. 1981, ISBN 978-3-593-32958-1 (At the same time: Marburg, University, dissertation, 1980 under the title: Schildt, Axel: Querfront - The political conception of the Reichswehr leadership around General Kurt von Schleicher at the end the Weimar Republic).
  • The Grindel skyscrapers. A social history of the first German high-rise residential complex Hamburg-Grindelberg 1945–1956 (= series of publications by the Hamburg Architecture Archive. Volume 1). Christians, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 978-3-7672-1037-0 (new edition Dölling and Galitz, Munich et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-937904-50-4 ).
  • Modern times. Leisure time, mass media and "Zeitgeist" in the Federal Republic of the 50s (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history. Volume 31). Christians, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-7672-1218-8 .
  • Conservatism in Germany - from its beginnings in the 18th century to the present. Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-42041-9 .
  • Max Brewer. Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8319-0093-0 .
  • The social history of the Federal Republic of Germany until 1989/90 (= Encyclopedia of German History . Volume 80). Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-56603-1 .
  • with Detlef Siegfried : German cultural history. The Federal Republic - 1945 to the present. Hanser, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-446-23414-7 .
  • Approaches to the West Germans. Social and cultural historical perspectives on the Federal Republic. 14 contributions to the history of the old Federal Republic. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8353-0931-9 .

Editorships

  • Mass apartment and home. Housing construction and living in the big city since the First World War (= Campus Research. Volume 589). Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1988, ISBN 3-593-33989-7 .
  • with Arnold Sywottek : modernization in reconstruction. West German society in the 1950s. Dietz, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-8012-4042-8 .
  • with Ulrich Herbert : End of the war in Europe. From the beginning of the German collapse of power to the stabilization of the post-war order 1944–1948. Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-511-5 .
  • with Detlef Siegfried and Karl Christian Lammers : Dynamic Times. The 1960s in the two German companies. Ed. Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg. 2nd edition, Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1356-7 .
  • German history in the 20th century. A lexicon. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-51137-6 .
  • with Detlef Siegfried: Between Marx and Coca-Cola. Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960–1980. Berghahn Books, New York et al. 2006, ISBN 1-84545-009-4 .
  • with Irmela von der Lühe and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum : "We weren't really at home in Germany either". Jewish remigration after 1945 (= Hamburg contributions to the history of German Jews. Volume 34). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 3-8353-0312-0 .
  • Mass media in Europe in the 20th century (= industrial world. Series of publications by the Working Group for Modern Social History. Volume 77). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2010, ISBN 3-412-20443-9 .
  • with Alexander Gallus : Looking back into the future. Political public sphere and intellectual positions in Germany around 1950 and around 1930 (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history. Volume 49). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 3-8353-0871-8 .
  • with Rainer Nicolaysen : 100 Years of History in Hamburg (= Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science. Volume 18). Reimer, Berlin et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-496-02838-3 .
  • From outside. Foreign intellectual influences in the Federal Republic until 1990 (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history. Volume 55). Wallstein, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8353-1808-3 .
  • with Knud Andresen and Mario Kessler : Dissident Communists. The Soviet model and its critics. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86331-426-2 .

literature

  • Eckart Krause: People who made "history". Attempt to study history for almost a century at Hamburg University. In: The historical seminar of the University of Hamburg. Research report 2002–2004. Hamburg 2005, pp. 247-307.
  • Frank Bajohr , Anselm Doering-Manteuffel , Claudia Kemper and Detlef Siegfried (eds.): More than a story. Contemporary historical perspectives on the Federal Republic. Festschrift for Axel Schildt. Wallstein, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8353-1882-3 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Michael Wildt: The Federal Republic as a selfie. In: Frank Bajohr, Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Claudia Kemper and Detlef Siegfried (eds.): More than a story. Contemporary historical perspectives on the Federal Republic. Festschrift for Axel Schildt on his 65th birthday. Göttingen 2016, pp. 29–41, here: p. 32.
  2. ↑ Detlef Siegfried: Nekrolog Axel Schildt (1951-2019). In: Historical magazine. 310, 2020, pp. 101–107, here: p. 103.
  3. ↑ Detlef Siegfried: Nekrolog Axel Schildt (1951-2019). In: Historical magazine. 310, 2020, pp. 101-107, here: pp. 103 f.
  4. ↑ See the review by Christoph Timm in: Zeitschrift des Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte 76, 1990, pp. 268–270 ( online ).
  5. ↑ See the review by Helmut Stubbe da Luz in: Zeitschrift des Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte 90, 2004, pp. 211–212 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Norbert Frei: Modern times . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 9, 2019.
  7. ^ Hans-Christof Kraus : New historical literature. Counter-Enlightenment, late romanticism, conservatism. To some recent publications. In: Historische Zeitschrift 269, 1999, pp. 371-413, here: p. 408. The quotations from Axel Schildt: Conservatism in Germany - from the beginnings in the 18th century to the present. Munich 1998, p. 17 ff.
  8. ↑ Detlef Siegfried: Nekrolog Axel Schildt (1951-2019). In: Historical magazine. 310, 2020, pp. 101–107, here: p. 101.
  9. ^ Frank Bösch: work, leisure, sleep. Everyday Practices as a Perspective of German Contemporary History. In: Frank Bajohr, Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Claudia Kemper, Detlef Siegfried (eds.): More than a story. Contemporary historical perspectives on the Federal Republic. Göttingen 2016, pp. 301–313, here: p. 302.
  10. ↑ Axel Schildt: Five ways to tell the story of the Federal Republic. In: Blätter for German and international politics , vol. 44, 1999, pp. 1234–1244 ( online ).
  11. ↑ The most important obituaries: Norbert Frei : Modern times . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 9, 2019.
    Viola Griehl: The University of Hamburg mourns Prof. Dr. Axel Schildt , April 11, 2019.
    Frank Bösch , Martin Sabrow: The ZZF commemorates the deceased contemporary historian Axel Schildt , Leibniz Institute Center for Contemporary History Potsdam, April 12, 2019.
    Willy Brandt Foundation: In Memoriam Prof. Dr. Axel Schildt , April 9, 2019.
    Kirsten Heinsohn: Obituary: The somewhat different intellectual. Axel Schildt (1951-2019) . In: H-Soz-Kult , April 12, 2019.
    Marianne Zepp, Christoph Becker-Schaum, Roman Schmidt: Obituary for Axel Schildt (1951–2019) . In: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung , April 12, 2019.
    Interview with Detlef Siegfried “He opened the door to the exploration of West German social history” Interview with Detlef Siegfried on the death of Axel Schildt . LISA - the science portal of the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
    Martin Sabrow : The years he knew. On the death of the Hamburg contemporary historian Axel Schildt. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 9, 2019, No. 84, p. 12 ( online ).
    Jan-Holger Kirsch: Obituary for | Obituary for Axel Schildt (1951-2019). In: Zeithistorische Forschungen 16 (2019), pp. 15–18 ( online )
    Mario Keßler: Axel Schildt. In: Das Blättchen 22nd volume, number 8, April 15, 2019 ( online )
    Bernhard Nette for GEW Landesverband Hamburg: Obituary for Prof. Dr. Axel Schildt (May 19, 2019)
    Board of Directors and Management of the VHHD: Obituary for Axel Schildt (April 12, 2019)
    Martin Sabrow : The years he knew. On the death of the Hamburg contemporary historian Axel Schildt. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 9, 2019, No. 84, p. 12 ( online )
    Jan-Holger Kirsch: Obituary for | Obituary for Axel Schildt (1951-2019). In: Zeithistorische Forschungen 16 (2019), pp. 15–18 ( online )
    Detlef Siegfried: Nekrolog Axel Schildt (1951–2019). In: Historical magazine. 310, 2020, pp. 101-107.
  12. ↑ Detlef Siegfried: Nekrolog Axel Schildt (1951-2019). In: Historical magazine. 310, 2020, pp. 101–107, here: p. 106.
personal data
SURNAME Shields, Axel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schildt, Axel Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 5th April 2019
Place of death Hamburg