Betty Heimann

Betty Heimann (born March 29, 1888 in Wandsbek ; † May 19, 1961 Sirmione , Italy ) was a German Indologist .

resume

Betty Heimann grew up as the fourth child of a Jewish banker in Wandsbek. After graduating from high school , she studied classical philology and Sanskrit in Kiel (with Paul Deussen , among others ), Heidelberg , Göttingen and Bonn .

In 1919 she was charged with a dissertation on an Upanisad Madhva commentary by Professor victory at the University of Kiel to the doctor of philosophy doctorate . Four years later, in 1923, habilitated them at Eugen Hultzsch at the University of Halle and was there until 1931 as a lecturer operates.

Betty Heimann was less interested in Indian philology than in philosophy, whose peculiarities she understood as the result of the special geographical and climatic conditions in India . Consequently, in April 1926, she received a special teaching assignment for Indian philosophy at the University of Halle. In 1930 she received the prize for the best scientific work by a woman from the International Association of Women Academics for her research work "Studying the peculiarities of Indian thought" .

As a teacher, Betty Heimann was extremely popular with her students because she knew how to convey the knowledge in her lectures and seminars very vividly and vividly.

From the summer of 1931, Betty Heimann was an associate professor at the University of Hamburg . Even before 1933, as a Jew, she was exposed to hostility from her colleagues there. When her in the fall of 1933, the professor - as a result of anti-Jewish laws (in this Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service ) - withdrawn was, she was just on a by a US - scholarship enabled research trip through India . She did not return to Germany but emigrated to the United Kingdom , where she was very welcome and immediately began teaching Indian Philosophy at the University of London and later at Oxford University .

From 1945 to 1949 she was a professor at the University of Colombo in Ceylon .

In 1957 - retroactively from 1935 - she was appointed full professor by the University of Halle.

In 1961 Betty Heimann died in Sirmione on Lake Garda .

Today a street is named after her on the Weinberg Campus of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

cousin

Her cousin Betty Heimann (1885–1926) received her doctorate from Georg Simmel in Strasbourg in 1916 and taught at the University of Utrecht .

Works (selection)

• Madhvas (Anandatirthas). Commentary on the Kathaka Upanisad , 1919
• Deep sleep speculation of the ancient Upanishads , 1922
• Studies on the peculiarity of Indian thought , 1930 f.
• Indian and Western Philosophy , 1937
• The Significance of Prefixes in Sanskrit Philosophical Terminology , 1951

literature

• Jutta Dick and Marina Sassenberg: Jewish women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lexicon to life and work, Reinbek near Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-499-16344-6
• Heimann, Betty. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 10: Güde – Hein. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-22690-X , pp. 353-355.
• Henrik Eberle: The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism. Mdv, Halle 2002, ISBN 3-89812-150-X , p. 374f
• Andreas Pohlus: Heimann, Betty, Prof. Dr. phil. In: Eva Labouvie (Ed.): Women in Saxony-Anhalt, Vol. 2: A biographical-bibliographical lexicon from the 19th century to 1945. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2019, ISBN 978-3-412-51145-6 , p. 207-209.

Web links

• Literature by and about Betty Heimann in the catalog of the German National Library
• History of the Institute for Indology and South Asian Studies at the Martin Luther University in Halle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Betty Heimann (1885–1926), in the Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors, Volume 10, 2002, pp. 352–353