Carl Engel (historian)

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Carl Engel (left) in Oslo, Norway (1944)

Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Engel (born October 2, 1895 in Magdeburg ; † January 25, 1947 in the special camp Fünfeichen ) was a German prehistoric scientist and rector of the University of Greifswald from 1942 to 1945.

Life

Carl Engel was a son of the businessman Friedrich Karl Engel and his wife Margarethe geb. Bolms. In 1913 he began studying philosophy and natural sciences in Munich . At the beginning of the First World War he interrupted his studies to volunteer for military service. He got into British captivity from which he returned in 1919. Until 1927 he earned his living as a bookseller in Magdeburg. In addition, he continued to deal with prehistory and early history and volunteered at the Museum of Cultural History . He took up distance learning at the University of Tübingen , where he received his doctorate in 1928 with a thesis on Neolithic cultures under Robert Rudolf Schmidt . In the absence of professional prospects in Magdeburg, he moved to the Prussia Museum in Königsberg in 1929 . Until 1934 he was mainly engaged in rescue excavations in the province of East Prussia . Among other things, he led the excavation of the prehistoric cemetery of Linkuhnen .

Engel had been a member of the NSDAP since May 1, 1933 . In 1934 he became a lecturer, in 1935 associate professor and in 1937 full professor for prehistory at the Herder Institute in Riga . From 1936 he was also a teacher of prehistory and early history at the NS-Ordensburg Krössinsee . In 1939 he received the chair for prehistory and early history at the University of Greifswald. From 1942 to 1945 Engel was rector of the University of Greifswald and leader of the Gaues Pomerania.

He was a member of the Reichsbund for Prehistory and co-editor of its magazine Mannus , in which topics of "German Prehistory" were dealt with.

Carl Engel was an employee in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and in the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR). On August 21, 1941, Alfred Rosenberg had his colleague Hans Reinerth with the “determination, safeguarding and research of prehistoric and early historical, Germanic and Slavic finds and other legacies in museums, scientific institutes, private collections and other places in the occupied eastern territories, so far they are subordinate to my administration ”. Carl Engel was responsible for "securing" these looted goods in the Reichskommissariat Ostland . He led the deployment of the “Special Staff Prehistory” at the “Working Group” Belarus . In 1944 he had art treasures from the Novgorod Kremlin Museum taken to Greifswald as looted goods.

As the Soviet troops approached, he was a member of parliament together with the physician Gerhardt Katsch and the deputy city ​​commander of Greifswald Max Otto Wurmbach (1885-1946) in the night of April 29-30, 1945, when the city of Greifswald was surrendered without a fight. After the end of the war, Engel was arrested by the Soviets and interned in the Fünfeichen internment camp of the NKVD near Neubrandenburg, where he died in 1947.

Fonts

  • Pictures from the past on the middle Elbe. A homeland and people's book for the administrative district of Magdeburg and its border landscapes. Volume 1: Stone Age and Bronze Age. Hopfer, Burg 1930.
  • The Neolithic cultures in the Middle Elbe region. Hopfer, Burg 1933 (partial print of the dissertation).
  • Prehistory of the old Prussian tribes. Investigations into settlement continuity and cultural groups in prehistoric East Prussia. Volume 1: Introduction, the problem of settlement continuity, the cultural groups of the Stone Age and pre-Christian Metal Age. Gräfe & Unzer, Königsberg 1935.
  • with Wolfgang La Baume : Cultures and Peoples of the Early Period in Prussia (= Atlas of East and West Prussian Regional History. 1). Gräfe & Unzer (on commission), Königsberg 1936.
  • Types of East Prussian barrows (= Göttingen writings on prehistory and early history. 3, ISSN  0436-1288 ). Edited by Rudolf Grenz . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1962, (edited from the estate).
  • The diary of the rector of Greifswald University Professor Carl Engel, 1945. In: Norbert Buske (Ed.): The surrender of the city of Greifswald without a fight in April 1945. A documentation. Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schwerin 1993, pp. 13–30, (reprint: 2001, ISBN 3-935749-01-5 ).
  • Between Greifswald and Riga. Excerpts from the diaries of the Greifswald rector and professor of prehistory and early history, Dr. Carl Engel, from November 1, 1938 to July 26, 1945 (= contributions to the history of the University of Greifswald. 7). Edited and explained by Günter Mangelsdorf . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2007 ISBN 978-3-515-08942-5 .

literature

  • Norbert Goßler, Christoph Jahn: Vikings and Balts on the Memel. The excavations of the prehistoric cemetery of Linkuhnen in East Prussia 1928–1939 (= Studies on the Settlement History and Archeology of the Baltic Sea Regions, Vol. 16). Wachholtz, Kiel 2019, ISBN 978-3-529-01376-8 , pp. 45-64.
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , pp. 43-44.
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer. 16048). 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ancestry.com. Magdeburg, Germany, Birth Records 1874–1903 [database on-line], Magdeburg Old Town Registry Office, Register Number 2430/1895
  2. ^ Norbert Goßler, Christoph Jahn: Vikings and Balten on the Memel. The excavations of the prehistoric cemetery of Linkuhnen in East Prussia 1928–1939 . Wachholtz, Kiel 2019, pp. 9–32.
  3. ↑ Andreas Köhn: The New Testament scholar Ernst Lohmeyer . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-16-148376-6 , p. 115, note 6.
  4. ↑ Anja Heuss: Art and cultural property theft . A comparative study on the occupation policy of the National Socialists in France and the Soviet Union, Heidelberg 1999, p. 147, ISBN 3-8253-0994-0 .
predecessor Office successor
Kurt Wilhelm-Kästner Rector of the University of Greifswald
1942-45 		Ernst Lohmeyer
personal data
SURNAME Angel, carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Engel, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian of prehistory and early history
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH January 25, 1947
Place of death Special camp Fünfeichen