Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem

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Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem (born August 26, 1884 in Potsdam as Carl Ludwig Friedrich Otto von Klinckowstroem ; † August 29, 1969 in Munich ) was a German historian of culture and technology who was one of the most important representatives of this research area in the first half of the 20th century. Century in Germany belonged.

Life

Carl von Klinckowstroem came from the counts line of the noble family von Klinckowstroem . His father was Major General Karl Graf von Klinckowstroem (1848–1903) on Heiligenstein / East Prussia . His mother Freda (1865–1944) was the daughter of the Prussian district administrator Otto Rudolf Graf Vitzthum von Eckstädt and Helene Jenisch. He attended the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin , passed the Abitur there and then went for a short time as a lieutenant in the Guard-Jäger-Battalion . From 1906 to 1914 he studied literary history, philosophy and physics at the University of Munich and Erlangen . Klinckowstroem's interest in the history of physics was aroused by the German scholar and folklorist Friedrich von der Leyen . Primarily he devoted himself to Johann Wilhelm Ritter (1776–1810), the physicist of early romanticism .

Since 1911 Klinckowstroem has published works on the history of technology in various popular scientific periodicals , but also on topics such as the problem of the divining rod . Together with Franz Strunz he published the series Classics of Natural Sciences and Technology from 1913 and with Franz Feldhaus from 1914 the history sheets for technology, industry and trade , which he continued until 1927. Along with Conrad Matschoss and Franz Feldhaus, he was one of the pioneers in the history of technology in Germany. Financially independent, he lived as a private scholar and journalist in Munich. There he joined a group of intellectuals who were primarily interested in art and literature, including the writer Karl Wolfskehl and the Germanist Carl Georg von Maassen .

In 1916, during the First World War , he was wounded and, after recovering, was assigned to the Berlin General Staff . In Berlin he wrote a thesis on the Swedish mystic and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg . After the end of the war he returned to Munich.

Even before the war he had started to invest in a GmbH founded by Feldhaus , which offered research on patent issues and anniversary publications, but which went bankrupt in 1930. The total investment amounted to 120,000 Reichsmarks. He had already lost his financial independence in the post-war inflation.

In addition to the beginnings of physical-historical research, the technological in the files of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and the history of technical thought and inventions, he turned increasingly interested in occultism and magic since 1925 . On these topics he lectured and published articles in the Zeitschrift für Critischen Occultismus.

Klinckowstroem joined the NSDAP relatively early . The German Labor Front hired him in 1934 as head of the Department of Labor History , which was incorporated into the NSDAP party archive in October of the same year. After merging with the archives of the Reichsschulungsamt to form the party's main archive, Klinckowstroem was given a post as head of the department for cultural policy and cultural history. He sold his extensive private specialist library to the Labor Front in the 1940s.

After the Second World War he worked for several magazines, such as the New Sciences and the Water Management . From 1951 he worked mainly for the German book trade for the Börsenblatt . During this time he published his two basic works: Die Zauberkunst and Knaur's History of Technology . He wrote 37 articles for the Neue Deutsche Biographie . In 1961 he was awarded the Rudolf Diesel Medal .

Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem was married to Charlotte Anders since 1953. The marriage remained childless.

Klinckowstroem's estate is in the archive of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Fonts (selection)

  • Johann Wilhelm Ritter and the divining rod. A historical study. Baumgärtner, Leipzig 1913.
  • Yogi arts (= The Occult World. No. 99). Baum, Pfullingen 1922.
  • The divining rod as a scientific problem. Wittwer, Stuttgart 1922.
  • with Walter von Gulat-Wellenburg and Hans Rosenbusch: The physical mediumism. [from the series The Occultism in Documents ; ed. by Max Dessoir ]; Ullstein, Berlin 1925. [1st – 3rd Ed.]
  • with Walter von Gulat-Wellenburg, Hans Rosenbusch and Harry Price : Alleged exposure of Frau Maria Silbert . Ullstein, Berlin 1925.
  • with Rudolf Freiherr von Maltzahn : Manual of the divining rod. History, science, application. Oldenbourg, Munich 1931.
  • The magic . Heimeran, Munich 1954.
  • Knaur's history of technology . Knaur, Munich 1959.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Wilhelm Füßl: Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem's estate. In: Deutsches Museum (ed.): Archive info. 1st year, issue 2, Munich 2000, pp. 2–3 ( online ; PDF , 46 kB)
  2. ↑ Wolfgang König: Research on technology history in Germany from 1800 to the present. kassel university press, Kassel 2007, ISBN 978-3-89958-318-2 , p. 51 ( Google books )
  3. ↑ Wolfgang König: Research on technology history in Germany from 1800 to the present. kassel university press, Kassel 2007, ISBN 978-3-89958-318-2 , pp. 118–120 ( Google books )
  4. ↑ Wolfhard Weber, Lutz Engelskirchen: Dispute about the history of technology in Germany, 1945-1975. In: Günter Bayerl (ed.): Cottbus studies on the history of technology, work and the environment. Vol. 15, Waxmann, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-89325-992-2 , p. 48
  5. ↑ B. Fabian (Hrsg.): Handbook of historical book stocks in Germany, Handbook of historical book stocks in Austria, Handbook of German historical book stocks in Europe. Olms Neue Medien, Hildesheim 2003, ISBN 3-487-11711-8 ; Available online: Günter Kükenshöner (digital editing): Handbook of historical book collections in Germany, Austria and Europe . ; see entry on Deutsches Museum, section 1.10 .
  6. ↑ a b medalist. German Institute for Invention, accessed on May 19, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Klinckowstroem, Carl Graf von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klinckowstroem, Carl Ludwig Friedrich Otto von (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cultural and technical historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH 29th August 1969
Place of death Munich