Clemens Scharschmidt

Clemens Scharschmidt (born July 11, 1880 in Reichenbach im Vogtland , † April 24, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German Japanologist .

Life

After the son of the spinning mill owner, Franz Scharschmidt, graduated from secondary school in Zwickau in 1899, he completed a seven-semester course in German (with Eduard Sievers ) and modern languages ​​at the University of Leipzig . In 1902 he went to Japan and took the position of a lecturer in the German language at the Imperial High School ( Kōtō-gakkō ) in Okayama . He stayed there until 1911 and acquired the Japanese colloquial and written language and pursued literary and art historical studies. After his return he studied Japanese history in particular at the East Asian Department of the Institute for Cultural and Universal History (with August Conrady ) at the University of Leipzig, where he also received his doctorate in 1914 with a dissertation in Japanology . During the First World War he was used as a soldier in Flanders . Due to being buried in 1916, he was unable to be used for war purposes and was assigned to the War Language Service of the Seminar for Oriental Languages (SOS). In 1921 he was appointed teacher of Japanese there - as successor to Rudolf Lange - and in 1924 professor of Japanese. He wrote articles for the magazine "Der Neue Orient" and was also a member of the editorial team of the SOS communications . In 1930/31 there was another stay in Japan. In 1931 he declined a call to the University of California for family reasons . From 1934 he read about Japanese history at the School of Politics and as an honorary professor for Japanese Studies at the University of Berlin . In 1940 he was appointed professor of Japanese cultural studies at their institute for international studies, but in 1944 he was relieved of his teaching activities for health reasons. He was also a member of the board of the German-Japanese Society , the Board of Trustees of the Japan Institute and the German Society for Natural History and Ethnology .

During the fighting for Berlin on April 24, 1945, he tragically lost his life to Soviet soldiers invading his house when he wanted to save the research results he had kept in a cassette. He found his final resting place in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf .

Fonts

• Unshū-Shōsoku or the collection of letters from Unshū by Fujiwara Akihira (989-1066), 1. u. 2nd book; Fujiwara Akihira; translated and with comments by Clemens Scharschmidt, Berlin 1917 (diss.)
• Sanshiro: The novel by a Japanese student, from the Japanese by Natsume Sôseki . In: Der Neue Orient, Vol. 1 (1917), H. 2.
• Font reform in Japan . A culture problem. Berlin 1924.
• East Asian Studies , 2 vols. Berlin 1924 (Ed. With Wilhelm D. Schüler)
• On the "question of transcription" in Japanese writing , Berlin 1928. (with W. Gundert)
• Japanese (= sound library 46), Berlin 1929 (with Hans Eckardt)
• The old and new Rômaji systems , Tokyo 1930
• Privy Councilor Rudolf Lange (1850-1933) An obituary , In: Ostasiatische Rundschau 14 (1933), no. 18, pp. 397–398
• Akutagawa Ryunosuke and his relationship to western literature . In: Florenz-Festgabe 1935, pp. 7-20.
• The main Chinese characters in Japanese . A practical text and learning book, 1.A. Berlin 1938: 2nd A. Leipzig 1942.
• Japan (= small foreign customer 12/13), Berlin 1942.
• Japansko , Praha 1942.
• Japan , Amsterdam 1942. (Dutch)
• East asia . (= Foreign studies studies), Vol. 1, Berlin 1943.

literature

• [Appreciation of his work]. In: Ostasiatische Rundschau H. 9/10 (1943), pp. 123-124.
• Ulrich Goch: In memory of the Japanologist Clemens Scharschmidt (1880–1945). In: Bochumer Jahrbuch für Ostasienforschung, 3/1980, pp. 312–317.
• Walter Adler: Memories of the Japanologist Prof. Dr. Clemens Scharschmidt , In: News of the Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia 65 (1995). 157-158, pp. 7-16

Web links

• Literature by and about Clemens Scharschmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ulrich Goch: In memory of the Japanologist Clemens Scharschmidt (1880-1945)