Diedrich Westermann

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Diedrich Hermann Westermann (born June 24, 1875 in Baden near Bremen; † May 31, 1956 there ) was a German Africanist and ethnologist . Together with Carl Meinhof , he is one of the founders of African scholarly studies , whose first chair he held for 24 years.

Life

Westermann did an apprenticeship as a postal worker after school before applying to the North German Mission in Bremen . From there he was sent to the mission seminar in Basel in 1885 . In addition to teaching, he taught himself Arabic without permission. In 1900 he received the assignment to the German colony of Togo . He started his service in what is now Ghana and learned the Ewe language. He became the first European to become a competent speaker. However, in 1903 an illness forced him to return home.

In Germany he evaluated his notes and prepared a German exercise manual for Ewe speakers, a dictionary and a grammar for Ewe. In Tübingen he worked on the translation of the Bible into Ewe. In 1907 he traveled to Togo again , but again had to return home due to illness.

In 1908 Carl Meinhof called him as a language teacher for Ewe at the Seminar for Oriental Languages in Berlin . In 1909 he became Meinhof's successor with the title of professor. The seminar was intended to impart language skills for the German colonies. When this became pointless after 1918, the seminar was in a crisis, which was overcome by new objectives in research. In 1921 he became professor for African languages ​​with the seminar for oriental languages ​​(SOS) at the then Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin , followed in 1925 as second professor Martin Heepe . From 1926 to 1939, Westermann was also director of the International Institute of African Languages ​​and Cultures with the French Henri Labouret , where he made outstanding contributions to the development of the African alphabet . The colonial revisionism of the Weimar Republic was worked on. One focus was the evaluation of the phonetic recordings of prisoners-of-war Africans in World War I that Wilhelm Doegen had left behind. With the attack on power by the Nazi movement, the institute received new impetus and followed the new political goals. The seminar was finally integrated into the foreign studies faculty of the HU, which was headed by SS man Franz Alfred Six from 1940 . After the German defeat in Africa in 1943, however, work was stopped.

In 1938 Westermann was elected a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . There he determined the work order of the White Africa Commission in 1941 with population issues in Africa. From 1949 to 1951 he was secretary for languages, literature and art at the academy. In the GDR he was not attacked because he was not a party member of the NSDAP and Africa and its languages ​​were considered an important future topic.

During the National Socialist era , Westermann was chairman of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory from 1938 to 1941 . In 1955 he received their Rudolf Virchow plaque.

Author (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/gerd.simon/WestermannPhonetik.pdf
  2. ↑ Africa in Berlin - A city walk of the DHM. Retrieved July 27, 2020 .
  3. ↑ URSULA TRÜPER: Only a real Nazi is a full-fledged colonialist . In: The daily newspaper: taz . February 28, 2001, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 16 ( taz.de [accessed on July 27, 2020]).
  4. ^ Members of the previous academies. Diedrich Westermann. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on June 27, 2015 (with short biography).
  5. ^ Holger Stoecker: African Studies in Berlin from 1919 to 1945 . Steiner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-515-09161-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Westermann, Diedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Westermann, Diedrich Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Africanist and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH to bathe
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1956
Place of death to bathe