Dietrich Kurz

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Dietrich Kurz (born January 1, 1928 in Berlin ; † June 15, 2016 there ) was a German historian . Short taught from 1975 until his retirement in 1995 as a full professor at the Free University of Berlin . He was one of the best connoisseurs of pastoral conditions in the Middle Ages.

life and work

The family originally came from Thuringia. His grandfather was the medievalist Friedrich Kurz . Dietrich Kurz's father, Friedrich Wilhelm kurz, was in the Navy and rose to become Vice Admiral. The father was taken prisoner by Russia and died in 1945. Kurzes mother came from the long-established Berlin Windler family. Kurz was born in Berlin in 1928 as the fourth of six children. In 1931 the family moved to Wilhelmshaven . He started school there in 1934. At the end of the thirties the family returned to Berlin. At the age of sixteen, Kurz was deployed as an anti-aircraft helper (from January 1944 to February 1945) in the Berlin area and in the Bitterfeld area. Shortly before the end of the war he was a trainee officer and a little later fell into English captivity near Kiel. After his release he came to live with his aunt in Wiesbaden. There he received the school leaving certificate in November 1946. In September 1948 he successfully completed his training as a librarian. From the winter semester of 1948/49 he then studied history, German and philosophy at the University of Kiel . His most important academic teacher in history was Karl Jordan . From the summer semester of 1951 he studied for two semesters in 1951 at the University of Tübingen . There he attended the lectures of Heinrich Dannenbauer , Gerhard Ebeling and Hans Rothfels . In the summer semester of 1952 he went to Freiburg . There he attended the seminars of Gerhard Ritter , Gerd Tellenbach and Ernst Walter Zeeden . He then moved to the Free University of Berlin , where Wilhelm Berges became his most important academic teacher. Since the winter semester 1953/54 he worked on his doctoral thesis. In late summer 1955 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Johannes Lichtenberger at the Free University of Berlin. From 1957, Kurz was Berges' assistant. His habilitation took place in May 1964 at Berges in Berlin with a thesis on the election of pastors in the Middle Ages.

Since 1969 he was a scientific advisor and professor at the Free University of Berlin. From 1973 to 1975 he taught as the successor to Horst Fuhrmann as a full professor in Tübingen. From 1975 until his retirement in 1995, Kurz was a full professor at the Free University of Berlin. Kurz took on numerous academic functions and offices. He was a representative on the board of trustees and in the academic senate, dean and member of the faculty council as well as a reviewer for the German Research Foundation . He was also a reviewer for the award of the Friedrich Meinecke Prize for the best historical dissertation each year. From the winter semester 1958/59 until his death, Kurz was a member of the Historical Commission in Berlin .

The focus of his work was the European history of the high and late Middle Ages, political and social theories, the history of heretics and the history of the church , especially the history of Berlin and Brandenburg. With his dissertation, Kurz created the basis for an appropriate assessment and classification of Lichtenberger. For a long time, a short habilitation remained the only major work on research into the Lower Church system. In 1975, Kurz presented a collection of sources on medieval heretic history. The main part of the edition are 195 interrogation records of the Inquisition of Petrus Zwicker against Waldensians of the Mark Brandenburg and Pomerania from the years 1392 to 1394. For thirty years Kurz was one of the editors of the yearbook for Berlin-Brandenburg Church history.

Kurz married in 1960. The marriage had three children. In January 2018, a colloquium was held in Berlin on the occasion of Dietrich Kurz's 90th birthday.

Fonts

A list of writings appeared in: Dietrich Kurz: Berlin-Brandenburg Church History in the Middle Ages. Nine selected articles. Edited by Marie-Luise Heckmann , Susanne Jenks, Stuart Jenks (= Library of Brandenburg and Prussian History. Vol. 9). Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-8305-0343-1 , pp. 385-390. A list of publications up to 2013 appeared in: Knut Schulz : Dietrich Kurz (1928–2016). In: Jahrbuch für Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 62 (2016), pp. 227–238, here: pp. 237 f.

  • Johannes Lichtenberger († 1503). A study on the history of prophecy and astrology (= historical studies. Vol. 379). Matthiesen, Lübeck et al. 1960.
  • Pastors elections in the Middle Ages. A contribution to the history of the parish and the lower church system (= research on church legal history and church law. Vol. 6). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1966.
  • Clergy, heretics, wars and prophecies. Collected Essays. Edited by Jürgen Sarnowsky , Stuart Jenks , Marie-Luise Heckmann. Fahlbusch, Warendorf 1996, ISBN 3-925522-15-8 .
  • Marie-Luise Heckmann, Susanne Jenks and Stuart Jenks (ed.): Berlin-Brandenburg Church History in the Middle Ages. Nine selected contributions (= Library of Brandenburg and Prussian History. Vol. 9). Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8305-0343-1 .

literature

  • Peter Bahl , Felix Escher : Dietrich kurz 1928–2016 (obituary). In: Landesgeschichtliche Vereinigung für die Mark Brandenburg e. V. Bulletin , Volume 117, 2016, Issue 3, pp. 182–184.
  • Knut Schulz: Dietrich Kurz (1928–2016). In: Jahrbuch für Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 62 (2016), pp. 227–238.
  • Marie-Luise Heckmann: Prof. Dr. Dietrich Kurz and his scientific work - an attempt at appreciation. In: Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 152 (2016), pp. 565–578.
  • Karol Kubicki, Siegward Lönnendonker (ed.): The history of science at the Free University of Berlin (= contributions to the history of science of the Free University of Berlin. Vol. 2). V&R unipress, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89971-634-4 , p. 57.
  • Stuart Jenks, Jürgen Sarnowsky , Marie-Luise Laudage (eds.): Vera lex historiae. Studies on Medieval Sources. Festschrift for Dietrich kurz on his 65th birthday on January 1, 1993. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1993, ISBN 3-412-10191-5 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ FU Berlin: Prof. Dr. Dietrich Kurz died ; Obituary notice .
  2. ↑ Knut Schulz: Dietrich Kurz (1928–2016). In: Yearbook for the History of Central and Eastern Germany , Vol. 62 (2016), pp. 227–238, here: p. 230.
  3. ↑ Enno Bünz: The parish in the late Middle Ages - for an introduction. In: Enno Bünz, Gerhard Fouquet (Hrsg.): The parish in the late Middle Ages. Ostfildern 2013, pp. 9–19, here: p. 14 ( online )
  4. ^ Karl-Heinrich Lütcke : An excellent expert on the medieval church in Berlin-Brandenburg. On the death of Professor Dr. Dietrich Kurz. In: Yearbook for Berlin-Brandenburg Church History 71, 2017, pp. 447–449.
  5. ↑ Knut Schulz: Dietrich Kurz (1928–2016). In: Jahrbuch für Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands , Vol. 62 (2016), pp. 227–238, here: p. 232.
  6. ^ Conference report: Colloquium on the occasion of the 90th birthday of Prof. Dr. Dietrich Kurz (January 1, 1928– June 15, 2016), January 13, 2018 Berlin . In: H-Soz-Kult , February 27, 2018, online .
personal data
SURNAME Brief, Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 2016
Place of death Berlin