Dietrich Wachsmuth

Dietrich Wachsmuth (born January 30, 1925 in Hohenlychen , Uckermark , † April 2, 2007 in Berlin ) was a German classical philologist and university professor .

Life

Dietrich Wachsmuth, the son of the grammar school teacher and German studies specialist Andreas Bruno Wachsmuth (1890–1981), attended the Arndt grammar school in Dahlem and in the spring of 1943 passed the school leaving examination. He was then called up for military service in the Air Force . He refused the ordered transfer to the Waffen SS , was arrested on September 21, 1944 in Plzeň after an attempt to escape and on March 7, 1945 in Pétfürdő by an SS field court, among other things, for "accusing the party and its branches of mass murder" to 2 Sentenced for ½ years in prison. While serving in an SS probation battalion , Wachsmuth was wounded in April 1945 and was taken prisoner by the Americans. He was recognized as a politically persecuted person by National Socialism according to the PrVG on June 3, 1959.

After the end of his captivity, Wachsmuth studied philosophy , history and sociology at the Humboldt University in Berlin from 1947 to 1949 . In the first years after the war he was also active in literature and published in the Berlin magazines Athena and Horizont . From 1950 to 1955 he studied classical philology at the Free University of Berlin . After graduating, he worked from January 1, 1957 to September 30, 1958 for Felix Jacoby , whom he assisted in editing the fragments of the Greek historians . Since the summer semester of 1957, Wachsmuth also held courses as a lecturer at the Free University of Berlin .

On July 1, 1960, Wachsmuth received a job as an assistant at the Department of Classical Philology at the Free University of Berlin. On July 20, 1961, he received his doctorate under Georg Rohde and Uvo Hölscher . From October 1, 1961 to October 1, 1963 he was a post-doctoral fellow from the German Research Foundation . The habilitation took place in 1977. Wachsmuth taught until 1993 at the seminar for classical philology at the Free University of Berlin. His research focus was the Greek and Roman religion, especially in connection with ancient seafaring. Wachsmuth's dissertation deals with sacred acts during sea voyages, his habilitation thesis, which is only available as a private print, deals with the Propemptikon .

literature

• ΠΟΜΠΙΜΟΣ Ο ΔΑΙΜΩΝ. Investigations into the ancient sacred acts during sea voyages . Berlin 1967 (Vita on p. 489)
• The ancient Propemptikon. Investigations into the history of the ancient song of the farewell poem with special consideration of the propemptica of Horace . 1977 (private printing, Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Law on the recognition and care of those politically, racially and religiously persecuted by National Socialism of April 13, 1956.