Eberhard Kessel

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Eberhard Kessel (born April 1, 1907 in Hanover , † January 17, 1986 in Mainz ) was a German historian .

Life

Eberhard Kessel, son of prosecutor Paul Kessel and his wife Helen, née Woolnough, attended high schools in various locations from 1917 to 1925. After graduating from high school, he began studying history at the University of Leipzig , which he continued in Berlin , adding philosophy and classical philology. Albert Brackmann , Fritz Hartung and Friedrich Meinecke were his academic teachers there.

From 1928 Kessel was a research assistant at the Berlin University, where he received his doctorate in 1931 under Brackmann and Robert Holtzmann on Magdeburg Historiography in the Middle Ages up to the end of the 12th century . Walter Elze , a specialist in the era of Frederick the Great , was in charge of his post -doctoral thesis, Sources and Studies on the History of the Battle of Torgau , which he completed in 1936 after receiving funding from the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft .

During the time of National Socialism , however, Kessel did not receive a lectureship, "because he was not prepared to make concessions to National Socialism." In an American prisoner of war, however, he was able to take up an academic teaching position:

Grave of Eberhard Kessel in the main cemetery in Mainz

“A camp university was established at Dermott camp, Arkansas, and Dr. Kessel was appointed full professor of the history department "

- Konstantin Udo Meyl

After his release from captivity, Kessel became a lecturer at the Philipps University of Marburg in May 1946 and an extraordinary professor there in 1954. From 1962 to 1973 he held the chair for Middle, Modern and Modern History at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz . He also served as dean (1968/69) and vice dean (1969–1971).

Kessel was married and the father of two children.

Services

Kessel was mainly humanities and historian of ideas and it took a between Leopold von Ranke , a lying and Friedrich Meinecke attitude, whose works he edited with. As such, he tried to fathom the ideas at work in history and to understand them as the basis of the present. Therefore, he never saw history as a science of "dead fact and data knowledge".

In addition to his work on the history of ideas, Kessel repeatedly researched military history : he examined the strategic planning of military operations primarily with Carl von Clausewitz and Helmuth von Moltke , but also with Friedrich the Great, Scharnhorst , Gneisenau and Schlieffen . He was a member, from 1970 Vice President, of the International Commission on Military History .

Works

Bibliography in: Heinz Duchhardt (Hrsg.): Festschrift for Eberhard Kessel on his 75th birthday . Fink, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7705-2080-7 , pp. 365-370.

  • Magdeburg historiography in the Middle Ages up to the end of the 12th century . In: Saxony and Anhalt. Yearbook of the Historical Commission for the Province of Saxony and for Anhalt 7, 1931, pp. 109–184 (also: Dissertation, Berlin 1931).
  • Sources and studies on the history of the Battle of Torgau . Junker und Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1937 (writings of the war history department in the historical seminar of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. General series, 17; also: habilitation thesis, Berlin 1936).
  • Times of change. Main epochs of occidental history . Van der Horst, Hamburg 1950.
  • Moltke . Koehler, Stuttgart 1957.
  • Wilhelm v. Humboldt. Idea and reality . Koehler, Stuttgart 1967.
  • Military history and theory of war in modern times. Selected essays . Ed. And incorporated. by Johannes Kunisch. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-06249-3 (historical research, 33).
  • The end of the Seven Years War. 1760-1763. Text ribbon and card slipcase . On behalf of the Military History Research Office, ed. by Thomas Lindner. Schöningh , Paderborn et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-506-75706-7 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Kessel, Eberhard . In: Wolfgang Weber: Biographical lexicon for historical studies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The Chair of History from the beginning of the subject to 1970 . 2nd Edition. Lang, Frankfurt am Main [et al.] 1987.
  2. ↑ a b Konrad Fuchs:  Kessel, Eberhard. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 781-788.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  3. ↑ Quoted from: Konrad Fuchs:  Kessel, Eberhard. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 781-788.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  4. ↑ Kessel, Eberhard . In: Handbook of German Science . Vol. 2: Biographical Directory. Koetschau, Berlin 1949.
personal data
SURNAME Kessel, Eberhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH 17th January 1986
Place of death Mainz