Edith Rothe

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Edith Adelheid Rothe (born November 11, 1897 in Leipzig ; † January 29, 1989 in Heidelberg ) was a German librarian , author and publicist . She rebuilt the Leipzig City Library after its destruction in World War II and from 1954 to 1966 compiled the bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig, which is essential for the city's history .

family

She was the third child of a doctorate in law, senior justice adviser, banker and Meißner city ​​councilor Carl Wilhelm August Rothe and his wife Elisabeth (* 1865), née Gericke. Edith Rothe's father was Lord Mayor of Leipzig from 1918 to 1930 .

Her maternal grandfather, whom she no longer met, was the private scholar and Shakespeare researcher Robert Gericke (1828–1880).

Her three years older brother Hans Ludwig Rothe became director, UFA - chief dramaturge , radio play and stage writer and Shakespeare translator. He fell out of favor with the National Socialists and emigrated to the United States during the Nazi era , where he received a professorship . Her sister, Eva Luise Rothe-Bergemann (1896–1983), who was one year older, became a doctor, widowed in 1925, and emigrated to Switzerland during the Nazi era. Her sister Gabriele Rothe-Smith (* 1900), who was three years younger than her, taught as a teacher at the Leipzig School of Applied Arts and emigrated to England during the Nazi era, where she married.

School, training and study

Together with her older sister Eva, Edith Rothe attended the Baur'sche high school for girls, founded in 1879 by the headmistress Fräulein Marie Baur at Johannisgasse 6 in Leipzig. In 1914, influenced by the youth movement ( Bündische Jugend ) and the life-reforming Serakreis Jena , she briefly visited the educational reform free school community in Wickersdorf  near Saalfeld in the Thuringian Forest . However, she had to leave this boarding school prematurely because of the outbreak of war in August 1914 . When she returned to Leipzig, she subsequently raised funds for the war emergency donation . At the University for Women in Leipzig she attended lectures on art history, literature and philosophy. From 1917 to 1919 she received private tuition, which meant that after the end of the First World War she received her secondary school leaving certificate as an external student .

From 1919 she studied at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, at the Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg, at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel and at the Alma Mater Lipsiensis in Leipzig, the subjects of German, history and art history. In the spring of 1925 she received her doctorate in Leipzig with her dissertation The position of the businessman and citizen in the Middle High German epic of the 12th and 13th centuries as a doctor of philosophy (Dr. phil.). After a traineeship at the Leipzig University Library , she passed the state examinations for higher service at academic libraries in 1927 .

Act

Contemporary postcard of Moritzburg Castle near Dresden from the 1920s - Edith Rothe worked there from 1928 and from 1938 to 1945

She initially worked at the city ​​and university library in Frankfurt am Main. In 1928 she was employed as a librarian for the Wettin book treasures in order to transfer them to Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, to build a library there and to catalog it. On the occasion of the Goethe year 1932 in Leipzig she compiled the catalog for the large exhibition Faust and his world in the Grassi Museum with exhibits from the collector Gerhard Stumme . In 1932 she was also involved in the very successful Goethe exhibition in Paris, which showed objects from the Leipzig collections of Salomon Hirzel , Anton Kippenberg and Gerhard Stumme. This was organized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Goethe's death.

It was extremely difficult for her as a woman to get permanent employment in academic libraries. She therefore tried to qualify further from 1933 in order to obtain a third professional qualification. In the meantime, however, there were new political conditions. In Stettin she was trained by Erwin Ackerknecht for the public library system. There she was reluctant to catalog National Socialist publications. When she finally refused to give a lecture she expected on The Woman in the National Socialist State , she was fired.

During the following years she completed a four-month traineeship at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, stayed for study purposes in Rome and London at the British Museum Library , and worked briefly in Berlin, Halle an der Saale and Munich for private libraries. In 1938, Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony called her to the Dante library of his grandfather, the Dante translator King John of Saxony , to transfer it to Moritzburg Castle . The House of Wettin made it possible for her to do free scientific work. There she compiled the catalog published in 1942 for the Dante library that she had systematically built up. She acted as administrator of the palace library and all art collections of the former Saxon royal house in Dresden.

The monastery manuscripts from the Middle Ages, incunabula , illustrated books from the 16th century, a collection of autographs , magnificent bindings from the time of the Renaissance and the 18th century and a closed collection of hand drawings by King Friedrich August were all carefully kept by her February 14, 1945 completely destroyed in the air raids on Dresden, including the catalog it created. Edith Rothe had relocated these valuable archival documents with great personal commitment and effort from the Moritzburg Castle, which has meanwhile been confiscated by the SS and located in a very exposed location, to the west bank of the Elbe in the cellars of the Dresden administration located there. "The loss of my parents' house in Leipzig did not hurt me as much as the downfall of all these treasures that I had cherished and cared for and with which I grew up over the fee."

A contemporary eyewitness account of the fate of the Moritzburg Castle library was written by Leonore Roßberg (1925–2012), who was a high school graduate at the time and has survived. As a result, the stocks were forcibly packaged between May and winter 1945 and brought to the Soviet Union . Edith Rothe, Ingeborg Fels ( Saxon State Library ), Traudel Jahn ( Karl-May-Verlag ) and Leonore Roßberg were responsible for packing the archive materials . Edith Rothe lived in Moritzburg until the summer of 1945 , where her father, who had been bombed out in Leipzig, had also sought refuge.

In 1945 Edith Rothe applied for the vacant position of director of the Leipzig City Library to succeed Johannes Hofmann .

“I [...] would be proud if I could help rebuild the city library in my hometown of Leipzig, which I often admired in the past. My curriculum vitae shows that after 1933 I consciously stayed away from National Socialism and only worked in private libraries. "

- Edith Rothe

At the beginning of November 1945 she was appointed acting director of the Leipzig City Library and confirmed as its official director in mid-September 1946. Her work was explicitly to restore the old, humanities-oriented holdings of the library founded in 1677. Together with her employees, she rebuilt the book inventory that had been burned in the night of December 3rd to 4th, 1943 , some of which had previously been relocated and later often looted, with a small remainder of around 14,000 books in Barthels Hof am Markt , so that the Leipzig City Library could be reopened in this makeshift premises on January 12, 1948.

“Thanks to the very capable Edith Rothe, the library was able to quickly build up a substantial collection again after the war. In this context, a number of important manuscript acquisitions were made. "

- Detlef Döring

The state party SED disliked their purely factual and scientifically oriented work . In addition, the city's personnel office was told that the circle around her father, the former mayor of Leipzig, was allegedly a refuge of opposition efforts, which also brought her into focus as his daughter. From 1950 the investigation and enforcement office of the city administration of Leipzig became active against Edith Rothe. It was criticized that the composition of the staff within the city library did not correspond to the leading political forces in the GDR and that the Leipzig city library could even be regarded as an “unpolitical island”. Their influence on the reading public should not be underestimated. As a result, excuses were sought and found in the books of the city library, in order to dismiss her in 1951. A campaign against “bourgeois culture” was launched, the scientific city ​​library in Leipzig was converted into a public library and its books were politically “cleaned up”.

She did not find a new job for several years. In 1954 she was commissioned by the Saxon Academy of Sciences to compile a bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig . She worked on the six-volume work for twelve years according to strictly scientific criteria. When the SED wanted to remove politically unpleasant titles from the directory, it refused.

On behalf of the Christian Union Verlag Berlin , she traveled around the GDR for around 18 months in order to representatively publish the illuminated manuscripts ( book illumination ) spared from the war in libraries and monasteries in an illustrated book. The resulting standard book Illumination from Twelve Centuries , which appeared in 1966, received praise at home and abroad.

At the age of 70, she moved to Heidelberg with relatives in 1967, but continued to be active in science and journalism.

Edith Rothe died at the age of 91. Your estate is kept in the Heidelberg University Library. Parts of her correspondence can be found in the German Literature Archive Marbach (DLA), the Saxon State Library in Dresden (SLUB), the Leipzig University Library and the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin.

Publications (excerpt)

  • The position of the merchant and citizen in the Middle High German epic of the 12th and 13th centuries . Philosophical dissertation, Alma Mater Lipsiensis, Leipzig 1925. OCLC 124064749
  • The library at Moritzburg Castle . In: Archives for writing and books . Vol. 3 (1929), pp. 1-6.
  • The library at Moritzburg Castle . Heckner, Wolfenbüttel 1929. OCLC 72639148
  • An unknown Biblia pauperum in the Moritzburg Castle Library . Vol. 3. (1929), pp. 160-173. OCLC 887132623
  • The Jakob Krause and Caspar Meuser bindings in the library at Moritzburg Castle . In: Archives for bookbinding and related branches of business , Vol. 29 (1929), pp. 39–43. OCLC 313600410
  • A newly found Caspar Meuser binding from the library at Moritzburg Castle near Dresden . In: Archives for bookbinding and related branches of business , Vol. 29 (1929), pp. 140–141.
  • Observations during a four-month volunteer period at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , vol. 48 (1931), pp. 551-563. O. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1931. OCLC 762508340
  • Faust and his world. Guide to the Dr. G. Mute. Exhibition in the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, May – August 1932 , Seemann, Leipzig 1932. OCLC 251313195
  • The Stumme Faust collection in Leipzig . In: Jahrbuch deutscher Bibliophilen und Literaturfreunde , Vol. 18/19 (1932/33), pp. 71–85. OCLC 54242351
  • The Goethe exhibition in the Paris National Library . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , 49 (1932), pp. 619–620.
  • Leipzig and the Paris Goethe Exhibition . In: Leipziger Preview , 9 (1932/33), pp. 197-199.
  • Christian Heerfurth . An unknown Meissen porcelain painter as a book illustrator . In: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde , 46 (1932), pp. 4–8. OCLC 887343877
  • The library of the British Museum . In: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde , 53 (1936), pp. 681–695. OCLC 503750457
  • with Hermann Bühler: Addendum, until 1930, to the directory of books in the Alpine Club Library, with directory of authors and mountain names . Munich 1939. OCLC 741755841
  • Goethe souvenirs in the Leipzig city library . In: Leipzig calendar . Volk & Buch, Leipzig 1949.
  • Catalog of the Dante library of King John of Saxony (= writings of the German Dante Society, no.7). Hermann Böhlaus descendants, Weimar 1942. OCLC 881907663
  • Report on the structure of the Leipzig city library . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , 62 (1948), pp. 306–309.
  • Julius Petzholdt . A tribute to his performance . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , 68 (1954), 5/6, pp. 194-202. OCLC 888034547
  • The church year. Word and image in the service of faith . Union-Verlag, Berlin 1956. OCLC 23131077
  • with Rudolf Bemmann : Bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig . Verlag für Buch- und Librarywesen , Leipzig 1957. OCLC 884806 [Supplement to: Rudolf Bemmann and Jakob Jatzwauk: Bibliography of Saxon History, Vol. III, Local History. Hermann Böhlaus descendants, Weimar.]
  • with Werner Rust : Die Leipziger Messe (= bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig, special vol. 1; from the writings of the historical commission at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, vol. 23). Edited by the historical commission at the Saxon Academy of Sciences with the support of the city archive and the trade fair office. VEB publishing house for books and libraries, Leipzig 1957. OCLC 310580964
  • The Leipzig University - Bibliography , 1959.
  • Robert Naumann . On his 150th birthday on December 2, 1959 . In: Journal of Librarianship and Bibliography . Vol. 6 (1959), 4, pp. 335-343. OCLC 954923450
  • with Josef Gülden and Bernhard Opfermann: Brandenburger Evangelistar . St. Benno-Verlag, Leipzig 1961 and Schwann, Düsseldorf 1962. OCLC 1068400369
  • with Hildegard Heilemann (arr.): Karl Marx University Leipzig. Bibliography on the history of the university, 1409–1959 (= bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig, special vol. 2; from the writings of the Historical Commission of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, vol. 36). Publishing house for books and libraries, Leipzig 1961. OCLC 644868077
  • Ilse Schunke - 70 years old . In: Antiquariat , 17 (1963), 1/2, pp. 1–3. OCLC 887892610
  • with Hildegard Heilemann (arrangement): The art. Bibliography on the history of the fine arts, music, literature and theater (= bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig, special volume 3; from the writings of the Historical Commission at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, vol. 35). Edited by the Historical Commission at the Saxon Academy of Sciences with the support of the Leipzig City Archives. Hermann Böhlaus descendants, Weimar 1964. OCLC 644867096
  • The German Museum of Books and Writing reopened . In: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel , Vol. 132 (1965), p. 310.
  • with Klaus G. Beyer : Illumination from twelve centuries. The most beautiful illustrated manuscripts in the libraries and archives of the German Democratic Republic . VEB Union-Verlag, Berlin 1966. OCLC 906633479
  • with Klaus G. Beyer: Illumination from twelve centuries: The most beautiful illustrated manuscripts in the libraries and archives in Mecklenburg, Berlin, Saxony and Thuringia . Rembrandt-Verlag Berlin 1967. OCLC 896826779
  • with Hildegard Heilemann: The book. Bibliography on the history of book printing, the book trade and libraries (= Bibliography on the history of the city of Leipzig, special volume 4). Hermann Böhlaus descendants, Weimar 1967. OCLC 310580987
  • The Merseburg Bible . In: Philobiblon , 12 (1968), 1, pp. 3-19. OCLC 634400184
  • A piece of library history . In: Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel , Vol. 24, (1968), pp. 3063-3067.
  • Mediaeval Book Illumination in Europe . Thames and Hudson, London, 1968.
  • with Gerd Zimmermann : The Bamberg Psalter . Msc. Bibl. 48 of the Bamberg State Library . Reichert, Wiesbaden 1973. ISBN 392015309X .
  • Art history commentary . In: Der Bamberger Psalter , pp. 13-77, Wiesbaden 1973. OCLC 609987260
  • History of the Secundogenitur library in Dresden . In: Philobiblon . 17 (1973), No. 2, pages 116-121.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The cited documents show two different dates of death, January 26 and 29, 1989. In response to a written request, the Heidelberg City Archives announced on May 21, 2019 that Edith Rothe died on January 29, 1989. The obituary notice for Dr. Edith Adelheid Rothe appeared in the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , No. 29 (1989), weekend edition 4./5. February 1989, p. 15.
  2. ↑ Edith Rothe . In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar , 7 (1950), p. 1707.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Rothe, Edith . In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (DBE), Volume 8 Poethen – Schluter. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-1109-4025-1 , p. 569.
  4. ↑ Karl Rothe, Leipzig student and longtime mayor (PDF file; 92.3 kB), on: uni-leipzig.de
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rothe, Edith Adelheid , on: leipzig.de
  6. ↑ Hans Rothe, tr .: The Dramatic Work of William Shakespeare , on: oup.com
  7. ↑ Rothe, Hans (1894-1963) , on: staatsbibliothek-berlin.de
  8. ^ F [riedrich] L [uft] : Hans Rothe 70 . In: The world . August 14, 1964.
  9. ↑ Bergemann-Rothe, Eva Luise, 1896 , Swiss Federal Archives E2001-08 # 1978/107 # 177 * .
  10. ↑ Ute Camphausen, Olaf Thormann: The Leipzig School of Applied Arts. Documentation on the history and impact of the Leipzig School of Applied Arts and its predecessor and successor institutions . Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Die Leipziger Kunstgewerbeschule", December 20, 1996 to March 16, 1997 at the Museum für Kunsthandwerk Leipzig . Faber and Faber, Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-928660-75-6 .
  11. ^ Juliane Jacobi: Educational Stories. Gender, Religion and Education in the Modern Age. Festschrift for Juliane Jacobi on her 60th birthday . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-33405-5 , p. 185.
  12. ^ Edith Glaser: Private Initiatives - Urban Restraint. The secondary school system for girls in Leipzig in the 19th and early 20th centuries (PDF file; 333 kB). In: Gerlinde Kämmerer, Anett Pilz (ed.): Leipziger Frauengeschichten. A historical city tour . Art and culture center for women KuKuC e. V., Leipzig 1995, pp. 126-131, on: uni-kassel.de
  13. ↑ Student directory of the Free School Community Wickersdorf. In: Archives of the German youth movement, Ludwigstein Castle near Witzenhausen in Hesse.
  14. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Hans-Christian Mannschatz: "... always in the potatoes, out of the potatoes ..." The life of the Leipzig librarian Edith Rothe (1897–1989) (PDF file; 5.6 MB). In: BIS: The magazine of the libraries in Saxony , Vol. 2 (2009), Issue 2, June 2009, pp. 108–111.
  15. ↑ Edith Rothe . In: Archive for Cultural History (AKG), Volume 17, Hermann Böhlau Nachfahren, Weimar 1965, p. 128.
  16. ↑ Carsten Rohde, Thorsten Valk, Mathias Mayer: Faust Handbook: Constellations - Discourses - Media . Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-476-05363-3 , p. 334.
  17. ^ Ch. Andler, H. Moncel: Bibliothèque Nationale. Goethe (1749-1832). Exposition organisé pour commémorer le centenaire de la mort de Goethe . Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 1932.
  18. ↑ Observations during a four-month volunteer period at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , vol. 48 (1931), pp. 551-563. O. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1931.
  19. ↑ Edith Rothe: The library of the British Museum . In: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde , 53 (1936), pp. 681–695.
  20. ↑ Edith Rothe: Catalog of the Dante library of King Johann von Sachsen (= writings of the German Dante Society 7), Hermann Böhlaus Nachfahren, Weimar 1942.
  21. ^ Georg Kretschmann: The silver of the Wettins - A treasure hunt between Moscow and New York . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3861530880 , pp. 23, 27, 37, 40, 50, 63.
  22. ^ Letter from Edith Rothe, dated April 6, 1945, to Adalbert Prince of Bavaria . Quoted from: Hans-Christian Mannschatz: "... always in the potatoes, out of the potatoes ..." The life of the Leipzig librarian Edith Rothe (1897–1989) . In: BIS: The magazine of the libraries in Saxony , Vol. 2 (2009), Issue 2, June 2009, pp. 108–111.
  23. ↑ Leonore Roßberg was born on September 15, 1925 in Döbeln. Her family was based in Moritzburg (Saxony) at the time in question. From 1938 to 1944 Leonore Roßberg attended the municipal high school for girls in Dresden-Neustadt and passed the school-leaving exam there. According to contemporary official documents, she was a member of the BDM , but not of the NSDAP . From November 1, 1944 to March 31, 1945 she was employed by the District School Council Dresden-Land rdE (Radebeul headquarters) with 34 hours a week, 4 of which were unpaid overtime, as a "student in compensation service" at the elementary school Reichenberg (Moritzburg) . According to the headmaster's testimony, the “student in compensation service” was employed as a “school helper” and “proved herself well”. On May 13, 1946, Leonore Roßberg matriculated to study at the University of Rostock.
  24. ↑ Leonore Roßberg (1925–2012): Experience report of a high school graduate on the events in Moritzburg from May to winter 1945 and on the fate of the Moritzburg castle library (attachment title). In: State and University Library Dresden (SLUB), signature: Mscr.Dresd.Aut. 2581.
  25. ↑ a b Thomas Fuchs: Manuscripts and documents from the Leipzig City Library in the Leipzig University Library - new additions after 1838 . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-4470-6009-7 , pp. XI-XII.
  26. ↑ a b History of the Leipzig Municipal Libraries , on: leipzig.de
  27. ^ Reconstruction of the Leipzig city library after December 4, 1943 . In: Monika Gibas: "Aryanization" in Leipzig. Approaching a long repressed chapter in the city's history from 1933 to 1945 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-8658-3142-2 , p. 182ff.
  28. ↑ Friedhilde Krause (ed.), Waltraut Guth, Dietmar Debes (arrangement): Handbook of historical book stocks . Volume 17 Saxony AK . Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 1997, ISBN 978-3-4874-1781-3 , p. 45.
  29. ^ Thomas Thibault Döring: The incunabula collections of the Leipzig University Library and the Leipzig City Library (PDF file; 5.0 MB). In: Thomas Fuchs, Christoph Mackert and Reinhold Scholl (eds.): The book in antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times. Special collections of the Leipzig University Library (= writings and testimonials on book history 20), Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-4470-6689-1 , on: qucosa.de
  30. ^ Detlef Döring: An unknown letter from GE Lessing of December 16, 1778 to Heinrich Christian Boie . In: Herbert Rowland, Richard E. Schade (Eds.): Lessing Yearbook 1999 , Vol.XXXI. Wallstein / Wayne State University Press, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 978-08-143-2930-6 , p. 9 (4).
  31. ↑ Hans Lülfing: Edith Rothe 70 years . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , 81 (1967) 12, pp. 744-745.
  32. ^ Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung , No. 29 (1989), weekend edition 4./5. February 1989, p. 15.
  33. ^ Edith Rothe estate (PDF file; 50.5 kB). In: Heidelberg University Library , call number: Heid. Hs. 4041.
personal data
SURNAME Rothe, Edith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rothe, Edith Adelheid (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German librarian, author and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1989
Place of death Heidelberg