Erich Eyck

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Erich Eyck (born December 7, 1878 in Berlin , † June 23, 1964 in London ) was a German-British lawyer and historian .

Life

Eyck came from a middle-class, liberal, Jewish family. His father, the merchant Joseph Eyck, and his wife Helene had a total of six children. After finishing high school, Eyck studied law , political science and history in Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau . He completed his studies in 1904 with a dissertation on the Association of German Workers' Associations as Dr. phil. from. From 1906 to 1937 he worked full-time as a lawyer. In 1910 he married Hedwig (née Kosterlitz), with whom he had three children: Irene (* 1911, married Reuter, † 2004), Eleanor (* October 4, 1913 - † September 12, 2009, married Alexander) and Frank Eyck(* July 13, 1921 in Berlin - † December 28, 2004 in Calgary), who later taught history in Exeter and Calgary. Eyck turned against Zionism and became a member of the main board of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV).

Impressed by Friedrich Naumann and Theodor Barth , Eyck joined the Progressive People's Party . In addition to his professional activity, he worked as a political publicist from 1915 to 1933. During the First World War , in which Eyck did not have to participate for health reasons, he worked for the left-liberal newspaper Die Hilfe , which was headed by Theodor Heuss . At times, Eyck was the editor of the legal supplement “Law and Life” of the Vossische Zeitung . As a left-wing liberal, after the war a member of the German Democratic Party , he was a member of the city council of Charlottenburg from 1915 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1930 .

In 1919 Eyck published his first major historical work, Des Deutschen Bürgerertums Schicksalshunde . It was followed in 1924 by the book Wilhelm II Monarchy , which was also translated into English. A legal publication, Crisis of the German Administration of Justice , appeared in 1926.

As a Jew, he lost the notary's office in 1934. Eyck and his family fled to Great Britain via Italy in 1937 . The family initially lived mainly on the pension that Eyck's wife ran. This enabled Eyck to devote himself to historical studies. The first work in exile was a biography of William Ewart Gladstone in 1938 . Eyck received British citizenship in 1946.

Afterwards, Eyck published his three-volume biography on Otto von Bismarck ( Bismarck. Life and Work ) between 1941 and 1944 . This was one of the first critical discussions with the person of the founder of the empire. Some of his theses sparked a sharp controversy in the professional world, but generally revived Bismarck research. Among other things, Eyck argued that German unification was also possible without Bismarck. In addition, there was the charge that Bismarck had used Machiavellian methods and was ultimately responsible for the failure of democracy in Germany.

Eyck later dealt with English parliamentarism ( The Pitts and the Fox ). His work on the personal regiment of Wilhelm II was published in 1948, followed in 1950 by the book Bismarck and the German Empire, which was translated into various languages, and in 1951 a political history of England since the Magna Charta .

In 1954 the first volume of Eyck's two-volume comprehensive account of the history of the Weimar Republic was published . The second volume followed in 1957. In doing so, he could partially fall back on previously unpublished sources. In 1963, Eyck published a volume of essays in which he portrayed important German parliamentarians of the past ( Auf Germany's political forum ).

Eyck was one of the historical “left-of-center outsiders” who had a considerable influence on the critical realignment of German historical studies since the late 1960s. Eyck was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1953 by his longtime personal friend Theodor Heuss .

Works

as an author
  • The Association of German Workers' Associations 1863–1868. A contribution to the genesis of the German labor movement. Verlag De Gruyter, Berlin 1904, ISBN 3-11-108889-8 .
  • The social democracy . Book publisher "Hilfe", Berlin-Schöneberg 1912.
  • The fateful hour of the German bourgeoisie. Teubner, Berlin 1919.
  • The monarchy of Wilhelm II according to his letters, his marginal notes and the testimonies of his friends. Ullstein, Berlin 1924.
  • The crisis in the administration of justice in Germany. Verlag für Kulturpolitik, Berlin 1926.
  • German Judaism and Legal Crisis. Three lectures, held at the conference of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith in Berlin from 18. – 19. June 1927 . Legal meeting of the CV; Jacques Stern , Bruno Weil . Foreword by Julius Brodnitz. Philo, Berlin 1927.
  • Gladstone ("Gladstone," 1938). Rentsch, Erlenbach-Zurich 1938.
  • Bismarck. Life and work . 3 volumes, Rentsch, Erlenbach 1941/44.
  1. 1941.
  2. 1943.
  3. 1944.
  • The Pitt's and the Fox. Fathers and sons. Two pairs of intertwined résumés . Rentsch, Erlenbach 1946.
  • The personal regiment of Wilhelm II. Political history of the German Empire from 1890 to 1914 . Rentsch, Erlenbach 1948.
  • Bismarck after fifty years. Lecture to the Historical Association . Historical Association, London 1968. (Reprint of the London 1948 edition).
  • Political history of England. From the Magna Charta to the present. Cornelsen, Bielefeld 1951.
  • History of the Weimar Republic . 2 volumes. Rentsch, Erlenbach 1954/56.
  1. From the collapse of the empire to the election of Hindenburg . 1954.
  2. From the Locarno conference to Hitler's takeover . 1956.
  • Bismarck and the German Empire ("Bismarck and the German empire", 1950). Rentsch, Erlenbach 1955.
  • At Germany's political forum. German parliamentarians and studies on recent German history . Rentsch, Erlenbach 1963 (= political-historical essays ).
as editor
  • Commentary on the Unfair Competition Act of June 7, 1909 . Guttentag publishing house, Berlin 1910.

literature

  • Erich Eyck in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  • Frank Eyck: Erich Eyck (1878–1964). In: Hartmut Lehmann , Otto Gerhard Oexle (Hrsg.): National Socialism in the Cultural Studies. Volume 2: Key concepts - Interpretation patterns - Paradigm struggles. Experiences and transformations in exile. Göttingen 2004, pp. 545-548.
  • Frank Eyck: A Historian's Pilgrimage Memoirs and Reflections , Vogelstein Press, 2016 (The book is only sold as a Kindle e-book on Amazon. A chapter from it, which contains a lot of information about the Eyck family, can be downloaded as a PDF file: Frank Eyck's memories ).
  • Ewald Grothe : The liberal destruction of a legend. Erich Eyck's Bismarck biography and its reception . In: Yearbook for Liberalism Research 27 (2015), pp. 103–118.
  • Klaus Hildebrand : Erich Eyck. In: Hans-Ulrich Wehler (ed.): German historians. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973, ISBN 3-525-36158-8 , pp. 206-227.
  • Joachim H. Knoll: Work and method of the historian Erich Eyck. In: History in Science and Education. 16, pp. 277-285 (1965).
  • William H. Maehl: Erich Eyck 1878–. In: Samuel Halperin (Ed.): Some 20th century historians. Essays on eminent Europeans. Chicago 1961, pp. 227-253.
  • Siegfried Riemer: Politics and Ethics. Attempt to examine the biography of Bismarck by Erich Eyck. In: History in Science and Education. 5, pp. 513-529 (1954).
  • Hans Schleier : Erich Eyck. In: Manfred Asendorf, Rolf von Bockel (eds.): Democratic ways. German résumés from five centuries. Stuttgart / Weimar 1997, pp. 160-162.
  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Saur, Munich 1980, p. 163.
  • Eyck, Erich. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 6: Dore – Fein. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-22686-1 , pp. 446-451.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irene Eyck married Fritz Reuter in London in 1936 and emigrated with him to Australia. "Irene Reuter, an active member of various university-related associations including the U Committee, was convener of the first Book Fair." About Irene Reuter . On Fritz Reuter: Biographical Profile of Fritz Reuter .
  2. ↑ Eleanor Eyck first studied medicine before leaving Germany in the spring of 1933. She came to the USA in 1937 via Rolândia in Brazil, where she married Paul Alexander. In 1961 she continued her education and received her MA in French literature in Michigan in 1967. From 1968 to 1983 she taught at the University of California, Berkeley and then devoted herself to writing. See the biographical outline in the opening credits for: Eleanor Alexander: A Year in the Brazilian Interior. An Eyewitness Report. In: Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength. Women Refugees of the Nazi Period. German Historical Institute: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (England) / New York, 1995, p. 159 ff. Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in WorldCat & Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in Google Books : “Born in Berlin in 1913, Eleanor Alexander (née Eyck) was educated at the Auguste Viktoria Realgymasíum. After earning the Abitur in 1932, she attended medical schools in Berlin and Heidelberg before leavlng Germany for Paris in the spring of 1933. The following year she went to London as an au pair and eventually found a job teaching at a girls school. Her stay in Rolândia, Brazil - the focus of this eyewitness account - lasted from the spring of 1936 to the spring of 1937. From there she left for Cambridge, Massachusetts, to marry Paul Alexander. The couple spent the war years in Washington, DC, where two of their three children were born. The third child was born in Geneva, New York, where Professor Alexander was teaching at Hobart College. Later, he taught at Brandeis, Michigan, and Berkeley. He died in 1977. Eleanor Alexarıder returned to school in 1961, earníng a BA (1963) and an MA in French literature (1967) at Michigan. After teaching at the University of California Extension in Berkley from 1968 to 1983, she turned to writng book reviews and essays on French and German literature. Her memoirs, Stories of My Life, were published in 1986. “Eleanor Alexander died on September 12, 2009 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. ( ELEANOR ALEXANDER OBITUARY ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.legacy.com
  3. ↑ University of Calgary: Frank Eyck fonds ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / asc.ucalgary.ca
  4. ^ Frank Eyck: Erich Eyck (1878–1964). In: Hartmut Lehmann , Otto Gerhard Oexle (Hrsg.): Nationalism in the cultural studies. Volume 2: Key concepts - Interpretation patterns - Paradigm struggles. Experiences and transformations in exile. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-35862-8 , pp. 545-548; Frank Eyck, Rosemarie Eyck: A Historian's Pilgrimage. Memoirs and Reflections , Calgary 2010.
  5. ↑ Wilfried Loth : The Empire. Authority and Political Mobilization. (= German history of the latest time. Volume 5). dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04505-1 , p. 205.
  6. ↑ Klaus Hildebrand: Erich Eyck. P. 206.
  7. ↑ therein Eyck: The position of the administration of justice to Jews and Judaism. Pp. 31-66; Stern: Völkische Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie, pp. 5–30. - These two lectures have also appeared separately. Weil: The political process, p. 61 ff. Weil lived from 1883 (Saarlouis) - 1961 (New York), he was a member of the main CV board.
  8. ^ Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland (1705–1774), Charles James Fox (1749–1806), William Pitt the Elder (1708–1778) and William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806).
personal data
SURNAME Eyck, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1964
Place of death London