Erich Friedrich Podach
Erich Friedrich Podach (born November 22, 1894 in Budapest , † August 20, 1967 in Heidelberg ) was a literary scholar and ethnologist .
Life
Podach was born as Erich Friedrich (Frigyes) Podach as the son of Ágoston Podach and his wife Irma geb. Feiler was born into a German-Hungarian-Jewish family. He received his doctorate in 1927 as Dr. phil., went to Switzerland in 1931 and to Germany in 1941.
In literary studies Podach worked as a specialist for Friedrich Nietzsche , especially in discussions about Nietzsche editions . He sharply criticized the Nietzsche archive , as it did later on an edition by Karl Schlechta . According to initial plans, he was to work on the edition of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari , which he had met in Weimar in 1961; because of irreconcilable differences in Nietzsche's understanding, it did not come to that.
Podach, who was the only participant from the Soviet-occupied zone to take part in the first informal post-war conference of German ethnologists ( Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde , September 19-21, 1946) in Frankfurt am Main , pursued a cultural-scientific approach early on, that of ethnology in the late 1940s and 1950s was rather marginal. This is suggested by his interpretations of hair color and status, in which he argues against a racial-biological interpretation of Nordic myths and a blond Nordic ideal of beauty that had been common up until then . He also turned against romanticism in German ethnology - for example the interpretation of Lévy-Bruhl's primitive mentality stands for this: in Germany only the early Lévy-Bruhl was perceived, for whom participation - the central characteristic of the primitive mentality - as v. a. was common among primitive peoples . Lévy-Bruhl's later revisions of his own position would - according to Podach - not be received in Germany; There Lévy-Bruhl makes it clear that participation is a fundamental anthropological constant, and is therefore a characteristic of all peoples and cultures.
Podach pointed out as early as 1948 that hundreds of thousands of foreigners had settled on German soil where they encountered a strange culture. He emphasized that ethnologists should assist these strangers in the acculturation process in order to avoid conflicts and difficult living conditions.
In 1948 Podach went abroad, where, among other things, he was engaged in studies of manuscripts and sources on the history of the arts and science in the 16th century, which extended until 1953. In 1952 he lived in Paris. In the mid-1950s he taught ethnology at the Ulm School of Design . In the mid-1960s he was an honorary professor for systematic cultural studies, in particular cultural anthropology , at the University of Stuttgart . He was friends with Harry Pross .
Works (selection)
- Body, temperament and character , Ullstein, Berlin, 1927
- Nietzsche's collapse , Heidelberg 1930
- Design around Nietzsche , Weimar, 1932
- The sick Nietzsche , Vienna, 1937
- At the end of Lévy-Bruhl's theory about the mentality of the primitive , in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , Volume 76, 1951, pp. 42-49
- Hair color and status. An updated contribution to the ethnology of the beautiful , in: Tribus, Yearbook of the Linden Museum 1952/53, NF 2/3, pp. 103–24
- Alexander von Humboldt and Condorcet , Kant studies 50 (1–4): 403–404 (1958/59)
- Friedrich Nietzsche's Works of Collapse , Wolfgang Rothe Verlag, Heidelberg, 1961
literature
- Otto Most : Review of the book Friedrich Nietzsche's Works of Collapse , in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 71 (1964) 380–389.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Podach, Erich Friedrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Literary scholar and ethnologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 22, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Budapest |
| DATE OF DEATH | 20th August 1967 |
| Place of death | Heidelberg |