Ernst Dammann

Ernst Karl Alwin Hans Dammann (born May 6, 1904 in Pinneberg , Holstein ; † July 12, 2003 ibid) was a German Africanist and religious historian .

Life

Dammann visited the Christianeum in Altona , studied theology and African studies a. a. 1924/1925 at the University of Hamburg , received his doctorate in 1929 and was ordained in 1930 . In the same year he found a job as a research assistant at the “Seminar for African and South Sea Languages” (today “Department for African Studies and Ethiopian Studies” in the “Asia-Africa Institute”) at the University of Hamburg, which was headed by Carl Meinhof .

On August 1, 1931, Dammann joined the NSDAP ( membership number 609.464). From 1933 to 1936 he went to Tanga as a missionary (then: Tanganyika). Since 1933 he was also the regional group leader of the foreign organization of the NSDAP .

After his return from Africa, he completed his habilitation in African languages ​​at the University of Hamburg and during the Third Reich he worked there again at his previous place of work, the "Seminar for African and South Sea Languages".

From 1943 to 1946 he was a prisoner-of-war camp pastor at Fort Sam Houston , USA . From 1946 to 1948 he was a teacher, then head of the theological school for German prisoners of war in Norton ( England ). In 1949 he became an adjunct professor at the University of Hamburg.

Since 1957 he was professor with the chair for African studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin , at the same time lecturer for African studies at the University of Leipzig . He left the GDR in 1962. From 1962 to 1972 Dammann was a full professor for the history of religion at the Evangelical-Theological Faculty and lecturer for African studies at the Philipps University in Marburg .

In 1972 emeritus , Dammann took still continue his teaching position at the University of Marburg true. His successor was Herrmann Jungraithmayr . The chair is now at the University of Frankfurt am Main and has since been expanded into an institute. Since 1977 he has also been a visiting professor for missiology and the history of religion at the Lutheran Theological College in Oberursel .

Dammann visited South West Africa several times , where he was engaged in linguistic studies on the Ndonga , Kwangali and Herero . He was head of the religious studies collection and Ephorus of the Hessian Scholarship Institution .

Works

• Seals in the Lamu dialect of Swahili. Hamburg 1940.
• The religions of Africa. Stuttgart 1963 ( The Religions of Mankind , Vol. 6).
• Outline of the history of religion. Stuttgart 1972.
• What Herero said and sang: lyrics, translation, commentary. Berlin 1987.
• 70 years of African studies: a contribution to the history of science. Berlin 1999.
• People on my path in life . Groß Oesingen 2002.

literature

• Rainer Hering:  DAMMANN, Ernst Karl Alwin Hans. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 29, Bautz, Nordhausen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88309-452-6 , Sp. 353-392.
• Ernst Klee : Personal Lexicon of the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 .
• Ulrich van der Heyden : Ernst Dammann . In: Catherine Griefenow-Mewis (Ed.): African Horizons: Studies on Languages, Cultures and History . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-447-05601-4 , p. 29–42 ( google.de [accessed on July 27, 2020]).
• Eckart Krause et al. (Ed.): Everyday university life in the Third Reich. The Hamburg University 1933–45. Reimer, Berlin 1991.
• Hilke Meyer-Bahlburg, Ekkehard Wolff: African languages ​​in research and teaching. 75 years of African studies in Hamburg (1909-1984). Reimer, Berlin / Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-496-00828-8 .
• Author directory. In: Namibiana. ISSN  0259-2010 , Issue 11, SWA Scientific Society (Hrsg.), Windhoek 1987.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Dammann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Ernst Dammann in the catalog of the Berlin State Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to Meyer-Bahlburg / Wolff 1986, p. 60.