Erwin Walter Palm

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Erwin Walter Palm, Rose from Ashes by Ursula Stock , drawing, 2006.

Erwin Walter Palm (born August 27, 1910 in Frankfurt am Main ; † July 7, 1988 in Heidelberg ) was a German philologist , American scholar , translator and writer .

Life

youth

Erwin Walter Palm came from a Jewish-Orthodox Frankfurt merchant family. Initially, the leather goods trade, which his father Arthur Palm ran with a partner, ensured a solid income and an upper-class lifestyle in a six-room apartment at Georg-Speyer-Straße 5 in Frankfurt's Westend . Erwin Walter Palm's mother, the merchant's daughter Else Hess - second degree related to Ludwig Landmann , the first Jewish mayor of Frankfurt, died in 1922. Arthur Palm married Anna, the younger sister of his late wife, two years later. He died in June 1938. Anna Palm was deported from Frankfurt to Eastern Europe with the first wave of deportations on October 14, 1941, and was killed in a train wagon on the way to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . Grandmother Helene Hess and her son, Palm's uncle Paul, sent one last message from the Litzmannstadt ghetto in February 1942. Paul Hess never returned from Majdanek, Helene Hess was murdered in Theresienstadt. With the Requiem written in Santo Domingo in 1944, the Palm of the Dead was commemorated.

In 1931 Palm moved from Göttingen, where he had studied art history, to Ruperto Carola in order to be close to Stefan George, whom he admired . In Heidelberg he met Hildegard Löwenstein, who later became one of the most important post-war poets as Hilde Domin . Palm and his girlfriend Hilde Löwenstein began studying abroad in Rome in the fall of 1932, which became their first exile after Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Both had enrolled at the Università di Roma in the “Facoltà di lettere e filosofia”. From March 1935 Palm studied at the University of Florence and on October 31, 1935 took his " Laurea in lettere" from, then moved back to Rome and devoted himself entirely to archeology. Erwin Walter Palm and Hilde Löwenstein married on October 30, 1936 in the Conservator's Palace in Rome.

Years of exile

From February 1934, newly immigrated Jews in Italy were denied the right to acquire Italian citizenship; the Italian race laws of 1938 made the Jews public enemies and required their departure by March 12, 1939. Therefore, the couple fled Italy in 1939 - the ultimatum set by Mussolini for the departure had already been exceeded. She fled via Paris to Great Britain, where they found accommodation with the help of his wife's wealthy relatives and, like most Jewish refugees, lived in the London borough of Hampstead until they moved with his in-laws to Minehead , Somerset. Faced with the surrender of France and the impending Blitzkrieg, the young couple decided to flee England. On the same day as Stefan Zweig , June 26, 1940, they fled England and arrived in the Dominican Republic via Canada .

Hilde Domin and Erwin Walter Palm perfected their Spanish language skills there with the help of Rafael Alberti's poems, and they transferred his pictures and language in the first weeks of isolation. Palm discovered houses in the old town of Santo Domingo that corresponded to the model of the Pompeiian atrium house . With his research he was soon able to prove that an Andalusian patio house preserved the traditions of the Roman house. As in the departments of the Roman museums, he cataloged the dilapidated houses of the old city center of Santo Domingo under the aspect of monument protection. Ultimately, his documentation served as the basis for the old town of Santo Domingo to be included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites . Palm's guidelines for the preservation of monuments continue to apply; a foundation by architects in Santo Domingo now bears his name.

During his archaeological research, Erwin Walter Palm came across a barrel vault near the port: he was able to prove that these vaults were "La Atarazana" - the first large American arsenal, built by the Welsers , to trade with Drifting south america. He was given access to rare historical documents by Fray Cipriano de Utrera, a Capuchin from the nearby monastery, who had copied old books for years in his monastery in Seville and made these documents available to Palm. Although Palm's findings were very much appreciated, the recognition for his discovery was exhausted in a “laurel wreath”: The Comisión conservadora de monumentos thanked for the listing of the monuments. It was not until the fall of 1941 that Palm received a teaching position at the university.

The time in Santo Domingo was full of privation and marked by professional and personal setbacks. Erwin Walter Palm had approved the appointment to the Jefe de la Sección de Arqueologia Colonial de la Universidad de Santo Domingo on January 12, 1948. The couple's relationship seemed to have ended in 1951. Hilde Domin tried to escape the emotional isolation and the death of her mother by writing poems. Erwin Walter Palm also continued to write poetry.

Return to Germany

Erwin Walter Palm spent a year in New York in 1953 on a Guggenheim scholarship , where he also accepted a DAAD scholarship , which enabled him to return to Germany in February 1954. After 22 years in exile, the Palms commuted between Spain and Germany for another seven years. In October 1960, Palm was offered a position as a scientific adviser at the University of Heidelberg , which was soon converted to an extraordinary professorship and on May 23, 1975 finally to a full professorship. He taught there until 1977. Palm made a name for himself particularly in the field of pre-Colombian, Portuguese and Spanish colonial art. Palm led the Puebla Tlaxcala project in Mexico. He regularly spent the winter semesters there, even after his retirement. In 1972 the DFG appointed him field director for this project. In 1973, when a museum was inaugurated in Santo Domingo, Palm's merits were explicitly invoked, and the University of Santo Domingo finally named him on January 1, 1975 as a "corresponding member".

Erwin Walter Palm died on July 7, 1988 in Heidelberg. Peter Anselm Riedl gave his funeral speech .

Awards and honors

literature

Bibliography of the writings of Erwin Walter Palm

  • Helga von Kügelgen Kropfinger (Red.): Bibliografía de las publicaciones de Erwin Walter Palm . In: Yearbook for the history of the state, economy and society of Latin America , vol. 20 (1983), pp. XXXV – L.

Writings by Erwin Walter Palm (selection)

  • Los arquitectonic monuments of La Española. Con una introducción a America . Universidad de Santo Domingo, Ciudad Trujillo 1955.
  • Rabinal's husband or the prisoner's death . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1961.
  • Arquitectura y arte colonial en Santo Domingo . Editorial de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo 1974.
  • Ricardo Molinari : "A rose for Stefan George" or: Federico García Lorca and Stefan George . In: José Manuel López de Abiada, Titus Heydenreich (Ed.): Iberoamérica. Historia - sociedad - literatura. Homenaje a Gustav Siebenmann . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1983, Vol. 2, ISBN 3-7705-2154-4 , pp. 673-678. (= Latin America Studies , Vol. 13).
  • Memories and texts . In: Ibero-American Archives , Volume 1989, Issue 4, Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1989, pp. 417-652. Contains among others:
  • Vita . In: Yearbook for the history of the state, economy and society of Latin America , vol. 20 (1983), pp. XXVII – XXXIV. (Spanish)
  • as translator and editor: Rose from Ashes. Spanish and Hispanic American Poems 1900-1950 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2nd rev. 1992 edition. ISBN 3-518-01734-9

Secondary literature and obituaries

  • Iso Camartin : almond tree and wing soul. On the death of Erwin Walter Palm (1910–1988) . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of July 14, 1988.
  • Gert Eisenbürger: Domin comes from Santo Domingo. Hilde Domin and Erwin Walter Palm in exile in the Dominican Republic . In: ila , ISSN  0946-5057 , year 2012, issue 367, pp. 34-36.
  • Elisa Vargas Lugo: Erwin Walter Palm (1910–1988) . In: Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas . Vol. XV, No. 60. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 1989, ISSN  0185-1276 , pp. 278-280.
  • Wolfgang Loyalty : Erwin Walter Palm y el Proyecto México de la Fundación Alemana para la Investigación Científica . In: Yearbook for the history of the state, economy and society of Latin America , vol. 20 (1983), S. LI – LVI.
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 2: L – Z. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 479-484.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ rose from ashes , Spanish and Spanish-American poetry since 1900, edited and transmitted by Erwin Walter Palm, 1955, online: .
  2. ^ Marion Tauschwitz: Hilde Domin. "That I can be who I am". Biography . (revised and updated version) VAT Verlag André Thiele, Mainz 2011, ISBN 978-3-940884-09-1 .
  3. ↑ Heide Seele: This is where her first poem was written. The Heidelberg poet Hilde Domin was awarded the highest order in the Dominican Republic. Press release of Heidelberg University of November 30, 2005 ( Memento of the original of July 1, 2007 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 notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-heidelberg.de
  4. ^ Erwin Walter Palm: The task of art history in the Puebla-Tlaxcala area . In: Franz Tichy (Ed.): The Mexico Project of the German Research Foundation. A German-Mexican interdisciplinary regional research in the basin of Puebla-Tlaxcala , Vol .: 1: Reports on work started and planned / Informe sobre los trabajos iniciados y proyectados . Franz Steiner. Wiesbaden 1968, pp. 118-120.
  5. ^ Wolfgang Treue: Erwin Walter Palm y el Proyecto México de la Fundación Alemana para la Investigación Científica . In: Yearbook for the history of the state, economy and society of Latin America , vol. 20 (1983), S. LI – LVI.
  6. ^ Ruperto Carola. Journal of the Association of Friends of the Student Union of the University of Heidelberg , No. 79 (April 1989), pp. 118f.
  7. ^ Members of the HAdW since it was founded in 1909. Erwin Walter Palm. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, accessed on June 16, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Palm, Erwin Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian, translator and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1988
Place of death Heidelberg