Ferdinand Hestermann

Ferdinand Hestermann (born December 13, 1878 in Wesel , † December 15, 1959 in Jena ) was a German ethnologist and university professor .

Life

Ferdinand Hestermann studied philosophy, theology, oriental languages, ethnology, comparative religious studies and religious mythology in Vienna from 1898 to 1904. In 1916 he received his doctorate as Dr. phil. in ethnology at the University of Vienna (title of the thesis: The Equatorial Nations of Africa ). From 1916 to 1917 he was privately employed in Nagyrabe , Bihar Nagy-Bajorn ( Hungary ). Afterwards - from 1917 to 1929 - he worked at seven different commercial schools in Hamburg. In 1929 he completed his habilitation in ethnology at the University of Münster (title of the thesis: The Caribbean languages ​​of South America ), after previous attempts at habilitation in Hamburg had been rejected by the ethnologist Georg Thilenius (Philosophical Faculty at the University of Hamburg).

From 1929 to 1946 he worked as a private lecturer because he was unable to get a position due to his critical attitude towards the Nazi regime. His pupil Gertrud Pätsch wrote about Hestermann's situation during the Nazi era : “Who should have printed the work of the scientist who not only protested against the inhumane concept of race when specifically asked, but wherever an opportunity arose. The state left him in the unpaid position of private lecturer ”. From 1946 to 1948 he was ao. Professor at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In 1948 the company moved to the SBZ (Berlin, Weimar, Jena). From 1949 to 1950 he was Full Professor of General Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Jena, and from 1950 to 1951 he was a visiting professor for Ethnology and Comparative Legal Sociology at the Philological and Historical Department of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig. In 1951 he retired from the FSU Jena.

Act

Member of political bodies

Hestermann was a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR and a member of the People's Council of the Soviet Zone. From 1945 he was a member of the Kulturbund.

Supervision of collections

• In 1949 the Hilprecht Collection of Near Eastern Antiquities at the FSU (today it comprises approx. 3300 items, including approx. 3000 cuneiform texts ) was placed under a board of directors to which Professors Rudolf Meyer (Old Testament), Friedrich Zucker (Classical Philology) and Ferdinand Hestermann ( Linguistics) belonged to. The latter was appointed head of the collection in 1951. He held this office until his death.

Editorial and editorial work

In 1904/1906 Hestermann was a co-founder of the specialist journal “ANTHROPOS” and co-editor for 12 years. From 1923 to 1925 he was editor of the "Folia ethno-glossica" - sheets for ethnology, linguistics and related matters.

Honors / awards

• The Ferdinand Hestermann Institute was named after him in 1961 , which existed as such until 1968 and was then incorporated into a Linguistics section.

Works (selection)

• The equatorial peoples of Africa. University of Vienna, 1916 (dissertation)
• Spanish. Complete theory of forms including exercise material. O. Meißner Verlag, Hamburg 1923
• Saint Vizelin, Apostle of the Holsten and Wagrier. Duelmen 1926
• The sentence structure in Lycian. 1926
• The Caribbean languages ​​of South America. University of Münster, 1929 (habilitation thesis)
• German African Studies up to 1913. Critical presentation of the latest views on groupings and movements of languages ​​and peoples in Africa. Self-published, Vienna 1929

literature

• Franz Bolck (Hrsg.): Contributions to ethnolinguistics. Commemorative publication for Ferdinand Hestermann's 100th birthday. Friedrich Schiller University, Jena 1980
• DBA II, Fiche 576, 444 f .; Kürschner 1950, p. 799; Kürschner 1961, Nekrolog; UAL, PA 142.
• Gertrud Pätsch : On the myth of settlement; In memoriam Ferdinand Hestermann . Knowledge Contributions d. Friedrich Schiller University, 1980, p. 254

Web links

• Literature by and about Ferdinand Hestermann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ferdinand Hestermann in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
• The history of Kaukasiology at the FSU Jena ( Memento from August 21, 2005 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gertrud Pätsch: On the myth of setting; In memoriam Ferdinand Hestermann , Wiss. Contributions d. Friedrich Schiller University, 1980, p. 254. 1970. Friedrich-Schiller-Univ., Jena 1970. p. 293.
2. ^ Hilprecht Collection of Near Eastern Antiquities ( Memento from September 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )