Franz Rolf Schröder

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Franz Rolf Schröder (born September 8, 1893 in Kiel , † March 24, 1979 in Würzburg ) was a German Germanic and Scandinavian Medievalist . He was professor for the older and newer German language and literature at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . For many years he was the editor of the Germanic-Romanic monthly magazine (GRM).

Life

Schröder studied German and classical philology in Kiel and Heidelberg in 1916 and received his doctorate in Kiel . In 1920 he qualified as a professor for Germanic philology in Heidelberg, where he taught as a private lecturer until 1925. In the same year (April 1, 1925) he was appointed full professor of German philology in Würzburg. In 1937 he joined the NSDAP . In 1945 he was briefly removed from office, but was given the chair back, headed the senior department of the German Department and remained professor for German studies until his retirement in 1959. Schröder was the last professor for all German studies at the University of Würzburg, i.e. medieval and modern linguistics and literary studies.

In addition to his father Heinrich Schröder , he was initially co-editor of the GRM and, after the First World War, became the sole editor, which he retained until the last years of his life. Gerhart Hauptmann's work had a special scientific and personal significance for Schröder, to whom he sought personal contact by post.

Research priorities

In the course of his academic activity, Schröder tended more and more towards Germanic religious studies , especially with regard to the relationship between the Germanic religion and other Indo-European religions . Through his deliberate way of working, on the one hand he sought to determine the influence of the Hellenistic world and its ideas on the Germanic religion, on the other hand he pointed out the parallels between the mythologies and gods within the Indo-European peoples and pursued these in his research work.

Eve Picard summarizes Schröder's view of the origin and cultural-religious development of the Germanic peoples as follows:

“Germanism arose from the fusion of old European and Indo-European elements; The immigrant Indo-Europeans, organized according to patronage law , took over agriculture and the cult of mother earth that went with it from the settled indigenous people , organized according to maternal rights ; the Germanism resulting from this amalgamation was initially largely organized according to maternal law. Central importance in the cult of the mother goddess is the ritual performance of the holy wedding between mother earth and the “producer”, from whose union all life arises. Securing fertility and peace is the main concern of peasant society, which is why the head of the community - the king - is the representative of the great mother's lover in the ritual re-enactment of the holy wedding. On the one hand, these religious structures are the common heritage of the peoples of Europe and the Mediterranean. On the other hand, the religion of the Germanic peoples "at least from the Bronze Age to the beginning of the Viking Age " was under constant influence from the more highly developed cultures of the Orient and ancient times. These basic structures outlined in accordance with the nature of all agricultural peoples, because: "Belief in this noble, all-giving birth, in the Great Mother of all creation is a deep, wonderful, sacred original idea of ​​humanity." Over the centuries, however, the patrimonial element gained the Indo-Europeans increasingly important; This is particularly evident in the “diminution” of beliefs. The male part of the holy couple takes center stage in religious veneration; The rise of the war god Odin to the supreme Germanic god, however, is a temporary phenomenon of the Viking Age and only the belief of the belligerent upper class: "... the peasant population remained loyal to their agrarian gods." "

- Eve Picard, Germanisches Sacralkönigtum , Verlag Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1991, pages 163-64

As a result, Schröder ushered in a new era in scientific research alongside Georges Dumézil , that of “comparative mythology”.

Publications (selection)

  • Germanism and Hellenism. Studies on the Germanic religious history (Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1924)
  • The Parzival Question (Munich, CH Beck, 1928)
  • Old Germanic cultural problems (Berlin / Leipzig, De Gruyter, 1929)
  • The Germanic peoples - reading book on the history of religion (Tübingen, CB Mohr, 1929)
  • Source book on Germanic religious history (Berlin / Leipzig, De Gruyter, 1933)
  • Germanic hero poetry (Tübingen, CB Mohr, 1935)
  • Studies on the Germanic and comparative history of religion. 2 volumes (Tübingen, CB Mohr, 1941)
    • Vol. 1, Ingunar-Freyr
    • Vol. 2, Skadi and the gods of Scandinavia

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Klee: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 547.
  2. ↑ Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg: Lecture directory for the summer semester of 1948. University printing house H. Stürtz, Würzburg 1948, p. 17.
personal data
SURNAME Schröder, Franz Rolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Germanist and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1979
Place of death Wurzburg