Franz Schnabel

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Franz Schnabel (born December 18, 1887 in Mannheim , † February 25, 1966 in Munich ) was a German historian .

Live and act

Franz Schnabel came as the son of the businessman Karl Schnabel and his wife Maria Anna, nee. Guillemin to the world. Schnabel's parents, the father Protestant , the mother Catholic , married in 1885 and raised their three children Catholic : the second-born Franz had an older and a younger sister. Schnabel grew up in the milieu of the liberal Baden bourgeoisie in his hometown and, in retrospect, considered the close relationship with France that existed on his mother's side to have a formative influence on his personality development: “Thanks to my mother's relatives, I came to Normandy as a boy and to Paris. But if you step on French soil in your youth, you will always take with you a sense of the great contours of world history. ”Schnabel attended the humanistic grammar school in Mannheim, which he graduated in 1906. He then studied history, German, French and Latin at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg . In 1910 he passed the state examination for teaching at secondary schools and was in the same year at Hermann Oncken with the work , the merger of political Catholicism in Germany in 1848 for Dr. phil. PhD.

In 1911, Schnabel entered the Baden school service as a candidate for teaching, but took a leave of absence at the beginning of 1914 in order to work out a history of the Baden estates on behalf of the Baden Historical Commission . The project could not be realized because of the outbreak of the First World War : Schnabel was drafted in April 1915, served on the Western Front throughout the war and was only released from the army in February 1919. He immediately returned to the Baden school service and taught Latin, French and history at Karlsruhe schools: in 1919/20 at Lessing-Gymnasium , Germany's first girls ' high school , and from 1920 to 1922 at Goethe-Gymnasium , a high school for boys. Parallel to his school service, Schnabel pursued his scientific career, encouraged by the teacher Oncken, and completed his habilitation in 1920 at the Technical University of Karlsruhe with the history of Ministerial Responsibility in Baden , which was supervised by Hermann Wätjen . In 1922 he was appointed to the historical chair at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, which he held until his dismissal in 1936. In addition to his professorship, Schnabel was head of the Baden General State Archives from 1924 to 1927 .

Schnabel's years at the Karlsruhe chair were characterized by extraordinary productivity. Following his habilitation thesis, he continued his research on early constitutionalism in Baden and in 1927 published two brief biographies of the Baden politicians Sigismund von Reitzenstein and Ludwig von Liebenstein , compiled from archival material . As early as 1920 Schnabel had taken on the development of a source study that was supposed to do for modern history what Wilhelm Wattenbach had done for the Middle Ages; The work published in 1931, which is still relevant today, made the sources of the Reformation period accessible until 1550, but was not continued by Schnabel. In the same year, 1931, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Freiherr vom Stein , Schnabel published a short biography of the Prussian reformer, who was accused by Gerhard Ritter of instrumentalizing Stein for current political purposes; Schnabel and Ritter discussed this question controversially. Schnabel also emerged as a textbook author in the Weimar years: his textbook History of the Latest Times, first published in 1923 by BG Teubner Verlag , was also published as an independent work for other circles, had several editions and was still relevant for students after 1945. Above all, however, since the mid-1920s, Schnabel's main work, the German history in the nineteenth century , was published in four volumes in 1929, 1933, 1934 and 1937. In this unfinished work, which did not get beyond the year 1840, Schnabel attempted to analyze the political history as well as the social, cultural, economic and technical history of the 19th century in their interaction and to identify the preconditions for the "cultural crisis" of the 20th century. A fifth volume with the title The Awakening of German Volkstum was completed as a manuscript by Schnabel, but could no longer appear due to Nazi censorship.

In contrast to most historians of his time, Schnabel had a positive view of the Weimar Republic , which he expressed in journalism, in lectures and in his scientific work, but without becoming involved in party politics. His mission reached a high point in October 1932, when he spoke out in the Hochland magazine against the Prussian strike by the Papen government . His text Neudeutsche Reichsreform began with the dramatic words: “Even if the discussion should be closed and in future only dictated in the German fatherland, it remains the duty of the leading intellectual class to raise their voices as long as possible is. "Despite his clear commitment to the rule of law and federalism, a phase is recognizable after the accession of the National Socialists in which Schnabel participated in efforts to build a bridge between Catholicism and National Socialism, with the concept of the corporate state or the imperial idea being linked . This phase ended at the latest in 1935, when Schnabel was indirectly affected by Walter Frank's actions against his teacher Hermann Oncken: In his article against Oncken, Frank referred to Schnabel as a “clerical historian” and assumed hostility to the regime. On July 15, 1936, Schnabel was released in Karlsruhe. He immediately moved to Heidelberg, where he lived as a private scholar until 1945. During these years Schnabel mainly published articles on cultural history in the daily press, especially in the Frankfurter Zeitung ; in addition, he published articles and numerous reviews in the Hochland magazine until it had to be discontinued in 1941, as well as in other specialist journals. In 1944, despite his 57 years of age, Schnabel was almost called up for military service, but was released through the intervention of his friend, ex-general Bernhard Schwertfeger .

In September 1945 Schnabel was appointed state director for teaching and culture in the Baden district, the northern part of the newly formed state of Württemberg-Baden . He owed this appointment to his acquaintance with Heinrich Köhler , who was government president at the time. In October 1945 Schnabel also received his professorship back in Karlsruhe. However, he was now aiming for a professorship at a university, preferably in Heidelberg. There was a chance for this in 1946 when Willy Andreas had to vacate his chair under pressure from the American occupation forces. Schnabel pursued his appointment, which the Philosophical Faculty in Heidelberg opposed massively. In the background were statements by Schnabel from 1945, in which he specifically accused the University of Heidelberg of having consulted the future Nazi elite before 1933. Against the attempt of the state government to enforce its education officer Schnabel in Heidelberg, the university submitted an opinion that was devastating for Schnabel and was thus able to prevent the appeal. Schnabel drew the consequences from the broken relationship with the university and resigned as state director.

As early as the summer of 1945, the University of Munich approached Schnabel with the question of whether he would accept an appointment. In Munich, in the early summer of 1945, numerous professors were dismissed under pressure from the American occupation forces, including Ulrich Crämer , who had held the Chair of Medieval and Modern History. Schnabel was interested in this professorship, but without definitely accepting it. There were two reasons for this: on the one hand, he would have preferred an appointment in Heidelberg, on the other hand, he did not like the fact that it was being considered to rededicate said chair to a concordat chair in order to be able to appoint the Protestant Hermann Heimpel to the previous concordat chair for medieval history. Schnabel only accepted in Munich on February 10, 1947, after his Heidelberg ambitions had been dashed and the rededication of the chair after Heimpel's failed appointment was off the table. Schnabel was already teaching as a visiting professor in Munich in the summer of 1947 and took over the chair for Medieval and Modern History, which Walter Goetz had held as a substitute, on November 1, 1947. When Schnabel had reached retirement age in 1955, he was given the privilege, the time of his retirement determine yourself. In fact, he did not retire at his own request until after the summer semester of 1962, at the age of almost 75, and held lectures until 1964. As the only professor in Munich, he represented the history of modern times and always resisted enlarging the teaching staff; it was only after his departure that the chair was divided into one for early modern history and one for modern history, to which Fritz Wagner and Walter Bussmann were appointed. In 1947 Schnabel was appointed to the historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , of which he was president from 1951 to 1959. Since 1948 he was also a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . Since 1949 he headed the entire association of German history and antiquity associations .

Schnabel's years at the Munich chair differed significantly from his time in Karlsruhe. While his own research had been the focus of his work there, in Munich he concentrated entirely on his role as an academic teacher. The constitutional lawyer Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde , who received his doctorate in history from Schnabel, passed on to Schnabel's statement: “I just have the opinion that nowadays everyone should exercise a socially necessary activity. And I think that teaching in front of the students is more socially necessary than writing your own books. When I accepted the call to Munich, it was clear to me that I would not come here to continue working on my German history. ”Schnabel's lectures in the Great Aula or in the auditorium maximum , always held Monday and Tuesday afternoons, each two hours, always had 800 to 1200 listeners. They were also well attended by students from other subjects and from Munich's urban society. Schnabel became a magnet for the University of Munich that attracted students, comparable only to Romano Guardini . It was not until the Munich years that Schnabel was able to train his own academic students, including Franz Herre , Heinrich Lutz , Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin , Friedrich Hermann Schubert , Eberhard Weis , Erich Angermann , Lothar Gall , Hans Schmidt , Peter Hoffmann , Peter Krüger , Adelheid von Saldern and Karl-Egon Lönne .

Schnabel's four-volume German history in the nineteenth century was reissued unchanged from 1947 to 1951, appeared in an eight-volume paperback edition in 1964/65 and was last published by DTV in 1987 . Schnabel did not work on a continuation of his main work after 1945, nor did he print the fifth volume of the work. After his death it was announced that it would appear, later requested from time to time, but not yet realized. Thomas Hertfelder took the view that this had not happened “to Schnabel's luck”: In this volume, Schnabel had abandoned liberal positions in a mixture of censorship and self-censorship and turned away from Western European political tradition. Schnabel continued his career as a textbook author after the war. Other publications from the Munich years mostly emerged from lectures that were prompted by anniversaries, for example in 1951 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Herder Verlag or in 1958 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Munich Historical Commission. Schnabel's main concern after the end of the Third Reich and as a reaction to it was the renewal of the humanistic educational idea , which is characteristic of his 1955 academy lecture The humanistic educational property in the change of state and society . Schnabel took part in the debates on the person and work of Otto von Bismarck that took place after 1945, and in a discussion of Erich Eyck's biography of Bismarck he argued that the small German solution to the German question had been a mistake. Well-known colleagues argued against Schnabel's position, including Gerhard Ritter, who had already criticized Schnabel's liberal interpretation of Freiherr von Stein in the early 1930s.

Schnabel's grave in the main cemetery in Mannheim

The grave of his parents Karl and Maria (née Guillemin) and his sister Katharina were laid to rest. His sister Maria (1889–1971), who cared for him for decades, was buried next to Schnabel.

Honors

In 1954 Schnabel was granted honorary citizenship of the city of Mannheim, and in 1961 he was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit . Schnabel was an honorary doctor of engineering and political science (Aachen and Munich) and an honorary member of the British Historical Association and the American Historical Association . A street in Mannheim-Feudenheim and Karlsruhe- Hagsfeld , as well as a building of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, are named after him. The Franz Schnabel Memorial Medal, an award from the Upper Rhine Foundation for History and Culture for high school graduates in Baden-Württemberg, which is given to the best of the year for outstanding achievements in history, was named after him.

Fonts (selection)

A bibliography of the publications of Franz Schnabel, compiled by Karl-Egon Lönne, appeared in: Franz Schnabel: Abhandlungen und Lectures 1914–1965. Edited by Heinrich Lutz . Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1970, pp. 369–402.

  • The amalgamation of political Catholicism in Germany in 1848 . Winter, Heidelberg 1910 (= Heidelberg Treatises on Middle and Modern History , 29).
  • History of ministerial responsibility in Baden . G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1922.
  • Freiherr vom Stein. BG Teubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1931.
  • German History in the Nineteenth Century. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1929–1937; Reprint: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1987.
  • Treatises and lectures 1914–1965. Edited by Heinrich Lutz. Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1970.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ From the estate quoted by Heinrich Lutz: Introduction. In: Franz Schnabel: Treatises and lectures 1914–1965. Edited by Heinrich Lutz. Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1970, pp. X – XXIV, here: p. XIII, note 8.
  2. ↑ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 233-258, here: pp. 337 f.
  3. ^ Angela Borgstedt: Educational conception and educational practice with Franz Schnabel. In: Peter Steinbach / Angela Borgstedt (ed.): Franz Schnabel. The historian of the free constitutional state . Berlin 2009, pp. 333-345, here: p. 334.
  4. ^ Friedrich Hermann Schubert: Franz Schnabel and the history of the 20th century. In: Historische Zeitschrift 205 (1967), pp. 323–357, here: p. 331.
  5. ^ Franz Schnabel: Sigismund von Reitzenstein. The founder of the Baden state. Heidelberg 1927 and Ludwig von Liebenstein. A historical picture from the beginnings of constitutional life in southern Germany. Karlsruhe 1927.
  6. ↑ Franz Schnabel: Germany's historical sources and representations in the modern age. Part 1: The Age of Reformation, 1500–1550. Leipzig / Berlin 1931.
  7. ↑ Ritter's criticism and Schnabel's reply in: New Yearbooks for Science and Youth Education 8 (1932), pp. 264–282; Schnabel's reply was reprinted in: Peter Steinbach / Angela Borgstedt (eds.): Franz Schnabel. The historian of the free constitutional state . Berlin 2009, pp. 99-102.
  8. ↑ As a textbook: History of the Latest Time (= Teubner's historical teaching work for higher educational institutions. Outline of history for the upper level, Part III. ) Leipzig / Berlin 1923; self-employed: 1789–1919. An introduction to recent history. Leipzig / Berlin 1923.
  9. ↑ Eberhard Weis: Introduction. In: Franz Schnabel: German history in the nineteenth century. Volume 1: The Basics. Munich 1987, pp. XI-XXXII, here: p. XIII.
  10. ^ The text was reprinted in: Franz Schnabel: Treatises and lectures 1914–1965. Edited by Heinrich Lutz. Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1970, pp. 106–116, quote: p. 106.
  11. ↑ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 233–258, here: p. 245.
  12. ↑ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 233–258, here: p. 235.
  13. ^ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel and the German historical science. Historiography between historicism and cultural criticism (1910–1945). Volume 2, Göttingen 1998, pp. 769-777 (chronological listing of Schnabel's articles in the daily and weekly press).
  14. ^ For example: Franz Schnabel: The legitimacy of the nation. In: Hochland , Volume 48 (1940/41) pp. 139–150.
  15. ^ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel and the German historical science. Historiography between historicism and cultural criticism (1910–1945). Volume 2, Göttingen 1998, pp. 759–768 (list of all of Schnabel's contributions in journals and compilations) and pp. 778–790 (list of, inter alia, all of Schnabel’s reviews).
  16. ^ Peter Herde: Two failed appointments , In: Helmut Knüppel, Manfred Osten, Uwe Rosenbaum, Julius Schoeps, Peter Steinbach: Connections between education, science, culture, history and politics , Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2007, p. 761.
  17. ^ Text of the report in: Peter Steinbach / Angela Borgstedt (eds.): Franz Schnabel. The historian of the free constitutional state . Berlin 2009, pp. 221-229.
  18. ↑ On the entire process: Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 233–258, here: pp. 246–249.
  19. ↑ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 233-258, here: pp. 249 f.
  20. ^ Karl Bosl: Franz Schnabel December 18, 1887– February 25, 1966. In: Yearbook Bavarian Academy of Sciences 1966 (1967) pp. 188–193, here: p. 190 ( online ).
  21. ^ Winfried Schulze : 150 Years of German History in Munich. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 31–53, here: p. 45.
  22. ↑ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde: Memories of Franz Schnabel. In: Franz Schnabel. On life and work (1887–1966). Lectures to celebrate his 100th birthday. Munich 1988, pp. 15-24, here: p. 20.
  23. ↑ Eberhard Weis: Foreword. In: Franz Schnabel. On life and work (1887–1966). Lectures to celebrate his 100th birthday. Munich 1988, pp. 7-9.
  24. ↑ As reported by Hans Maier from personal experience: Bad Years, Good Years. A life 1931 ff. Munich 2011, p. 74 and by Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde: Memories of Franz Schnabel. In: Franz Schnabel. On life and work (1887–1966). Lectures to celebrate his 100th birthday. Munich 1988, pp. 15-24, here: p. 16.
  25. ^ Friedrich Hermann Schubert: Franz Schnabel and the history of the 20th century. In: Historische Zeitschrift 205 (1967), pp. 323–357, here: p. 344.
  26. ↑ For example from Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde: Memories of Franz Schnabel. In: Franz Schnabel. On life and work (1887–1966). Lectures to celebrate his 100th birthday. Munich 1988, pp. 15-24, here: p. 24.
  27. ↑ Thomas Hertfelder: Franz Schnabel. In: Katharina Weigand (ed.): Munich historian between politics and science. 150 years of the historical seminar of the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich 2010, pp. 233-258, here: p. 244 (also the quotation).
  28. ↑ Franz Schnabel: The book trade and the spiritual rise of the occidental peoples. Freiburg im Breisgau 1951.
  29. ↑ Franz Schabel: The idea and the appearance. In: The historical commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 1858-1958. Göttingen 1958, pp. 7-69.
  30. ^ Franz Schnabel: The humanistic education in the change of state and society. Ceremonial address given at the public meeting of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich on December 3, 1955. Munich 1956.
  31. ↑ Lothar Gall: Introduction. In: Lothar Gall (Ed.): The Bismarck Problem in Historiography after 1945. Cologne / Berlin 1971, pp. 9–24, here: p. 16; here also Schnabel's contribution from 1949: Das Problem Bismarck , pp. 97–118.
  32. ^ Wolfgang Münkel: The cemeteries in Mannheim. Signpost to the graves of well-known Mannheim personalities on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Mannheim main cemetery on July 14, 1992 , Südwestdt. Verl.-Anstalt, Mannheim 1992, p. 99.
  33. ^ Franz-Schnabel-Straße in the Stadtwiki Karlsruhe .
  34. ↑ Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at KIT .
personal data
SURNAME Schnabel, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1966
Place of death Munich