Franz Thierfelder

Franz Thierfelder (born April 24, 1896 in Deutschenbora , † April 23, 1963 in Dachau ) was a German publicist , linguist and cultural politician .

Life

Thierfelder came from Saxony . His cousin was the classical philologist Andreas Thierfelder . After attending the Princely School in Meißen , he took part in the First World War, in which he was seriously wounded. Released from French captivity in 1919 , he studied German , Nordic languages , newspaper and political science as well as economics at the University of Leipzig and received his doctorate in 1922. phil. and Dr. rer. pole. In 1921 he took part in the suppression of the Central German uprising as a temporary volunteer .

Between 1923 and 1926 he worked as a political editor, most recently for the Dresdener Nachrichten . In 1926 he became press officer and in 1930 general secretary of the Academy for Scientific Research and Maintenance of Germanness (Deutsche Akademie) in Munich , which in the next few years he focused on "language promotion abroad". In view of the growing political influence of the National Socialists , the conservative Thierfelder undertook "career-related adjustments". When he was invited to the DA annual meeting in 1932, he had already spoken of a "transition phase to a new ethnic community"; in a lecture in June 1933 he described the " seizure of power " as "a historical necessity". And in December 1933 he wrote:

"Even his opponents cannot deny that the National Socialist worldview shows an impressive unity and that only the ignorant or malicious can claim that it is a negative, demolishing movement without creative ability."

Nevertheless, in 1937, after conflicts with the DA President Karl Haushofer , he had to leave the increasingly Nazi -oriented academy. Although Thierfelder had accused him of a lack of National Socialist sentiments, in reality he served as a scapegoat for undesirable organizational developments.

Thierfelder lived as a freelance writer until 1945. After the end of the war, from June 1945 until the institution was dissolved on December 31, 1945, he was acting general secretary of the German Academy. In 1945 he was also the syndic of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . He was an extraordinary member of the historical commission in Munich and in 1946 was a member of the Bavarian constitutional state assembly for the CSU . Following Nazi allegations, he resigned from his posts in September 1946. His employment in the public service and a candidacy for the state parliament became impossible until his denazification process was completed . Only after his classification as "unencumbered" was he able to work as a consultant in the Hessian Ministry of Culture in 1949/50 .

In 1951 he was one of the founders of the Goethe Institute , where he served on the board and as head of the pedagogical advisory board. He was also Secretary General of the Institute for Foreign Relations from 1951 to 1960 . In 1952 he became head of the Standing Conference in preparation for the spelling reform launched Working Group for language cultivation . In 1961 he was awarded a Goethe Medal as "Founder of the Goethe Institute 1932" . Thierfelder died in 1963 from the aftermath of a car accident.

Franz Thierfelder was married and had three children.

Publications (selection)

• The Economic Significance of German Abroad (1932)
• Germanness Abroad (1934)
• The Kingdom of South Slavia (1936)
• German as a world language (1938)
• My guest. Poems (1938).
• The Balkans as a political force field (1940)
• Fateful Hours of the Balkans (1941)
• Language Policy and Broadcasting (1941)
• Origin and Effect of French Cultural Influences in Southeastern Europe (1942)
• Shaping and shaping the Balkans (1943)
• People, Nation, State (1947)
• The German University Today and Tomorrow (1948)
• The borders of Europe (1948)
• Dealing with Nations (1949)
• Paths to Better Style (1950)
• The German language abroad (2 vols. 1956/57)
• Men in the Balkans (1961)

literature

• Steffen R. Kathe: cultural policy at any price. The history of the Goethe Institute 1951 to 1990. Meidenbauer Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89975-047-0 (also: Trier, Univ., Diss., 2002).
• Eckard Michels: German as a world language? Franz Thierfelder, the Deutsche Akademie in Munich and the promotion of the German language abroad. 1923-1945. In: German History. 22, 2, 2004, ISSN  0266-3554 , pp. 206-228.
• Eckard Michels: From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Language and foreign cultural policy 1923–1960. Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-57807-3 ( Studies on Contemporary History , 70).
• Franz Thierfelder. In: Munzinger Archive. 24/1963.

Web links

• Literature by and about Franz Thierfelder in the catalog of the German National Library
• Eckard Michels: German Academy, 1925-1945. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Annual meeting of the German Academy . In: Frankfurter Zeitung , No. 778, October 18, 1929; Franz Thierfelder: German culture advertising . In: Kölnische Zeitung , No. 590, October 27, 1930 (facsimile in the HWWA ); see also Kurt Düwell : Überpochaler learning process. Away from propaganda and towards language promotion: the Goethe-Institut between 1932 and 1951 . In: FAZ , September 5, 2005.
2. ↑ Eckard Michels : From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Munich 2005, p. 115.
3. ↑ Quotations from Eckard Michels: From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Munich 2005, pp. 103, 104.
4. ↑ Franz Thierfelder: "The New Empire". A series of publications by the Deutsche Akademie. In: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 546, December 9, 1933.
5. ↑ Eckard Michels: From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Munich 2005, p. 115 ff.
6. ↑ Eckard Michels: From the German Academy to the Goethe Institute. Munich 2005, p. 203 ff.
7. ^ Wolfgang Kopke: Spelling reform and constitutional law. Tübingen 1995, p. 67 ff.
8. ↑ Goethe Medal on goethe.de, accessed on June 3, 2019 (pdf).