Friedrich Wachtsmuth

Friedrich Wachtsmuth (born July 7, 1883 in Mitau , Courland , † January 21, 1975 in Erbach ) was a German art historian with a focus on the Middle East . At the University of Marburg he was considered a staunch National Socialist .

Life

Wachtsmuth was the son of the well-known Germanist of the same name, who worked at the Mitau grammar school . He studied architecture at the Riga Polytechnic as well as in Dresden and Karlsruhe up to a Dipl.-Ing. In Riga he became a member of the Baltic student fraternity, Fraternitas Baltica . After completing his studies, he worked as an architect from 1908 to 1910. Then he received his doctorate in Berlin in 1916 on Iraqi brick buildings. The basis for this was his excavation stay in Babylon from 1912 to 1915. In 1922 he received a doctorate in art history in Marburg with Richard Hamann . He completed his habilitation in 1923 at the TH Darmstadt for architectural history of the Orient. In 1929 he became ao. Professor in Marburg. In 1928/29 and again in 1931/32 he took part in excavations in Ctesiphon . Wachtsmuth joined the NSDAP and SA in 1933 and in November 1933 signed the professors' commitment to Adolf Hitler at German universities and colleges . In 1934 he received a full professorship for Near Eastern art at the University of Marburg, with a special focus on Aryan art and building research . In 1936 he became dean of the Philosophical Faculty and took action against scholars who were unpopular. To do this, he took advantage of his position as a reviewer for the National Socialist Lecturer Association . In 1938 he was removed from office as dean by the rector Leopold Zimmerl because of his own authority. In 1943 he moved to the University of Frankfurt am Main , where he was dismissed from the university in 1945. In 1955 he was retired .

He continued to publish for the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft and in the brick industry magazine about brick buildings .

Fonts

• The origin of the transept . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , vol. 80, 1930, pp. 53–58 ( digitized version of the Central and State Library Berlin ).
• The reflection of ethnic peculiarities in the building design of Old Moravia , Leipzig 1938
• The brick building of the modern age: the occidental brick building art from the 15th century to the present day , Elwert Marburg 1942

literature

• Anne Christine Nagel (ed.): The Philipps University of Marburg in National Socialism. Documents on their history (= contributions to the history of the Philipps University of Marburg. Vol. 7 = Pallas Athene. Contributions to the history of the university and science. Vol. 1). Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07653-0 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945? , Frankfurt / M. 2007, p. 647
• Michael H. Sprenger: Richard Hamann and Marburg Art History between 1933 and 1945 , in: Jutta Held u. a. (Ed.): Art history at the universities under National Socialism , Göttingen 2003, p. 71

Web links

• Baltic Historical Commission (Ed.): Entry on Friedrich Wachtsmuth. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Baltic Ph! Ph! Addresses 1973, p. 74.