Fritz Fremersdorf

Fritz Fremersdorf (born January 14, 1894 in Mainz , † January 25, 1983 in Cologne ) was a German Provincial Roman archaeologist , ground monument curator and director of the Roman-Germanic Museum , who was particularly interested in Roman Cologne and its topography , Roman arts and crafts and the Small art of the Romans, especially the antique glass , occupied. From 1923 on, Fremersdorf was the first to undertake systematic archaeological and topographical research into the city of Cologne, right down to its soft landscape, thus establishing the organized conservation of monuments in the cathedral city.

Life

In 1923 he was awarded the provincial Roman dissertation Roman picture lamps . With special consideration of a newly discovered Mainz manufactory . A contribution to the technology and history of early imperial ceramics at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn to the Dr. phil. PhD .

Then from 1923 to 1959 Fremersdorf was director of the then Roman and from 1934 Roman and Germanic department of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, today's Roman-Germanic Museum , as the successor to his own director Josef Poppelreuter and first director of the 20 October 1946, the Roman-Germanic Museum of the City of Cologne founded as the new municipal museum.

Fremersdorf died in 1983 at the age of 89 and was buried in Cologne's Südfriedhof , hall 2.

Services

The Cologne ground monument preservation was always and especially important to Fritz Fremersdorf. Since the 1920s, the municipal monument preservation was expanded through him; the Prussian government appointed him state representative for cultural and historical soil antiquities. The Prussian Excavation Act of 1914 gave him the option of systematic research, but also the obligation to monitor all construction sites in the Cologne city area. From 1922 to 1959 Fritz Fremersdorf was responsible for the excavations in Cologne's urban area.

Fritz Fremersdorf was the first to systematically conduct provincial Roman archeology in Cologne from 1923, sort the Roman antiquities, record them scientifically and publish them in exemplary fashion. In addition, he began systematic archaeological excavations in Cologne, especially in the outskirts of the city, for example in Müngersdorf , on the Alteburg, on Luxemburger Strasse, but also in the old town area near St. Georg and St. Severin . From 1924 to 1959 he carried out extensive excavations under the church, the cloister and at the church of St. Severin with interruptions and between 1924 and 1926 also examined the medieval layers there for the first time.

Fritz Fremersdorf's excavations produced significant scientific successes and from then on enriched the Roman department in the basement of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum.

In 1926 Fritz Fremersdorf succeeded in discovering the Roman manors in Cologne-Müngersdorf and Cologne-Braunsfeld, as well as the Franconian grave fields in Cologne-Müngersdorf and Cologne-Junkersdorf, which came to light in 1927 and 1938 when suburban settlements were built. From 1926 to 1927 he continued the excavations in the Alteburg naval fort in Cologne-Marienburg, which the Bonn Provincial Museum, today's Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn , had already started there in 1905 under the direction of Hans Lehner . His investigations resulted in two construction periods: a late Iberian with wood and earth buildings and a circumferential wooden double palisade with a pointed ditch in front, and a Flavian with a warehouse made of stone buildings.

In 1927, the discovery of the remains of the Roman aqueduct in Cologne's green belt gave the impetus for a new, thorough investigation of Cologne's Roman water supply. In 1939 Otto Doppelfeld was appointed as assistant to Fritz Fremersdorf, who was to become his successor in 1959 as the museum director of the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne.

Fremersdorf's lasting merit is to have significantly expanded the holdings of the Cologne Roman-Germanic Museum with some outstanding exhibits. In the 1930s, for example, he succeeded in acquiring three important collections of ancient cabaret on German soil for the Roman-Germanic Museum. In 1934 it was the famous collection of the Cologne consul CA Nissen with around 15,000 exhibits (stone monuments, glass and jewelry, mainly from Cologne).

Together with the then mayor, he succeeded in 1935, the important collection Migrations temporal art , particularly Frankish jewelry (mostly from Southern Russia) Baron John of Diergardt on Castle Bornheim save (about 8000 numbers) for the Roman-Germanic Museum. This collection from the migration period was purchased in 1934 and led to the renaming of the Roman department into a "Roman and Germanic department", so it was not, as one might think, ideologically based on the spirit of National Socialism , like the current director of Roman-Germanic Museum, Hansgerd Hellenkemper emphasizes. Heinrich Himmler wanted to withdraw the important collection, which was initially exhibited in the Berlin State Museums, from Cologne for the SS . However, Fritz Fremersdorf was able to successfully assert himself against this.

In 1939 Fritz Fremersdorf finally acquired the collection of the Roman court councilor Herbert Wollmann with around 3,500 Roman clay lamps .

In 1944 he also acquired fragments of a Roman touring car for the Roman-Germanic Museum. The car parts (bronze fittings and bronze figures) probably come from the Wardar valley north of Thessaloniki (Greece) and were first reconstructed in Paris in 1904. Today, the Roman-Germanic Museum houses a reconstruction made by the car maker Paul Klöcker in 1973 based on plans by Christoph Röringaus. The traveling car is dated around 300 AD; it measures 230 × 260 × 180 cm without the drawbar .

For decades Fritz Fremersdorf devoted his research mainly to antique glass and the investigation of possible workshops and associated trade routes, thus also the export of Cologne glasses. The Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne today has what is probably Europe's most comprehensive ancient glass collection.

Fritz Fremersdorf was a member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute.

honors and awards

• 1938 Knight's Cross Order of the Crown of Italy
• In 1951 appointed professor
• 1956 Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• 1959 Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fonts (selection)

• with Herbert Rode: St. Severin in Cologne . Greven, Cologne 1951
• The Roman grave in Weiden near Cologne. Reykers, Cologne 1957
• Roman stained glass in Cologne . Reykers, Cologne 1958 (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne 3)
• The natural-colored so-called blue-green glass in Cologne . Verlag der Löwe, Cologne 1958, (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne 4)
• Roman glasses with thread in Cologne. Snake-thread glasses and related items . Reykers, Cologne 1959, (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne, 5)
• Roman shaped glass in Cologne . Verlag der Löwe, Cologne 1961, (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne 6)
• The Roman glasses with applied nubs . Reykers, Cologne 1962 (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne 7)
• Documents on Cologne's city history from Roman times . 2nd, completely redesigned and expanded edition. Reykers, Cologne 1963
• The Roman glasses with cut, painting and gold plating from Cologne . Reykers, Cologne 1967 (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne 8)
• with Edeltraud Polónyi-Fremersdorf: The colorless glasses of the early days in Cologne . Archaeological Society, Cologne 1984, ISBN 978-3-7749-1860-3 (= The Monuments of Roman Cologne 9)
• The Roman-Germanic Cologne. Guide to Museum and City , J. P. Bachem Verlag, Cologne, 6th revised edition 2005, ISBN 3-7616-1370-9 (1st edition 1981, 2nd edition 1984, 3rd, revised edition 1989, 4th, revised 1993 edition, 5th, expanded and completely revised edition 2000, 6th, revised edition 2005)

literature

• Analecta archaeologica. Festschrift Fritz Fremersdorf , Verlag Der Löwe, Reykers, Cologne 1960, 284 p., 71 plates (with a bibliography of his writings p. 271–284)
• Fremersdorf, Fritz . In: Werner Schuder (Ed.): Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar . Founded by Joseph Kürschner . 14th edition. Part 1: A-H . De Gruyter, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-11-008558-5 , p. 1035 .
• Hugo Borger : Fritz Fremersdorf, died January 25, 1983 . In: Museums of the City of Cologne. Bulletin 1983, pp. 35-36.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hugo Borger : The Cologne museums . With photos by Rainer Gaertner and others, Vista Point Verlag, Cologne 1990. ISBN 3-88973-104-X .
2. ↑ picture of the tomb. In: findagrave.com. Retrieved March 25, 2019 . 
3. ^ Martin Oehlen: "Museums in Cologne: Museum Guide Cologne". DuMont Cologne, 2004, ISBN 3-8321-7412-5 , p. 143.
4. ↑ Herbert Wollmann (1870–1937) was from 1906 to 1935 chancellor at the (first Prussian, then) German embassy to the Holy See and art collector, see Eva-Maria Cahn: Herbert Wollmann. Collector and researcher (1870-1937) . In: Kölner Jahrbuch 46, 2013, pp. 179–207.