Fritz Schachermeyr

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Fritz Schachermeyr (born January 10, 1895 in Urfahr , Austria-Hungary , † December 26, 1987 in Eisenstadt ) was an Austrian ancient historian . Because of his connections with the National Socialists and his ideological-racist views, Schachermeyr is one of the most controversial representatives of his subject in the 20th century.

Life

From 1914 Fritz Schachermeyr studied classical studies in Graz , where he learned from Adolf Bauer , among others , in Berlin (with Eduard Meyer ) and in Vienna, where Adolf Wilhelm became his teacher. His studies were interrupted from the end of 1915 by military service in Transylvania, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, where he developed an interest in the ancient Orient. Schachermeyr completed his studies in Innsbruck in 1920 with Carl Lehmann-Haupt with a dissertation on the relationship between Egypt and the Middle East. Between 1919 and 1929 he was initially active in teaching at a girls' high school in Innsbruck. In 1928 he completed his habilitation on Etruscan early history at the University of Innsbruck. In 1931 Schachermeyr was appointed professor of ancient history at the University of Jena , initially as an associate professor, and in the same year as a "personal" professor. An appointment to Lehmann-Haupt's chair in Innsbruck failed in 1932, presumably for financial reasons, as the previous full professorship had been converted into an extraordinary professorship. When applying to succeed Wilhelm in Vienna in 1934, Josef Keil was preferred, probably also because of Schachermeyr's National Socialist activities.

Schachermeyr initially stayed in Jena, where he was Dean of the Philosophical Faculty from October 1934 to March 1936. In 1936 he went to Heidelberg University as a full professor to succeed Eugen Täubler, who was expelled in 1933 for “racial” reasons . In 1941 he moved to the University of Graz . Between 1945 and 1952 Schachermeyr was forced to retire due to his National Socialist ideology - from 1946 Erich Swoboda represented Ancient History in Graz - but in 1952 he was appointed to the chair for Greek history, antiquity and epigraphy at the University of Vienna as successor to Keil . He retired in 1963, but held the chair until 1970.

Schachermeyr gave a very questionable figure in the time of National Socialism and is justifiably referred to as "one of the most prominent National Socialists among historians". Since taking over the professorship in Jena in 1931, he began to be politically active for the NSDAP and, according to his own statements, was a co-founder of the "National Socialist Combat Ring of the German-Austrians in the Reich", of which he became Gauleiter of Thuringia in 1933. He tried to scientifically and politically support the National Socialist movement through lectures and publications. In 1933 he published an article about "the Nordic leader personality" in the Völkischer Beobachter , the party organ of the NSDAP . He even sent a reprint of this article to the Reich Minister of the Interior responsible for university affairs, Wilhelm Frick . In an enclosed letter, he described his current work plan, an “attempt to lay the foundations for the National Socialist worldview based on the spirit of history”. Also in 1933 Schachermeyr tried in a smaller essay to determine the "tasks of ancient history in the context of Nordic world history". In numerous publications in the following years he disseminated National Socialist ideas and went further than most of his colleagues. The results of his efforts were sometimes grotesque (also from the point of view of the time); Schachermeyr explained on the assumption that historical greatness is fundamentally linked to belonging to the "Nordic race", figures like Peisistratos or Hannibal in reverse to "Aryans". Specialist colleagues also judged his work ambiguously, even those who were themselves close to the Nazi ideology. For example, the Leipzig ancient historian Helmut Berve wrote to Walter Herwig Schuchardt in Freiburg in 1943 : “As it is welcome that Schachermeyr is almost the only ancient historian who has zealously taken up the ancient history of the race, his method seems so unreliable to me, so little precise his formulations and his presentation. ”During his time in Graz, Schachermeyr cooperated both with the“ Ahnenerbe ”of the SS and with the competing“ Rosenberg Office ”.

After 1945 Schachermeyr tried to make this phase of his life as forgotten as possible and did not mention it in his memoirs either: In it he jumped from his inaugural lecture in Jena, which was about Alexander the Great, to his biography of Alexander, which he wrote after 1945 . Based on Oswald Spengler , Schachermeyr later took the view that culture, not race, was the factor that differentiates people. At least his early work on Greece and the ancient Orient had emphasized the supposedly superior " Nordic race " and at the same time said that the Phoenicians in particular had "parasitic tendencies" due to a "semitic-armenoid racial component".

Schachermeyr researched mainly in the area of ​​ancient Greece. He made major contributions to the early Greek period (such as the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures ) and often referred to the ancient oriental neighbors of the Greeks. So he was not only concerned with Greek culture, but also with Hittites , Etruscans , and even with ribbon ceramics . Since his work before 1945 (and partly even afterwards) was strongly influenced by National Socialist ideology (see above), Schachermeyr's results and assessments can often only be accepted with caution and with reservation.

He bequeathed his collection of ceramic shards of various origins, mainly Mediterranean and Near Eastern, one of the most important teaching collections of its kind, which the researcher has collected on many trips since his student days, to the Mycenaean Commission . His extensive biography of Alexander, published in a revised and expanded version in 1973, is still considered an important contribution to Alexander research, although Schachermeyr viewed the "Titan" Alexander quite negatively.

Schachermeyr had been a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences since 1957 . He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Universities of Athens (1961) and Vienna (1984). Schachermeyr received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art 1st Class , the Austrian Medal of Honor for Science and Art , the Great Golden Medal of Honor with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria , the Gold Medal of Honor of the Federal Capital Vienna and the Medal for Services in the Field the science of his hometown Linz. In 1963 he received the Wilhelm Hartel Prize . Schachermeyr's autobiographical book A Life Between Science and Art , published in 1984, was described by Gunnar Brands in 2012 as a perfidious autobiographical masquerade .

Fonts

  • Etruscan early history. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1929.
  • On race and culture in Minoan Crete. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1939.
  • Law of life in history. An attempt at an introduction to historical-biological thinking. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1940.
  • Indo-European and Orient. Your cultural and power-political struggle in antiquity. Klostermann, Stuttgart 1944.
  • Alexander the Great. Ingenium and Power. Pustet, Graz et al. 1949.
  • The oldest cultures in Greece , W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1955.
  • Greek history. With special consideration of the historical and cultural morphological contexts. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1960.
  • The Minoan culture of ancient Crete. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1964.
  • The early classical period of the Greeks. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1966.
  • Pericles. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1969.
  • Alexander in Babylon and the imperial order after his death (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 268, 3). Böhlau et al., Vienna et al. 1970, ISBN 3-205-03641-7 .
  • Intellectual history of the Periclean period. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1971.
  • Alexander the Great. The problem of his personality and his work (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 285). Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1973, ISBN 3-7001-0000-0 (comprehensive and expanded version of the book from 1949 and, like this, a critical biography of Alexander).
  • The early Aegean period. Research report on the excavations in the last decade and on their results for our view of history. Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1976–1979;
    • Volume 1: The pre- Mycenaean periods of mainland Greece and the Cyclades (= Mycenaean Studies. 3 = Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 303). 1976, ISBN 3-7001-0148-1 ;
    • Volume 2: The Mycenaean time and the civilization of Thera (= Mycenaean Studies. 4 = Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 309). 1976, ISBN 3-7001-0164-3 ;
    • Volume 3: Crete at the time of the migrations. From the end of the Minoan era to the Dorisation of the island (= Mycenaean Studies. 7 = Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 355). 1979, ISBN 3-7001-0312-3 .
    • Volume 4: Greece in the Age of Migration. From the end of the Mycenaean era to the Dorians. , 1980, ISBN 3-7001-0359-X
    • Volume 5: The Levant in the Age of Migration. From the 13th to the 11th century BC Chr. , 1982, ISBN 3-7001-0429-5 (incorrect), ISBN 3-7001-0428-6 (correct).
  • The tragedy of the full ending. Die and become in the past. Europe in the stranglehold of the present. Koska, Vienna et al. 1981, ISBN 3-85334-029-7 .
  • Greek recollection in the light of new research (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 404). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0552-5 .
  • Ancient Greek history. An attempt to make early history understandable at least in outline (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 425). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-7001-0620-3 .
  • Gerhard Dobesch and Hilde Schachermeyr (editors): A life between science and art. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 1984, ISBN 3-205-07238-3 .
  • Mycenae and the Hittite Empire (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. 472 = Publications of the Commission for Mycenaean Research. 11). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-7001-0777-3 .

literature

  • Karl Christ : Klio's changes. The German ancient history from neo-humanism to the present. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54181-X , pp. 65-68.
  • Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy : Fritz Schachermeyr (1895–1987). In: Anzeiger für die Altarwissenschaft . 41, 1988, pp. 125-128.
  • Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy (Ed.): Collection Fritz Schachermeyr. 3 volumes. Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1991–2012;
    • Volume 1: Eva Alram-Stern: The Neolithic Ceramics of Thessaly (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Memoranda. 220 = Publications of the Mycenaean Commission. 13). 1991, ISBN 3-7001-1881-3 ;
    • Volume 2: Claus Reinholdt: The ceramics from the Levant and the Middle East (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Memoranda. 292 = Publications of the Mycenaean Commission. 19). 2001, ISBN 3-7001-2983-1 ;
    • Volume 3: Peter Pavúk, Barbara Horejs: Middle and Late Bronze Age Ceramics of Greece (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Memoranda. 439 = Publications of the Mycenaean Commission. 31). 2012, ISBN 978-3-7001-7086-0 .
  • Volker Losemann : National Socialism and Antiquity. Studies on the development of the subject of Ancient History 1933–1945 (= Historical Perspectives. 7). Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-455-09219-5 (Abridged version of: Antike und Nationalozialismus. Marburg, University, dissertation, 1975).
  • Beat Näf : The ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr and his view of history in a retrospective of the history of science. In: Storia della Storiografia. 26, 1994, ISSN  0392-8926 , pp. 83-100.
  • Martina Pesditschek: The career of the ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr in the Third Reich and in the Second Republic. In: Human - Science - Magic. Messages. 25, 2007, ISSN  1609-5804 , pp. 41-71.
  • Martina Pesditschek: Barbarian, Cretan, Aryan. Life and work of the ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr. 2 volumes. Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften, Saarbrücken 2009, ISBN 978-3-8381-0602-1 (Volume 1), ISBN 978-3-8381-0641-0 (Volume 2).
  • Martina Pesditschek: Schachermeyr, Fritz. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 1120 f.
  • Wolfgang Schuller :  Schachermeyr, Fritz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 488 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Martina Pesditschek: The career of the ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr in the Third Reich and in the Second Republic. In: Human - Science - Magic. 25, 2007, pp. 41-71, here p. 47.
  2. ↑ Martina Pesditschek: The career of the ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr in the Third Reich and in the Second Republic. In: Human - Science - Magic. 25, 2007, pp. 41-71, here p. 41.
  3. ↑ Martina Pesditschek: The career of the ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr in the Third Reich and in the Second Republic. In: Human - Science - Magic. 25, 2007, pp. 41-71, here pp. 45-46.
  4. ^ Eckhard Wirbelauer : On the situation of ancient history in 1943. In: Freiburger Universitätsblätter . 149, 2000, pp. 107–127, here p. 116, ( digital version (PDF; 3.62 MB) ).
  5. ↑ Martina Pesditschek: The career of the ancient historian Fritz Schachermeyr in the Third Reich and in the Second Republic. In: Human - Science - Magic. 25, 2007, pp. 41-71, here pp. 56-57.
  6. ^ Gunnar Brands: Archaeologists and the German Past . In: Gunnar Brands , Martin Maischberger (editor): Lebensbilder. Classical archaeologists and National Socialism . Rahden 2012, p. 30


personal data
SURNAME Schachermeyr, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ancient historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Urfahr
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1987
Place of death Eisenstadt