Georg Witkowski

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Georg Witkowski

Georg Witkowski (born September 11, 1863 in Berlin , † September 21, 1939 in Amsterdam ) was a German specialist in German.

biography

Georg Witkowski was born on September 11, 1863 as the eldest of three sons of the wealthy Jewish businessman Ignaz Witkowski and his wife Julie. Latz born in Berlin. He attended the Königliche Wilhelms-Gymnasium (Berlin) and the New Nikolaischule Leipzig , where he passed the Abitur examination at Easter 1883. He then enrolled at the University of Leipzig without specifying a particular subject. In addition to German courses, he also attended art history , philosophy and law. After two semesters, as he later wrote, it became clear to him that “Leipzig was not the right place if I wanted to get acquainted with the latest scientific research and teaching in my main field, German language and literature”. Therefore he moved to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . With Michael Bernays he wrote his doctoral thesis on Diederich von dem Werder , Torquato Tasso's first German translator . In the summer of 1886 he was in Munich summa cum laude for Dr. phil. PhD. He returned to Leipzig and completed his habilitation in 1889 on Anakreontik and Friedrich von Hagedorn . After his habilitation, Witkowski worked as a private lecturer and from 1897 as an associate professor for German language and literature at the University of Leipzig. In the late 1890s he married Petronella Pleyte. Shortly before the marriage , Witkowski converted to Protestantism . The daughter of the Dutch archaeologist and Egyptologist Willem Pleyte gave him two daughters.

In 1899 he was co-founder and chairman of the Society of Bibliophiles and from 1909 (co-) editor of the magazine for book lovers . He waited almost in vain for a full professorship . It was not until 1930, a year before his official retirement , that he was given a chair, which he continued to oversee as emeritus until 1933. After he had been awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg in 1932 , Witkowski's license to teach was withdrawn in 1933 due to the Civil Service Act and all pensions were withdrawn in 1934. In 1937 he was even briefly imprisoned by the Secret State Police after they wanted to have intercepted letters addressed to him with "subversive content". A year and a half after this arrest, in May 1939, Witkowski emigrated to live with relatives of his wife in Leiden in the Netherlands . Only a few months later, on September 21, 1939, three weeks after the attack on Poland began , Witkowski died at the age of 76 in Amsterdam as a result of cancer.

Witkowski was in contact with poets of his time such as Theodor Däubler , Kasimir Edschmid , Otto Julius Bierbaum , Ludwig Fulda and Hugo von Hofmannsthal for many years, as well as with some of his students. They included Axel Eggebrecht , Horst Kunze , Anton Kippenberg , Friedrich Michael , Erich Kästner and the National Socialist Hanns Johst , later president of the Reich Chamber of Literature. A doctoral student was the Germanist Kurt Meyer .

In 1937/38 Witkowski wrote his memoirs under the title Narrated from Seven Decades 1863-1933 . They were first released in 2003 and again in 2010. With Maximilian Harden as his younger brother, he was temporarily Georg Witkowski was distantly related.

meaning

His teaching and research focus lay in the field of German literary history from the 17th to 19th centuries, theater dramaturgy and history, Goethe research and edition studies. The Goethe biography, first published in 1899 and reprinted several times in different form, was widespread at the time. It was one of the main sources of Thomas Mann when writing the novel Lotte in Weimar . Witkowski also made a name for himself as the editor of numerous scientific editions, including those on Goethe , Schiller , Lessing and Christian Reuter . It is also worth mentioning his expert work in the trial of Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen (drama) .

Works

  • The beginnings of German theater . Leipzig 1898.
  • Goethe . Leipzig 1899.
    • Goethe , 2nd revised. Edition Leipzig 1912.
    • Goethe . 3rd, again through. Edition Leipzig 1923.
  • Cornelia, Goethe's sister . Frankfurt a. M. 1903.
  • What should we read and how should we read? , [o. O.] Leipzig 1906.
  • The German drama of the 19th century in its development , Leipzig 1906.
    • The German drama of the nineteenth century . 5. through Edition Leipzig 1923.
  • How do I get famous? In: Berliner Tageblatt 1910.
  • The development of German literature since 1830 , Leipzig 1912.
  • Lessing . Bielefeld 1921.
  • Miniatures . Leipzig 1922.
  • The Faust of Goethe . Leipzig 1923.
  • People and book . [Leipzig]: [Reclam], [1924].
  • Textual criticism and editing technique of more recent written works . H. Haessel , Leipzig 1924.
  • 100 years of Reclam . Leipzig 1928.
  • The life of Goethe . Berlin 1932.
  • Classic . Bibliographical Institute [1931].
  • History of literary life in Leipzig . Leipzig / Berlin: Teubner, 1909 [Munich: Saur, 1994: reprint with a post by Christel Foerster].
  • Of people and books. Memoirs 1863–1933. With an afterword by Bernd Weinkauf , Leipzig: Lehmstedt, 2003 [Revised and corrected new edition: Leipzig: Lehmstedt, 2010].
  • Principles of critical editions of recent German poets' works [1921], in: Documents for the history of the neo-Germanic edition, ed. by Rüdiger Nutt-Kofoth. Tübingen 2005, pp. 70-77.

Editions

  • Schiller's complete works. Historical-critical edition in 20 volumes. With the participation of Karl Berger, Erich Brandenburg, Th. Engert, Conrad Höfer, Albert Köster, Albert Leitzmann , Franz Muncker, edited by Otto Güntter and Georg Witkowski, Leipzig: Verlag Max Hesse, [1906–1911].
  • Georg Büchner : Woyzeck, Leipzig: Insel-Verl., 1920.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Conversations of German emigrants, Leipzig: Reclam (1925).
  • Lessing's works. Edited by Georg Witkowski. Critically reviewed and explained edition, Leipzig / Vienna: Bibliographisches Institut (approx. 1916).

estate

Witkowski's literary estate is scattered over several archives; see. the evidence in the Kalliope database .

literature

  • Georg Witkowski on his 60th birthday , [o. O.] [o. J.] [Leipzig: Hedrich, 1923].
  • Walter Dietze: Georg Witkowski (1863-1939). In: Important scholars in Leipzig , vol. I, for the 800th anniversary of the city of Leipzig on behalf of Rector u. Senate of the Karl-Marx-Univ. ed. v. Max Steinmetz, Leipzig: Karl-Marx-Univ. 1965, pp. 197-208
  • Walter Dietze: Georg Witkowski (1863–1939) , ed. v. Rector of Karl-Marx Univ.-Leipzig, Leipzig: Karl-Marx-Univ. 1973
  • Christel Foerster: Afterword. In: Witkowski, Georg: History of literary life in Leipzig , reprint based on the original edition. [Leipzig / Berlin: Teubner] from 1909 using the copy from the Leipzig University Archives, with e. Nachw. V. Christel Foerster, Munich / Leipzig / New Providence / London / Paris: Saur 1994, pp. I – XV.
  • Peter-Henning Haischer: Witkowski, Georg. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 3: R-Z. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 2048-2050.
  • Corinna Kirschstein: Witkowski, Georg . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
  • Bernd Weinkauf: The unwritten chapter: Georg Witkowski 1933–1939 [Nachw.]. In: Georg Witkowski: Of people and books. Memoirs 1863–1933 . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2003, pp. 459-479

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dissertation: Diederich von dem Werder. A contribution to the German literary history of the 17th century .
  2. ^ Habilitation thesis: The forerunners of anacreontic poetry in Germany and Friedrich von Hagendorn .
personal data
SURNAME Witkowski, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Witkowsky, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German literary historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1939
Place of death Amsterdam