Gerhard Bersu

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Gerhard Bersu (born September 26, 1889 in Jauer , Province of Silesia , † November 19, 1964 in Magdeburg ) was a German prehistoric scientist . He became known for his work on excavation methods and his excavations on the Goldberg ( Nördlinger Ries ) as well as the establishment of the Goldberg III group .

Life

The factory owner's son, who grew up in Frankfurt (Oder) , took part in many excavations at a young age and was given an assistant position at what was then the State Office for Monument Preservation in Stuttgart under the direction of Peter Goessler before completing his studies .

First World War and subsequent years

Bersu volunteered in the First World War and was then commissioned by the German occupation forces in Belgium and northern France to manage archaeological monuments and collections. During the subsequent peace negotiations, he worked in the German Armistice Commission in Spa and later in the Reich Return Commission as a consultant for art restitutions. In 1925 he was honored with a thesis on the excavations on the mountain at widths Striegau doctorate .

National Socialism - Exile - Internment

Bersu first became second director in 1929, then first director of the Roman-Germanic Commission in 1931 . During the National Socialism he was able to hold on to this post until 1935. a. at the instigation of Hans Reinerth , who wanted to enforce the Führer principle and the strict centralization associated with it in archaeological organizations as well. Reinerth used Bersu's “half- Jewish descent” as a defamation argument. Bersu was then transferred to the Central Directorate of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin as a consultant for excavations . He emigrated to England in 1937.

From 1938 at the latest, he worked as an excavation manager in England and was able to benefit from the wealth of experience he had acquired on large-scale settlement excavations. He made u. a. recognizing post holes in the English excavation method. With the outbreak of World War II Bersu was as an enemy alien on the Man Isle of interned , but again he was able to conduct excavations so in Balladoole and Cronk Moar, on the Middle Neolithic and Viking Age cemetery of Ballateare and in the Iron Age settlement of Little Woodbury in Wiltshire, England (1938/39).

After the war

After his release from internment, Bersu worked from 1947 to 1950 as a professor at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin and excavated the Hillfort on Freestone Hill in County Kilkenny , then he returned to Germany and worked there again until his retirement in 1956 Director of the Roman-Germanic Commission to work. In the course of this activity he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Order of Merit , and in 1962 the British Society of Antiquaries of London honored him with its highest distinction, the Gold Medal . In 1960 he was elected a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Gerhard Bersu died in 1964 after suffering a stroke during a meeting of the Section for Prehistory of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin .

Excavations

Bersu took part in the following excavations:

Gerhard Bersu scholarship

The foundation “Pro-Archaeologia-Saxoniae” launched the Gerhard Bersu scholarship in 2004 to honor Bersu's human and professional merits and at the same time to support promising young archaeologists from Poland , the Czech Republic and Saxony .

Publications (selection)

  • The excavations of the late Roman fort Altrip. In: Germania . 10, 1926, pp. 74-75.
  • The late Roman fort in Altrip. In: Palatinate Museum - Palatinate local history. 45 = 24, 1928, ZDB -ID 500220-5 , pp. 3-7.
  • The Wittnauer Horn in the canton of Aargau. Its prehistoric and early historical fortifications (= monographs on the prehistory and early history of Switzerland. 4, ISSN  1012-6295 ). Birkhäuser, Basel 1945.
  • The late Roman fortification "Bürgle" near Gundremmingen (= publications of the commission for the archaeological research of the late Roman Raetia at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 4 = Munich contributions to prehistory and early history. 10). Beck, Munich 1964.

literature

  • Werner Krämer : Gerhard Bersu in memory. In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission . 45, 1964, pp. 1-2.
  • Diemut Meyer: Bibliography Gerhard Bersu. In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission. 45 1964, pp. 3-4.
  • Wilhelm Unverzagt : Gerhard Bersu. In: excavations and finds . 10, 1965, pp. 57-58.
  • Stephen Burrow: The neolithic culture of the Isle of Man. A study of the sites and pottery (= BAR. British Series. 263). BAR Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-86054-872-4 , p. 5.
  • Achim Leube , Morten Hegewisch (ed.): Prehistory and National Socialism. Central and Eastern European research on prehistory and early history in the years 1933–1945 (= studies on science and university history. 2). Synchron - Wissenschaftsverlag der Authors, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-935025-08-4 .
  • Werner Krämer : Gerhard Bersu - a German prehistorian (1889–1964). In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission. 82, 2001, pp. 5–101, (See also a review by Uta Halle in: Circular letter of the working group Theory in Archeology. 2, Issue 1, 2003, pp. 30–33).
  • Friedbert Ficker : Gerhard Bersu and the prehistoric house research. On the 40th anniversary of the scientist's death. In: Meeting reports of the Leibniz Society. 76, 2005, pp. 163–181, ( full text (PDF; 1.98 MB) ).

The Isle of Man National Cultural Organization has 12 boxes of Bersu's records.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Christopher Evans: Archeology and modern times: Bersu's Woodbury 1938 & 1939. In: Antiquity. Vol. 63, No. 240, 1989, pp. 436-450, doi: 10.1017 / S0003598X00076419 .
  2. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 4, 2020 .
  3. ^ Raiko Krauss: Archeology in Difficult Times - Gerhard Bersu and the excavations at Sadovec in the years 1936–1937. In: Helmut Schaller , Rumjana Zlatanova (Eds.): German-Bulgarian Culture and Science Transfer (= Forum: Bulgaria. 1). Frank & Timme, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86596-526-4 , pp. 123-138.
  4. ^ Raiko Krauss: The German and Austrian excavations in Bulgaria. In: Bulgaria Yearbook. 2008, ISSN  1438-7352 , pp. 67-89.
  5. ^ Hermann Vetters: Obituary Rudolf Egger. In: Almanac of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 119, 1969, ISSN  0378-8644 , p. 367.
  6. archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk