Gerhart Rodenwaldt

Image from the archive of the DAI

Gerhart Rodenwaldt (actually Gerhard Martin Karl R .; born October 16, 1886 in Berlin-Grunewald , † April 27, 1945 in Berlin-Lichterfelde ) was a German classical archaeologist .

The brother of the tropical medicine specialist Ernst Rodenwaldt attended the Friedrichwerdersche Gymnasium in Berlin and from 1904 studied classical archeology, philology and art history at the Berlin University . He moved to Heidelberg and Halle, where he received his doctorate from Carl Robert in 1908 . In 1909/10 he stayed in the Mediterranean with a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and collected material for his habilitation thesis on the Palace of Tiryns , which he submitted in Berlin in 1912. After initially working for the Red Cross during the First World War, he became a professor at the University of Giessen in 1917 . In 1922 he went back to Berlin as Secretary General of the DAI and organized the reconstruction of archaeological work abroad. In 1932 Rodenwaldt moved to Berlin University as a professor, but remained deputy president of the DAI. He and his wife Jane committed suicide in April 1945. Rodenwaldt was a member of numerous scientific academies and societies as well as honorary doctorates from the Universities of Athens and Sofia.

In the field of Greek archeology, Rodenwaldt dealt with archaic gable sculptures in Corfu and the Greek idol. In the archeology of the Roman period, he mainly devoted himself to the development of art, including sarcophagus reliefs. In addition to scientific studies, he also wrote popular presentations, e.g. B. About ancient Olympia and the Acropolis of Athens .

On April 27, 1945, Rodenwaldt committed suicide in Berlin when the Red Army approached.

Fonts

• Qua ratione pictores Pompeiani in componendis parietibus usi sint capita tria. Wischan & Burkhardt, Halle 1908 (dissertation Halle 1908). Extended version: The composition of the Pompeian wall paintings. Weidmann, Berlin 1909.
• The frescoes of the palace (= Tiryns. Volume 2). Eleutheroudakis & Barth, Athens 1912. Reprint Zabern, Mainz 1976, ISBN 3-8053-0012-3 .
• The frieze of the megaron of Mycenae. Niemeyer, Halle 1921.
• The relief among the Greeks. Schoetz & Parrhyus, Berlin 1923.
• The art of antiquity (Hellas and Rome). Propylaea, Berlin 1927.
• Archaeological Institute of the German Empire 1829–1929. de Gruyter, Berlin 1929.
• The acropolis. Recorded by Walter Hege. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 1930. New edition: Akropolis. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1956.
• Olympia. Recorded by Walter Hege. German Art Publishing House, Berlin 1936.
• The sculptures of the Temple of Artemis in Korkyra. Mann, Berlin 1939.
• Greek temples. Recorded by Walter Hege. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 1941. 2nd edition 1951.
• Art around Augustus. de Gruyter, Berlin 1942; Reprinted by de Gruyter, Berlin 1988.

literature

• Herbert Bloch : Gerhard Rodenwaldt (1886–1945). In: Eikasmós . Volume 4, 1993, pp. 305-310 ( PDF ).
• Klaus Junker :  Rodenwaldt, Gerhart. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 698 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Esther Sophia Sünderhauf: “At the switchgear of German archeology” - Gerhart Rodenwaldt's work in the time of National Socialism. In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute. Volume 123, 2008, pp. 283-362.
• Esther Sophia Sünderhauf: Gerhart Rodenwaldt (1886–1945) . In: Gunnar Brands , Martin Maischberger (Hrsg.): Lebensbilder. Classical archaeologists and National Socialism (= people - cultures - traditions. Studies from the research clusters of the German Archaeological Institute. Volume 2.1). Rahden 2012, pp. 119–127.
• Esther Sophia Sünderhauf: Rodenwaldt, Gerhart. 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. 1072-1075.

Web links

Wikisource: Gerhart Rodenwaldt  - sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Gerhart Rodenwaldt in the catalog of the German National Library