Hans-Dietrich Kahl

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Hans-Dietrich Kahl (born June 4, 1920 in Dresden ; † September 30, 2016 in Uttenreuth near Erlangen ) was a German historian of medieval history and a representative of the Unitarians .

life and work

In the time of National Socialism , Kahl became deputy horde leader for the German Young People as a child . He took an active part in World War II and was briefly interned in a US camp after the war.

Interrupted by military service, Hans-Dietrich Kahl studied history, German, classical philology and religious studies. Even as a student he was concerned with the intellectual history of the post-war period, so that he was given access to top-class conferences, such as the Clausthal Conversation in 1948 . At this conference he, already a member of the religious community Free Protestants - German Unitarians , represented the position of free Protestantism in a detailed contribution to the discussion . In the same year he drafted the so-called Eppelsheim formula , which became one of the most important milestones for the establishment of a unitarianism in Germany that is still in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Albert Schweitzer.

Hans-Dietrich Kahl worked from 1952 to 1959 in the Lower Saxony high school service. During this time he did his doctorate in 1957 at the University of Göttingen. phil. on the basis of scientific publications that he published since 1953. In 1958 he was able to switch to university service. In 1964 he completed his habilitation at the University of Giessen . In 1970 he became professor for the history of the Middle Ages at the same university.

Although he had been in retirement since 1985, he continued his research on medieval mission history , the beginnings of the German - Slavic conflict and medieval state symbolism . Hans-Dietrich Kahl conducted his research in close contact with Polish and Slovenian researchers. He was an external member of the Polish Academy of Learning in Krakow and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana / Ljubljana. Furthermore, Kahl has worked on various specialist committees.

From 1983 to 1995 Hans-Dietrich Kahl was a member of the Spiritual Council of the German Unitarian Religious Community , from 1991 to 1995 as its director.

He has put his research results down in publications. The main works are Slavs and Germans in the Brandenburg history of the 12th century (1964) and Der Staat der Karantanen (2002) as well as numerous mostly extensive special studies, of which a number of the most important have been summarized in two more extensive anthologies. Kahl has made important contributions to the history of Unitarianism and the questions of a tolerant Unitarian way of life and world interpretation.

Fonts

  • Slavs and Germans in the Brandenburg history of the 12th century. 1964.
  • "Jewish clichés" and what's behind them - an introduction to the conference topic. In: Jörg Albertz (Ed.): “Jewish clichés” and Jewish reality in our society. (= Series of publications of the Free Academy , Vol. 4). Wiesbaden 1985, pp. 9-29.
  • The coexistence of Christians and Jews in Germany was shaped by the earlier church history. In: Jörg Albertz (Ed.): “Jewish clichés” and Jewish reality in our society. (= Series of publications of the Free Academy , Vol. 4). Wiesbaden 1985, pp. 153-188.
  • What about people and nation? - An introduction. In: Jörg Albertz (ed.): What about people and nation. (= Series of publications of the Free Academy , Vol. 14), 1992.
  • The State of the Carantans, 2002.
  • Every year again ... Christian, pre-Christian and post-Christian at a naturalized festival time (24.12. - 6.1). 2008, 2nd supplementary edition 2009.
  • Forays through the Middle Ages of the Eastern Alps. Selected papers 1980–2007 , 2008.
  • The Nazarenes - central to faith, work and celebration? In: Y. Boenke (Ed.): Better a kink in the biography than one in the spine. Festschrift for Horst Herrmann , 2010, pp. 278–289.
  • The pagan question and the Slav question in the German Middle Ages. Selected studies , 2011.
  • Numerous articles in the Unitarian Hefte series and in the Unitarian Blätter magazine .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Self-portrait. In: Don McEvoy: Credo International. Voices of religious liberalism from around the world. 2003, p. 213.
  2. ↑ Hans-Dietrich Kahl: Audiatur et altera pars! In: Naturwissenschaft, Religion, Weltanschauung - Clausthal conversation 1948. Working conference of the Gmelin Institute for Inorganic Chemistry and Frontier Areas in the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, Clausthal-Zellerfeld 1949, pp. 367–372.
  3. ↑ Review by Christian Lübke .
personal data
SURNAME Kahl, Hans-Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian of medieval history
DATE OF BIRTH 4th June 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 2016
Place of death Uttenreuth