Hans-Günther Thalheim

Hans-Günther Thalheim (born May 5, 1924 in Chemnitz ; †  December 3, 2018 in Berlin ) was a German professor of German studies , literary scholar and editor .

Life

After schooling in his hometown, the son of a civil servant did his alternative military service as a teacher in Carinthia in 1943 and 1944. Thalheim then studied German literature , history and philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau, among others with Walter Rehm and Martin Heidegger .

Despite severe visual impairment, Thalheim first had to work in a Chemnitz arms factory in 1944 and was then deployed at Peenemünde until the spring of 1945 . In Leipzig Thalheim was taken prisoner. After serving in American and French prison camps, he was released in 1946. Thalheim returned to Chemnitz, applied as a new teacher and got a position as a German and history teacher at a secondary school. In 1948 he moved to Leipzig to continue his abandoned studies and at the same time worked as a lecturer at the workers and farmers faculty .

After an interim position as a consultant at the State Secretariat for Higher Education in Berlin, Thalheim lived and worked in Weimar from 1951 to 1957 . At first he worked as a research assistant and assistant to Gerhard Scholz in the Goethe and Schiller Archives . From 1954 he published the Weimar articles together with Louis Fürnberg . The magazine deals with the Weimar Classics and is published four times a year. Thalheim remained its publisher until 1963.

Between 1957 and 1964 he taught as a professor for new German literature at the Humboldt University in Berlin . At the end of 1964 Thalheim received the offer to move to the Academy of Sciences in Berlin . There he became director of the Institute for German Language and Literature, but remained so only until 1968 due to a reform within the academy. From 1967 he dealt with the academic work on an encyclopedia for Marxist literary history and was chairman of the editorial collective. Work on this eleven-volume work lasted until 1979 and covered all German writers since the 18th century.

Although Thalheim dealt with a broad spectrum of literary research, the focus was on the 18th century and in particular on the Sturm und Drang phase of the German Classical period . The focus was on his almost 50 years of employment with Friedrich Schiller , on whom he had completed his habilitation in 1961. In addition, he produced works on Johann Joachim Winckelmann , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich von Kleist . Thalheim's analyzes always linked poetry with contemporary historical events, thus going beyond language and style analyzes by viewing them as an expression of the social and political contradictions of their respective epochs.

Thalheim was retired in 1989. He lived in Berlin and died there in December 2018 at the age of 94.

Awards

• 1976 - National Prize of the GDR
• 1987 - Lessing Prize
• 1989 - Johannes Stroux Medal

Bibliography (selection)

Monographs / Editions

• 1954 Critique of the times and ideal of the early Winckelmann. Jena, Univ., Diss.
• 1959 ff German Studies / Ed. (Among others) Rütten & Loening, Berlin
• 1961 The young Schiller Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Habil
• 1964 Bräker's works in one volume / Ed. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, Weimar. 3rd revised edition, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1989
• 1966 Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Collected by Ludwig Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano / Ed. Rütten & Loening, Berlin, 3rd neubearb. 1989 edition
• 1968 German Library. Study editions on modern German literature / publisher (among others) Akademie Verl., Berlin
• 1969 On the literature of Goethe's time . Rütten & Loening, Berlin
• 1970 Studies in literary history and literary theory / Ed. (Among others) Rütten & Loening, Berlin
• 1973 History of German Literature / Ed. (Among others). People and knowledge, Berlin
• 1980 Schiller. Complete works in ten volumes, Berlin edition / publisher (including) Aufbau Verl., Berlin, reprint 2005
• 1984 Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven , Memoirs / Ed. Rütten & Loening, Berlin
• 1989 Stolpe, Heinz: Enlightenment, progress, humanity. Studies and reviews / Ed. Aufbau Verl., Berlin

Magazines

• 1955–63 Weimar Contributions / Ed. (Among others), Weimar (from 1964 member of the editorial board)

Essays

• 1960 Schiller's “Demetrius” as a classical tragedy, in: Weimarer Contributions, Weimar 1–2, pp. 22–86
• 1961 Necessity and legality of self-help in Schiller's “Wilhelm Tell”, in: Goethe. New series of the yearbook of the Goethe Society, Weimar 18, pp. 216–257
• 1962 Critical remarks on Georg Lukács and Hans Mayer's literary views, in: Weimarer Contributions, Weimar 2, pp. 138–171
• 1965 Kleist's “Prince Friedrich von Homburg”, in: Weimarer Contributions, Weimar 4, pp. 483-550
• 1974 Schiller's dramas from “Maria Stuart” to “Demetrius”, in: Weimarer Contributions, Weimar 1, pp. 5–33; 2, pp. 99-130
• 1975 Peasants' War and early bourgeois revolution among young Herder and Goethe, in: Weimarer contributions, Weimar 10, pp. 24–47. Repressed ud title: On the reception of the Reformation and the peasant war among young Herder and young Goethe, in: Renaissance literature and early bourgeois revolution / ed. by Robert Weimann (et al.), Berlin et al., pp. 299–333
• 1976 On aspects of the Tolstoy article by Lenin , in: Dialogue on Tradition and Heritage / ed. by Dieter Schiller (et al.) Berlin, pp. 76–85.
• 1979 On the problem of historically acting people in Schiller, in: Weimarer contributions, Weimar 1, pp. 5–21. Repressed in: Deutsche Klassik und Revolution / ed. by Paolo Chiarini (et al.) Roma 1981, pp. 241-263.
• 1980 On problems of valuation in literary historiography, in: Weimarer contributions, Weimar 10, pp. 94-100.
• 1981 “And man does not try the gods ...” On the core motif in Schiller's “Taucher”, in: Goethe Jahrbuch, ed. by Karl-Heinz Hahn , Weimar 28, pp. 62–71.
• 1982 On the problem of people's ideological decision in Schiller's “Taucher”, in: Zeitschrift für Germanistik, Leipzig 4, pp. 423–437
• 1983 materials on the history of Marxist German literary studies in the GDR. Conversation with Hans-Günther Thalheim, in: Zeitschrift für Germanistik, Leipzig 3, pp. 261–277
• 1984 The Württemberg Pietism in the experience horizon of the early Schiller, in: Weimarer contributions 11, pp. 1823–1848
• 1986 Civil, humanistic and socialist heritage. Discussion of a working group. Authors' conference "30 Years of Weimar Contributions", in: Weimar Contributions 4, pp. 588–621
• 1986 “ Fable ”, “ Laocoon Problem”, the “ tragic ” in: Dictionary of Literary Studies / ed. by Claus Träger, Leipzig, pp. 156, 287, 522-523
• 1987 Criticism of the age and expectation of the future. On the basic concept in Schiller's early dramas, in: Friedrich Schiller, Offer and Discourse / ed. by Helmut Brandt, Berlin, Weimar, pp. 141–159. Reprinted again. in: Yearbook of the Vienna Goethe Association. Ed. by Herbert Zeman . 92 / 93.1988 / 1989, pp. 101-116.
• 1999 life plan, compulsory integration, self-exploration. Kleist's landscapes and city images during the trip to Würzburg, in: Contributions to Kleist Research / ed. by Wolfgang Barthel (et al.), Frankfurt (Oder) 13, pp. 17–60

Lectures

• 1958 Goethe's ballad “The Bride of Corinth”. Discussion lecture given at the general meeting of the Goethe Society in Weimar on May 31, 1958, in: Goethe. New series of the yearbook of the Goethe Society, Weimar 20, pp. 28–44
• 1959 Schiller's position on the French Revolution and the revolution problem. Ceremonial lecture at the Schiller honor of the Humboldt University in Berlin, in: Research and Work: Festschrift for the 150th anniversary of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Berlin 3. 1960, pp. 193–211

literature

• Leonore Krenzlin :  Thalheim, Hans-Günther . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans-Günther Thalheim died , neue-deutschland.de, December 5, 2018, accessed on December 9, 2018