Hans Drexler

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Hans Drexler (born March 11, 1895 in Niesky , † April 10, 1984 in Göttingen ) was a German classical philologist . He mainly worked in the field of ancient Latin poetry and Greco - Roman historiography . As an active National Socialist , he was banned from teaching in 1945. Nevertheless - and although he also expressed his National Socialist convictions in scientific works - Hans Drexler was scientifically influential in the Federal Republic .

Life

Education and career

After graduating from high school in Görlitz , Drexler studied classical philology and history in Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin from 1913 , along with philosophy and linguistics , but had to interrupt his studies from 1914 to 1919 as a participant in the First World War . As a student of Richard Reitzenstein , he was awarded a doctorate in 1922 in Göttingen with a study on Plautinian metrics. phil. PhD. After the state examination for high school teaching and an interlude as a scholarship holder at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae , he went in early 1924 as a trainee teacher at the Magdalenengymnasium in Breslau. There he worked with the help of a scholarship on his unpublished habilitation on Philo Alexandrinus . In December 1925 his habilitation took place in Breslau, where he gave an inaugural lecture From the People of Homer . Then initially as a senior assistant in Breslau , he took on shorter professorial positions in Kiel and Leipzig , which, however, did not lead to an appointment. In Breslau he was appointed adjunct professor in 1932, and in 1935 he was appointed professor of classical philology as the successor to Wilhelm Kroll . In 1940 he accepted a professorship for Latin studies at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen , which had been vacant since Kurt Latte's forced retirement (1935) , which was motivated by anti-Semitism .

Political activity under National Socialism

Title page of Drexler's study of Tacitus. At the top right you can see the adhesive strip with which the reference to the National Socialist series of publications was obscured on this copy.

Drexler owed this appointment not least to his political contacts: from 1937 he was a member of the NSDAP and from 1941 leader of the Göttingen Nazi Lecturer Association (NSDDB), for which he also prepared reports. He participated both in an anthology of the war effort of the humanities and in National Socialist publication series such as On the way to the national political high school. Contributions to the National Socialist orientation of ancient language teaching , to which he contributed in 1939 with his Tacitus study No. 8. In it he tried to show that Tacitus saw the reasons for the decline of the Romans in the "decline of his moral strength", from which the "racial problem" of "infiltration from the Orient" resulted. “The Teutons”, on the other hand, are “up to our days” safe from destruction thanks to their “heroic honor”. "If it [the Germanic-German people] just doesn't let the sword rust itself", the Germanic peoples "the magic of their invincibility [...] could offer the guarantee of eternal youth."

As the head of NSDD specialist camps , which were propagated as a new type of scientific work in romanticizing communal turmoil under the motto men 's union and science , Drexler tried in 1941 and 1942 in Würzburg , Augsburg and Seefeld to enforce the line of the regime against the stubborn voices in the specialist camps got loud. But ultimately failed Drexler and the professional camp while trying to offspring and professors of classical studies mentally equal to switch , so that in the specialized camps "in the end neither, Third Humanism '( Werner Jaegers ) nor, race question' completely conform to the system" were answered unanimously. In 1942 Drexler was elected a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . After only three years as a full professor in Göttingen, he, who at the same time wrote mood reports as a representative of the security service of the SS , became rector of the Georg August University in October 1943 .

post war period

After the end of World War II and his return from American captivity , Drexler was excluded from teaching (→ denazification ) and retired because of his political activities (and his status as university rector in the Nazi state) . At the same time his membership of the Göttingen Academy was withdrawn. After that he never worked as a university lecturer again, but did not retire into private life: His numerous publications in the post-war period show how much he remained scientifically active; and he delivered "up to his old age numerous stimulating and z. Sometimes also provocative reviews ”in Gnomon magazine .

plant

Drexler's scientific work is characterized on the one hand by intensive studies of Roman metrics , ancient drama and Roman value concepts, the results of which are still valid today, especially in metrics. For him, for example, the reduction of metrical laws to inclinations or rules of language was fundamental. In the field of drama, for example, he was able to prove that Plautus had increased the number of people on the stage in his row compared to the Greek original. For Cicero, he advocated the fact that he “took refuge in a unique, unprecedented situation in the apparent security of moral and political-historical issues” as well as his “inability to see reality”. For Horace, however, "the question of human worth has become the question of his life".

Drexler's works on the essence and tasks of philology - such as those on the Roman concepts of value (in addition to dignitas, also “maiestas, gravitas, res publica, princeps, potentia, iustum bellum, honos, nobilitas, gloria and gratia” ) - are contemporary in terms of their contemporary political influence, especially the speech on dignitas that was given in 1943 on the occasion of his assumption as rector of the University of Göttingen and published in 1944 , which he concluded with the following words:

“Because we too are honored that we are treated with incomprehension and hatred. Rightly; Doesn't everything sick have to hate the healthy and fear the magic weapon which is insurmountable in the hand of the strong and pure? "

- Hans Drexler : Dignitas . Rector's speech on November 18, 1943, Göttingen 1944.

In the field of Roman historiography, he dealt with Sallust and Tacitus, later also with Polybios , Herodotus and Thucydides as well as with Ammian and Cicero . In terms of method, he sometimes concentrated heavily on terms considered central - primarily those viewed as value terms - and their meaning, which he tried to make fruitful for his own time.

Fonts (selection)

Bibliography . In: Selected Small Writings . Hildesheim 1982, pp. 421-436, ISBN 3-487-07143-6 .

  • 1922: Observationes Plautinae quae maxime ad accentum linguae Latinae spectant . Diss., Göttingen.
  • 1925: Commentary on Philo Alexandrinus Legum Allegoriae I: The allegorical process . Habilitation thesis , Breslau (unprinted).
  • 1925: Investigations into Josephus and the history of the Jewish uprising 66–70 . In: Klio 19, 1925, pp. 277-312.
  • 1932: Plautinian accent studies . Wroclaw.
  • 1937: the third humanism. A critical epilogue . (Against Werner Jaeger ) Frankfurt am Main (2nd edition 1942).
  • 1939: Tacitus. Basic features of a political pathology . Frankfurt am Main (2nd, slightly modified edition, Hildesheim 1970).
  • 1942: The beginning of Roman literature . In: Helmut Berve (ed.): The new image of antiquity . Vol. II: Rome , Leipzig, pp. 64-84.
  • 1944: Dignitas . Rector's speech on November 18, 1943, Göttingen.
  • 1951–56: Hexameter studies , 6 parts.
  • 1966: The discovery of the individual . Salzburg.
  • 1967: Introduction to Roman Metrics . Darmstadt (reprinted unchanged in five editions until 1993), ISBN 3-534-04494-0 .
  • 1972: Herodotus Studies . Hildesheim, ISBN 3-487-04202-9 .
  • 1974: Ammian Studies . Hildesheim, ISBN 3-487-05289-X .
  • 1976: Thucydides Studies . Hildesheim, ISBN 3-487-05945-2 .
  • 1976: The Catilinarian Conspiracy. A source booklet . Darmstadt (2nd edition 1989), ISBN 3-534-04630-7 .
  • 1978: Encounters with the ethics of values. M. Scheler , J. Hessen , H.-E. Hengstenberg , D. von Hildebrand , Imm. Kant , H. Rickert , N. Hartmann , G. Patzig , K. Lorenz , A. Gehlen . Göttingen, ISBN 3-525-85919-8 .

literature

  • Hans-Ulrich Berner: Hans Drexler †. In: Gnomon . 60, 1988, pp. 188-191.
  • Siegmar Döpp : Hans Drexler, 1895–1984. In: Karl Arndt u. a. (Ed.): Göttingen scholars. The Academy of Sciences in Göttingen in portraits and awards 1751–2001. Volume 2. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89244-485-4 , p. 508 f.
  • Volker Losemann : National Socialism and Antiquity. Studies on the development of ancient history 1933–1945. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-455-09219-5 , especially: pp. 94-109 and pp. 277 f. ( Historical Perspectives 7).
  • Cornelia Wegeler: "... we say from the international scholarly republic". Classical Studies and National Socialism. The Göttingen Institute for Classical Studies 1921–1962. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1996, ISBN 3-205-05212-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Drexler: Tacitus. Basic features of a political pathology . Frankfurt am Main 1939. The copy shown was cleared of references to the Nazi context in the Bremen State Library after the Second World War . In addition to the pasting on the title page, pages 5–10 (introduction) and 193–200 (conclusion), from which the passages cited in the text originate, were removed. On intact copies, the text at the top of the title page reads: “On the way to the national political high school. Contributions to the National Socialist orientation of ancient language teaching. Published at the instigation of the Reich clerk for ancient languages ​​in the NSLB in conjunction with the NSD-Dozentbund ”.
  2. ↑ Hans Drexler: The beginning of the Roman literature . In: Helmut Berve (ed.): The new image of antiquity . Vol. II: Rome , Leipzig 1942, pp. 64–84.
  3. ↑ Cf. for the entire series the collective review by Theo Herrle: The antiquity in the reflection of the present . In: Geistige Arbeit , Heft 15, 1942, S. 3f.
  4. ↑ Hans Drexler: Tacitus. Basic features of a political pathology . Frankfurt am Main 1939.
  5. ↑ Hans Drexler: Tacitus. Basic features of a political pathology . Frankfurt am Main 1939, pp. 194f.
  6. ↑ Hans Drexler: Tacitus. Basic features of a political pathology . Frankfurt am Main 1939, pp. 199f.
  7. ^ Volker Losemann: National Socialism and Antiquity. Studies on the development of ancient history 1933–1945 . Hamburg 1977, pp. 94-108.
  8. ^ Siegmar Döpp: Hans Drexler, 1895–1984 . In: Karl Arndt u. a. (Ed.): Göttingen scholars. The Academy of Sciences in Göttingen in portraits and awards 1751–2001 . Volume 2, Göttingen 2001, p. 508.
  9. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Berner: Hans Drexler † . In: Gnomon 60, 1988, pp. 188-191, here p. 191.
  10. ↑ Hans Drexler: The composition of Terenz 'Adelphen and Plautus' Rudens . Leipzig 1934, pp. 41-114.
  11. ↑ Hans Drexler: The discovery of the individual . Salzburg 1966, pp. 66, 73, 117.
  12. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Berner: Hans Drexler † . In: Gnomon 60, 1988, p. 190.
  13. ↑ See Hans Drexler: Tacitus. Basic features of a political pathology . Frankfurt am Main 1939, pp. 193-200.
  14. ↑ Online ( PDF , 282 kB).
personal data
SURNAME Drexler, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Niesky
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1984
Place of death Goettingen