Hans Kofler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans Kofler (born January 30, 1896 in Trient ; † March 20, 1947 ) was an Austrian Arabist and Semitist .

Live and act

Kofler graduated from the Humanist State High School and then took up studies in Classical and Romance Philology at the University of Innsbruck , which he completed in 1919 with a doctorate and the teaching examination in Latin, Greek and Italian. Then he was a teacher at the girls' secondary school in Innsbruck until 1939 . At the same time he studied law and was awarded a doctorate in law in 1926 . During a study vacation in 1929/30 he was able to go to Leipzig (among others with August Fischer and Hans Heinrich Schaeder) deepen the skills of Semitic philology that he had already acquired in Innsbruck. In 1931 he became a member of the German Oriental Society . In 1932 he qualified as a professor in Innsbruck for Oriental Philology and Islamic Studies and worked there as a private lecturer. In 1939 he was appointed as a scheduled associate professor for Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Vienna . In 1940 he became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 7.870.419).

An expert opinion that Kofler was supposed to produce on behalf of the party official examination commission for the protection of National Socialist literature (PPK) on Franz Taeschner's book History of the Arab World , published in June 1944 , did not materialize. After Kofler had already informed the PPK in August that he was overworked as an obstacle, he finally rejected it at the end of October on the grounds that it was "absolutely not possible for him with the best of Willem and despite keen personal interest in the book in question" [...] " to keep my promise made at the time. I was now a full three months in the Reichsehrendienst 11 hours a day in the armaments industry, then in the late evening hours as a propaganda leader of a local branch of the NSDAP another 2 to 3 hours a day in the party, and after the terrorist attacks on Vienna [...] with the briefing of those damaged by bombs and I am now occupied with the propaganda preparation and the implementation of the recording of the Volkssturm in my local group to the utmost. "

In the last year of his life, Kofler translated Muhyī d-Dīn Ibn ʿArabīs Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam into German, which was the first time the work was translated into a European language. Due to Kofler's death, however, it took until 1970 for the translation to appear in the Academic Printing and Publishing House as The Book of Signet Ring Stones of Wisdom .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 500.
  2. ↑ a b c Muhjī ʾd-Dīn ibn ʿArabī: Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam = The book of signet ring stones of wisdom sayings (= publications of the Hammer-Purgstall-Gesellschaft . 2). Translated by Hans Kofler. Introduction, extract from the introduction to the Abū ʾl-ʿAlā Afīfī and bibliography by Ernst Bannerth. Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1970, p. Xxi.
  3. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 38.
  4. ↑ Ekkehard Ellinger: German Oriental Studies at the Time of National Socialism 1933–1945 . Deux-Mondes-Verlag, Edingen-Neckarhausen 2006, p. 71f. quoted from a letter from Kofler to the PPK of October 24, 1944 (BArchB, NS 11/86).
  5. ↑ Fateme Rahmati: Man as a reflection of God in the mysticism of Ibn īArabīs (= Studies in Oriental religions . Vol. 55). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007, p. 6.
personal data
SURNAME Kofler, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Arabist and Semitist
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Trento , Italy
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1947