Hans Schönberger

Hans Schönberger (born October 16, 1916 in Kassel , † March 9, 2005 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe ) was a German prehistoric and provincial Roman archaeologist . For many years Schönberger was director of two important research institutes, from 1948 to 1966 of the Saalburg Museum , then initially second, from 1972 until his retirement in 1981 first director of the Roman-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt am Main .

Life

Hans Schönberger was born in Kassel in 1916. His father was an official of the Reichsbahn, but his parents died prematurely, so that as a student he was orphaned. He attended elementary school in Ochshausen and later the humanistic Friedrichsgymnasium in Kassel. He began studying prehistory in Marburg in 1936 , with minor subjects being Classical Archeology , Ancient History and Geology . In the third semester he moved to Breslau , in the fourth to Kiel , and finally returned to Marburg. Academic teachers were Gero von Merhart , Friedrich Holste and Ernst Sprockhoff , in Breslau Martin Jahn and Hans Seger , in Kiel Herbert Jankuhn and Gustav Schwantes .

During his studies, Schönberger was drafted into the armed forces in 1939 . However, between 1940 and 1943 he managed to get study leave, which he used to complete his dissertation. The topic was the late La Tène period in the Wetterau . However, the work could not be published in the Saalburg yearbook until 1952 .

Towards the end of the war he served in a reserve hospital in Thuringia and was taken prisoner by the Americans, from which he was released at the end of September 1945. At first he found an alternative job in the Kassel Museum before he was offered the position of director of the Saalburg. Although he initially had great doubts as to whether he was suitable for the position as a prehistoric, his tenure was one of the most successful. He succeeded in increasing the number of visitors to the museum from around 50,000 in 1947 by the time he left the museum in 1966 to 230,000. In 1963 , Schönberger completed his habilitation at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau with the writing Newer Excavations at the Upper Germanic and Rhaetian Limes .

As in the time of his predecessors Louis and Heinrich Jacobi , the museum under Hans Schönberger was involved in numerous excavation projects to explore the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes , including in particular the forts Altenstadt , Echzell , Butzbach , Heilbronn-Böckingen , Zugmantel and Okarben . Numerous articles in the Saalburg yearbook and the Limes research series bear witness to this. In 1964, Schönberger organized the 6th International Limes Congress, which took place in Germany for the first time. The Saalburg guide was translated into English by the British Limes researcher Eric Birley .

During his subsequent activity for the Roman-Germanic Commission (1966–1981), initially as the second director and since 1972 as its first director, Schönberger continued his extensive excavation and publication activities. The main focus was now on the Raetian Limes with the forts Künzing , Oberstimm , Eining-Unterfeld and Moos-Burgstall . He used the Limes research series , which he co-edited , for the rapid publication of the excavation results and allowed them to grow to a considerable size. In 1967 he accepted an honorary professorship at the University of Heidelberg , where he held lectures until 1975. But he remained particularly connected to the Saalburg fort until his death in 2005.

Schönberger's achievements, especially in exploring the Limes, have been recognized internationally. The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland elected him an Honorary Fellow in 1968 . Associated with this was an invitation to the Rhind Lectures in Edinburgh in 1969, which he was the first German to hold. In 1972 he was elected a Real Member of the Austrian Archaeological Institute Abroad, Honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and Membre honoraire de'l Institut Grand-Ducal de Luxembourg, Section des Sciences historiques . From 1967 to 1976 he worked as a specialist reviewer for prehistory at the German Research Foundation .

Fonts (selection)

• Guide through the Roman fort Saalburg (new version), Bad Homburg 1948 (various later new editions 1949, 1951, 1953, 1959, 1962, 1964, 1966, translations into English in 1949 and French in 1956).
• Plan for the excavations at Zugmantel fort up to 1950. In: Saalburg-Jahrbuch 10, 1951 pp. 55–75.
• The late La Tène period in the Wetterau. (Dissertation) In: Saalburg-Jahrbuch 11, 1952 pp. 21–130.
• Prehistory and early history of the Obertaunus and Usingen districts. Bad Homburg 1952.
• An Augustan camp in Rödgen near Bad Nauheim. In: Saalburg-Jahrbuch 19, 1961 pp. 37–58.
• More recent excavations on the Upper Germanic and Rhaetian Limes. (Habilitation) Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1962 (Limes research 2).
• with Hans-Günther Simon : The mid-imperial terra sigillata from Neuss. In: Novaesium II . Berlin 1966 pp. 7-62 (Limes Research 7).
• The Roman camp in the Unterfeld near Eining. Report on the excavation in 1968. In: Germania 48, 1970, pp. 66–84.
• The Roman fort Öhringen West (Bürgkastell). In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission 53, 1972 (1973) pp. 233-296.
• Künzing-Quintana Castle. The excavations from 1958 to 1966. Mann, Berlin 1975 (Limes research 13).
• with Hans-Günther Simon: Römerlager Rödgen . Mann, Berlin 1976 (Limes Research 15).
• Fort Oberstimm. The excavations from 1968 to 1971. Mann, Berlin 1978 (Limes Research 18).
• with Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann : No Roman camp, but settlement pits from the Neolithic and the Iron Age in Friedberg-Fauerbach. In: Find reports from Hessen 19/20, 1979/80 pp. 107–118.
• with Hans-Günther Simon: The Okarben fort and the occupation of the Wetterau since Vespasian. Mann, Berlin 1980 (Limes Research 19).
• with Hans-Günther Simon: The castles in Altenstadt. Mann, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-7861-1295-9 (Limes research 22).
• The Roman troop camps of the early and middle Imperial Era between the North Sea and the Inn. In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission 66, 1985 (1986), pp. 321–497.

Obituaries

• Egon Schallmayer : Prof. Dr. Hans Schönberger, director of the Saalburg Museum from 1948 to 1966. In: Saalburg-Jahrbuch 52/53, 2002/2003 (2006), pp. 5-7.
• Siegmar von Schnurbein : Hans Schönberger in memory. In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission 86, 2005 pp. 7–18.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Saalburg-Jahrbuch 11, 1952 pp. 21-130.
2. ↑ See Hans Schönberger: Newer excavations on the Upper Germanic and Rhaetian Limes . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1962 (Limes Research 2), p. 69ff.