Hans Wolffheim

Hans Wilhelm Adolf Wolffheim (born June 4, 1904 in Lüneburg , † October 30, 1973 in Hamburg ) was a German teacher , literary scholar and poet .

Live and act

Hans Wolffheim was the son of a captain. His father had the patent for the large journey on the Africa Line in Hamburg and later worked as an officer in the Hamburg harbor police. From April 1919 Wolffheim completed the teacher training seminar in Hamburg. He passed the first teacher examination in 1925 and the second in 1929. From 1926 to 1933 he worked as a teacher in Rothenburgsort . He studied eight semesters of German, English, history, philosophy and psychology at the University of Hamburg . His teachers included Justus Hashagen , Walther Küchler , Robert Petsch , William Stern and Emil Wolff . He received his doctorate on May 29, 1933 under Rudolf Petsch on the meaning and importance of sonnet design in Eichendorff's work .

Since his father was Jewish, the Wolffheims was no longer allowed to teach from 1933 onwards due to the law to restore the civil service . For this reason, he was unable to pursue an academic career. From 1933 to 1935 he worked as a journalist and reported, for example, as a sports reporter for the Hamburger Fremdblatt . Due to the Nuremberg Laws , the National Socialists forced him to work as a transport worker from 1935. Wolffheim suffered damage to his health, because of which he was hospitalized in 1944 and then received a convalescent treatment.

After the end of the Second World War , Wolffheim had the opportunity to work at Hamburg University from 1945. From the winter semester 1945/46 he had a position as a lecturer there. He completed his habilitation in 1948 on Wieland's concept of humanity and then worked as a private lecturer in modern German literary history. For the winter semester 1955/56 he received an extraordinary professorship without official status. His students included Heinrich Breloer , Bazon Brock , Manon Grisebach , Helmut Heißenbüttel , Paul Kersten , Friedrich Pfäfflin, Klaus Rainer Röhl , Peter Rühmkorf , Helmut Salzinger , Klaus Schröter , Rolf Tiedemann and Robert Wohlleben .

Wolffheim, who was distantly related to Fritz Wolffheim , founded today's Walter A. Berendsohn Research Center for German Exile Literature at Hamburg University in 1971 .

Scientific work

As one of the first in his field, Wolffheim took on the works of Hans Henny Jahnn and exile literature . He also dealt with Heinrich Heine , Rudolf Borchardt , Heinrich and Thomas Mann , Rudolf Alexander Schröder and Karl Wolfskehl . Wolffheim edited and published letters that Alfred Mombert wrote to Richard Dehmel and his wife Ida.

literature

• Kai-Uwe Scholz: Wolffheim, Hans . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 1 . Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1364-8 , pp. 351 .
• Wolfgang Beutin, Franziska Wolffheim: "Maybe I look too deep into things". Hans Wolffheim (1904–1973). University professor, literary critic, author. Edition text +kritik, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86916-254-6 (volume of articles with contributions by Wolfgang Beutin, Jan Hans, Mirko Nottscheid, Eva-Maria Oehrens, Rüdiger Schütt, Peter Stein)

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Wolffheim in the catalog of the German National Library