Harry Bresslau

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Married couple Carry and Harry Bresslau
Memorial plaque at the location of the birth house in Dannenberg
Information point in Harry-Bresslau-Park

Harry Bresslau (originally Breßlau ; born March 22, 1848 in Dannenberg / Elbe ; † October 27, 1926 in Heidelberg ) was a German historian and diplomat . Bresslau is one of the most important medievalists in the Wilhelmine Empire .

life and work

Harry (also: Heinrich) was a gifted student and had been particularly interested in history since childhood . Even as a schoolboy he gave his younger comrades tutoring in various subjects. The father Abraham Heinrich Breßlau (1825–1886) emigrated to the USA in 1866 and became editor of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung after the family had lost all of their assets as a result of the annexation of Hanover by Prussia after the German war .

From 1866 Harry first studied law in Göttingen and Berlin , but he rarely attended the courses, then history. During his studies, which he completed in just six semesters, he also dealt intensively with Romance philology , a subject that was still young at the time, and worked as an educator in the Auerbach orphanage in Berlin to finance his studies. His most important teachers were Johann Gustav Droysen and Leopold von Ranke , whose assistant he became. One of his Medieval teachers was Philipp Jaffé , who in 1862 became the first Jew in Prussia with great difficulty to become an associate professor at the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, in which he was to be succeeded by Bresslau. In 1869 Harry Bresslau received his doctorate from the University of Göttingen under Ranke's student Georg Waitz through the law firm of Kaiser Konrad II . During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, due to the lack of teachers in Berlin due to the war, he was given a teaching position and taught English and French at the Andreas School in the east of the city (later Berlin's Andreas Realgymnasium). In April 1871 he took up a well paid position as senior teacher at the Frankfurt Philanthropin , a Jewish high school. He used the school holidays for research trips to archives in southern Germany. After a year, at the urging of his Berlin teachers, he returned to the Prussian capital, as there was an urgent need there for university teachers in history. As a habilitation thesis , he presented an extensive edition of imperial and royal documents on which he had already worked. With that he was admitted to the faculty as a private lecturer at the beginning of June 1872 . In August he also took over the teaching position at the Andreas School, which he held until his appointment as a university professor in 1877, parallel to his teaching activities at the university.

In 1874 he married Carolina Isay ("Carry"; 1853-1941), whom he had met when he was 18 in Trier . The couple lived in Berlin and also looked after the two underage siblings Harrys, Clara and Ludwig, as well as two orphaned nephews Carrys in their household. Five days before the birth of his first child on July 10, 1877, Harry Bresslau received a position as associate professor at Berlin University, for which he had applied for two years. As an unbaptized Jew, Bresslau's way to a full professorship in Prussia was blocked. At times, up to five guest children lived with the young family, who moved into a larger apartment in 1879.

After the first-born Ernst († 1935), who became a well-known zoologist, Bresslaus daughter Helene was born in 1879 and married Albert Schweitzer in 1912 . The couple's youngest child, Hermann Bresslau, born in 1883, became a mathematician ; he died of appendicitis in 1913 at the age of 29 . In 1886 the parents had all three children baptized Protestants, although they themselves remained unbaptized.

Bresslau was loyal to the state and nationally liberal and felt deeply connected to Germany. As a proponent of the assimilation of Jews , he wrote a pamphlet on the Jewish question against Heinrich von Treitschke in the Berlin anti-Semitism dispute in 1880 , who since 1879 polemicized in writings and lectures against the allegedly threatened foreign infiltration and infiltration of the Christian-Prussian state through Jewish immigration. Although Bresslau had no secure existence as an associate professor, he contradicted the arguments of his older and more respected professional colleague, with whom he had worked in an election committee of the National Liberal Party in 1878, even before Theodor Mommsen intervened in the debate as the most renowned Jewish defense attorney . Bresslau believed in the possibility of comprehensive assimilation of German Jews through an unreserved commitment to the German national idea. Treitschke, who valued him in spite of his anti-Jewish attitude, referred to Bresslau's criticism in his reply as an example of the excessive sensitivity of the Jews, but also named Harry Bresslau an example of the possibility of successful assimilation of Jews, which he judged skeptically in his other contributions and thus anti-Semitic resentment the Prussian bourgeoisie.

Since 1877 Bresslau worked for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica , since 1888 in their central management. For the Diplomata series of Monumenta he edited the documents of Heinrich II. (Part 1: 1900, Part 2: 1903) and Konrad II. (1909). Bresslaus Handbook of the Doctrine of Documents for Germany and Italy (2nd, expanded edition Leipzig 1912) is a standard work of medieval diplomacy that has not been replaced to this day . For the centenary of the Monumenta in 1919, Bresslau wrote a treatise on its history ( History of Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Hanover 1921, Reprint Hanover 1976), which was his last book publication. As a doctoral supervisor, Bresslau supervised almost 100 dissertations. Bresslau is an excellent representative of the positivist conception of science and the most important successor of the new method of diplomacy founded by Theodor von Sickel and Julius von Ficker , the auxiliary science of examining and evaluating historical documents. Study trips to this main area of ​​research and especially to the yearbooks of Konrad II that had been transferred to him took him to Italy and the western countries of Europe.

In 1885, under Bresslaus chairmanship, the Historical Commission for the History of Jews in Germany was founded at the Association of Israelites . Following the example of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , the relevant source material should be sought out and made usable for research. Bresslau prevented the election of the popular Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz because he believed that his recognition as a historian of the community association would put a dangerous strain on the relationship between Jews and Christians. Graetz had developed a kind of Jewocentric view of history that had been sharply criticized by nationalists in the anti-Semitism dispute. The historical commission published the magazine for the history of the Jews in Germany until 1892 .

In 1890 Bresslau accepted a call to Strasbourg in the realm of Alsace-Lorraine , where he held a full professorship for history at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität until 1912 . There he developed extensive teaching and research activities and distinguished himself as a national liberal champion of Germanism. For the academic year 1904/05 he was elected rector of the university and was the first Jew in Germany to hold such an academic position, which caused a sensation at the time. From 1907 to 1909 Bresslau was chairman of the German Association of Historians .

When in 1904 the Academic-Historical Association in Berlin, to which Bresslau had been a member for 25 years, changed into a color-bearing association "Holsatia" and asked Bresslau for further cooperation, the latter sharply refused. The Holsatia had imposed a ban on entry for Jewish students. The singer association Arion Strasbourg (after 1918 old Strasbourg Freiburg ) in the special houses association , to which his sons belonged, awarded Bresslau honorary membership.

According to the testimony of his student Elisabeth Abegg , who heard from him from 1909 to 1912, Harry Bresslau had moved away from Judaism towards the end of his time in Strasbourg and refused to convert to Christianity for purely social reasons in order to gain advantages, but for himself .

When Alsace-Lorraine became French again after the First World War and almost all Reich Germans teaching at the university left Alsace voluntarily or were expelled, Bresslau decided, contrary to the advice of his children, to stay in Strasbourg and refused, “voluntarily from the country to give way ". Classified by the French authorities as a pangermanist militant ("militant Pan-German") (which outraged him himself) and ultimately asked to leave, he had to give in to the pressure in early December 1918 and leave the city on foot under humiliating circumstances, mocked by anti-German demonstrators. He and his wife first moved to their relatives in Hamburg . The expulsion from Strasbourg, which he had considered to be his second home, was a lasting trauma for the scientist.

Bresslaus grave in Heidelberg

Bresslau spent his last years in Heidelberg and remained scientifically active until shortly before his death in 1926. From 1923 to 1926 Percy Ernst Schramm was Bresslaus' assistant and worked with him on editing projects for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica . His death at the age of 78 spared the scholar the fate of his wife, who, like most of the living assimilated Jews of this generation , fell victim to the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich .

Harry Bresslau was a founding member of the Strasbourg Scientific Society established in 1906 (today Scientific Society at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main ) and its chairman from 1911 to 1926. After being expelled from Strasbourg, he successfully fought to keep the society together, which first moved to Heidelberg.

In Berlin-Steglitz , Harry-Bresslau-Park next to Treitschkestrasse was named after him on November 21, 2008 .

Fonts (selection)

  • On the Jewish question: Letter to Prof. Dr. Heinrich von Treitschke . 2nd edition with an afterword. Ferdinand Dümmlers Verlagbuchh., Harrwitz & Gossmann, Berlin 1880.
  • Handbook of document teaching for Germany and Italy. 2 volumes, Veit, de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1912 (reprint of the 2nd edition. Leipzig 1968–1969).
  • (Ed.) Wipo's works , Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1915.
  • About the constitution of the German Empire by Severinus von Monzambano (Samuel von Pufendorf). Translated into German and introduced by H. Breßlau. R. Hobbing, Berlin 1922.
  • History of the Monumenta Germaniae historica . On behalf of their central management, Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1921.

literature

  • Harry Bresslau: [self-portrayal]. In: Sigfrid Steinberg (ed.): The historical science of the present in self-portrayals . Vol. 2, 1926, pp. 29-83.
  • Robert Holtzmann : Professor Dr. H. Breßlau. In: SV newspaper. Journal of the Sondershäuser Association of German Singer Associations and the Association of Alter SVer 43/11 (1926), pp. 208–209.
  • Paul Fridolin Kehr : Harry Bresslau (obituary). In: Neues Archiv 47 (1927), pp. 251–266.
  • Gottfried Opitz :  Breßlau, Harry. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 600 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hans Liebeschütz : Judaism in the German view of history from Hegel to Max Weber . JCBMohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1967.
  • Renate Heuer: Harry Breßlau - a German Jew. In: Hannoversches Wendland , ed. from the local history working group Lüchow-Dannenberg, 12th annual issue 1987/1988, Lüchow 1988, pp. 29–44.
  • Bresslau, Harry. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 4: Brech-Carle. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-22684-5 , pp. 19-27.
  • Bettina Rabe: Harry Bresslau (1848–1926). Pioneer of historical auxiliary sciences in Berlin and Strasbourg. In: Peter Bahl, Eckart Henning (Hrsg.): Herold year book. NF, Vol. 1 (1996), Berlin 1996, pp. 49-83 ( Digitalscan ; PDF; 1.3 MB).
  • Peter Rück (Ed.): Memory of Harry Bresslau on his 150th birthday . First published on the occasion of the festive conference on March 21, 1998 at the Institute for Historical Auxiliary Sciences at the Philipps University of Marburg; Reprinted in: Erika Eisenlohr, Peter Worm (Hrsg.): Department of Historical Auxiliary Sciences . Marburg 2000, ISBN 3-8185-0304-4 , pp. 245-283.
  • Peter Rück † with the collaboration of Erika Eisenlohr and Peter Worm (eds.): Abraham Bresslau: Briefe aus Dannenberg 1835–1839. With an introduction to the family history of the historian Harry Bresslau (1848–1926) and the history of the Jews in Dannenberg , Marburg 2007.
  • Peter Rück † with the collaboration of Erika Eisenlohr and Peter Worm (eds.): Harry Bresslau: Berliner Kolleghefte 1866–1869. Postscripts to lectures by Mommsen, Jaffé, Köpke, Ranke, Droysen , Marburg 2007.
  • Aleksandra Pawliczek: Between recognition and resentment. The Jewish Medievalist Harry Bresslau (1848–1926). In: Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute 6 (2007), pp. 389-409.

Web links

Commons : Harry Bresslau  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Harry Breßlau  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Bettina Rabe: Harry Bresslau (1848–1926). Pioneer of historical auxiliary sciences in Berlin and Strasbourg. In: Herold-Jahrbuch NF 1, 1996, pp. 52–54.
  2. ^ A b Gregor Brand: Ernst Bresslau - zoologist from Schweicher . In: Eifel-Zeitung of October 16, 2013 (accessed on January 27, 2016).
  3. ↑ a b Martina Voigt: "That she is still outside the national community today". The Berlin educator Elisabeth Abegg. In: Manfred Gailus , Clemens Vollnhals (Hrsg.): With heart and mind: Protestant women in the resistance against the Nazi racial policy. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2013, pp. 49–80 (here: p. 55 in the Google book search).
  4. ↑ a b Willi Körtels : Caroline Bresslau-Isay. Albert Schweitzer's mother-in-law. Online publication, Trier 2014, pp. 2–5; 10 f. (accessed on January 31, 2016).
  5. ↑ a b c Günther Hagen and Martin Künz: Harry and Carry Bresslau, Hermann Bresslau, Helene Schweitzer-Bresslau and Albert Schweitzer ( biographical research ( memento from January 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) with quotations from Mühlstein: Helene Schweitzer Bresslau. A life for Lambarene. 2nd edition, Munich 2001).
  6. ^ Rector's speech (Edition: HKM ).
  7. ↑ He has "always been to the opponents of the so-called. Pan-German belongs ”(cf. Mühlstein 2010, p. 184; what is meant is the Pan-German Association , a radical nationalist movement in the German Empire).
  8. ↑ Verena Mühlstein: Helene Schweitzer Bresslau. A life for Lambarene. 3rd reviewed edition (first edition 1998), Beck, Munich 2010; P. 184 in Google Book search.
  9. ↑ Press release of November 14, 2008 ( Memento of November 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Bresslau, Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Dannenberg (Elbe)
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1926
Place of death Heidelberg