Heinz Kreissig

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Rolf Heinz Kreißig (born July 21, 1921 in Leipzig ; † July 18, 1984 in Berlin-Mitte ) was a German ancient historian .

Heinz Kreissig graduated from high school in 1940 and then began studying economics. Since 1941 he took part in the Second World War and later fell into British captivity, from which he was released in 1946. After returning to the Soviet zone of occupation at the time , he joined the SED and initially worked in various positions, including as a publishing editor and editor at the German Institute for Contemporary History in Berlin . He began a distance learning course in history at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HUB) and completed it in 1960 with the state examination. This was followed by a scheduled academic traineeship in the Antiquities Department of the Institute for General History at the HUB. In 1961, Kreissig became a research assistant in the same position. He received his doctorate in 1965 and then Kreißig became head of the working group on ancient economic history at the Institute for Economic History at the Berlin Academy. In March 1970 the habilitation followed. He then became head of the Greco-Roman history department of the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archeology at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . In 1973 he was appointed professor in the same position.

KreiWEIS did research primarily on Greek history, especially on Hellenism as well as on the Achaemenid period and on ancient Israel. He also published children's books with ancient oriental fairy tales and legends. He was regarded as an internationally respected expert on Hellenistic economic history , but had only limited influence on research in the GDR despite his prominent position.

life and career

Life before academic career

Heinz Kreissig was born in 1921 as the son of a self-employed tailor in northeast Leipzig. He came from a petty bourgeois background, his family was close to social democracy and had an anti-fascist attitude. From 1932 onwards, Kreissig was able to attend secondary school due to a vacancy , where he passed his Abitur in 1940. Because Kreißig had not attended the humanistic grammar school , but the upper secondary school, he initially embarked on a career beyond the classical studies. But the foundations for the later perfect knowledge of English and French had been laid at the secondary school. In 1940, Kreissig began studying economics at the University of Leipzig . In the second semester, in February 1941, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and was finally taken into British captivity in September 1944 with the rank of sergeant in the Luftwaffe, from which he was released in 1946. In captivity he was first used as a farm laborer, later as an interpreter and editor for the BBC's prisoner of war program . In addition, he began to read Marxist literature, to be active as a journalist, and to perfect his knowledge of the English language.

After KreiWEIS returned to Leipzig at the end of 1946, he worked as a locksmith's assistant in a paint factory and attended evening courses at a foreign language school. In May 1947 he joined the SED . From June 1947 he was employed as a translator and interpreter for English and French at the Leipzig broadcaster of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk . In 1949 he married a colleague from the radio and adopted the two children of the war widow. In the course of the campaign against Western emigrants and former prisoners of the Western Allies, he lost this position in December 1950. A period of unemployment followed, until Kreissig found a job as a packer in a publishing house. It was a difficult time for KreiWEIS, who meanwhile had to provide for a family. In addition, there was personal social and material decline. However, these experiences did nothing to change the generally positive attitude towards the GDR. For him, a radical reorientation of society was a necessary new beginning. Thanks to his own drive, however, he was able to work his way up again very quickly. About the post of warehousemen, the Kollationeurs , the accounts officer, the clerk and the advertising director, he managed until 1953, first editor and then editor of the Leipzig Book house to be. In the same year KreiWEIS moved to Berlin for family reasons and worked there successively as an advertising editor and editor for two publishing houses. He then became a scientific editor at the Institute for Contemporary History .

Study and start of an academic career

In the mid-1950s, Kreissig found himself in an unsatisfactory situation that he shared with many other people of his generation of the same age. The war had torn him from the originally intended résumé. Although he had earned a certain position, it could not really satisfy him. The work as a lecturer also showed him gaps in his own education. It was foreseeable that representatives of the next generation would have overtaken him within a short time. At that time, Kreißig managed to get his publishing house to delegate him to distance learning , which also resulted in temporary exemptions. At the age of 35 he was able to enroll in the fall semester of 1956 at Humboldt University to study as a historian. From the beginning it was an important setting for the future of life. Kreianzig met Elisabeth Charlotte Welskopf and became her first and most important student alongside Peter Musiolek . At that time, Kreissig and Musiolek were the only students who specialized in ancient history , which should actually be taught centrally at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig . The distance learning became a loophole that meant that Welskopf was not only able to keep Ancient History at the HU Berlin, but also expanded it into a separate department at the Institute for General History.

In December 1960, Kreissig was able to complete his studies a year earlier than planned. Even his freely chosen diploma thesis The Maccabees Rebellion up to the death of Judas Maccabeus in its socio-economic context points to his further career. Like all other examinations, the thesis was awarded the top grade, and he passed the state examination with the grade of “distinction”. The diploma was issued on December 30, 1960. With Welskopf's help, he got his previous employer, the Institute for Contemporary History, to release him. On January 1, 1961, he was initially a planned aspirant, a little later a research associate at Welskopf. Since 1961 he has also given events at the university. The following year, his first scientific work appeared with an essay on the Maccabees uprising. In 1965, Kreissig received his doctorate with the thesis The Social Contexts of the Jewish War . In addition to Welskopf, the referee was the important Hungarian ancient historian István Hahn . Both were also reviewers for the habilitation in 1969, which was completed in March 1970. With Jürgen Kuczynski , not only one of the most important historians of the GDR, but like Kreianzig himself, a specialist in economic history, joined as an expert. The subject of the work was The Economic Situation of Judah in the Achaemenid Period .

Kreianzig at the Academy of Sciences

In 1965, Kreissig moved from university to the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In contrast to the universities in western Germany, the academy was the center of research in the GDR. At the suggestion of Welskopf, a small working group on the economic history of antiquity was set up at the Department of Economic History. Also at the instigation of Welskopf, Kreizut became its first director. Until 1983 he held lectures as a lecturer at the Humboldt University . In his function, he also moved up to the twelve-member National Committee of Economic Historians as well as to the editorial advisory board of the Yearbook for Economic History . As a member of the National Committee, Kreizut became a travel cadre and has been able to take part in international events since the late 1960s. In the yearbook, he opened the way for contributions to antiquity. The ascent required that Kreissig was both technically and politically reliable.

In 1969 there were extensive changes in the academy, which from 1972 was also called the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . Among other things, the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archeology was created, to which Kreißig moved in the middle of the year with significant opportunities for advancement. His successor among the economic historians was Musiolek. Welskopf once again had a lasting influence on these developments. At ZIAGA, Kreißig was initially head of the Greco-Roman history department , and from 1971 he headed the department. He was appointed professor by the Academy President Hermann Klare in 1973. The tasks in his position included the planning and implementation of research work, but also the area of ​​salary and bonus issues, and even occupational health and safety. In his position, he was also a member of the editorial boards of the magazines Klio and Das Altertum as well as the Bibliotheca Teubneriana series . In addition, he led several large collective projects at ZIAGA, such as the university textbook on Greek history , world history up to the emergence of feudalism and the Early Polis project . However, Kreißig's influence on such projects was limited. Even desired cooperation with Soviet institutions could not be realized. Since the beginning of the 1970s he was a member of the informal association Groupe internationale de Recherche sur l'esclavage antique (GIREA). He attended the group's meetings until his death. A heart attack - he had been suffering from angina pectoris for a long time - impaired his health during this time. Since the mid-1970s, he has also published in English and French and thus also made a more lasting contribution to research outside the GDR. In 1980 he gave up the management of the department due to his poor health, but initially remained head of the Hellenism group . In 1981 he also stopped teaching at the university. During a bypass operation in June 1984, Kreiß died three days before his 63rd birthday.

Krauss as a scientist and as a person

Krai was a very prolific writer. His list of writings includes 117 titles, which, apart from three earlier writings, fall between 1967 and 1984. Three of the writings were scientific monographs , three published scientific works, two children's books, 52 articles, eight longer contributions for collective projects, 33 reviews and review articles as well as other smaller writings such as forewords, conference reports or obituaries. His research revolved largely around ancient Palestine , Hellenistic history, in particular economic history and the relationship between free and unfree work.

Kreißig's interest in economic issues was evident early on, as demonstrated by the original choice of economics. Economic studies were one of the most important pillars of GDR history. In Welskopf he found a teacher who shared an interest in questions of economics and social history with him. Both were Marxists and shared the view of the nature of material considerations of history and the scientific methodology involved in understanding society from the economic basis. In doing so, they consciously placed themselves in the tradition of Marx , which they made in an undogmatic way the starting point for their own Marxist positions.

Kreißig's work was characterized early on by a certain pragmatism. While Welskopf and Hahn unanimously rated the habilitation thesis as excellent, Kuczynski criticized the work and initially did not want to recognize it. It was not about the content of the work, which he recognized, but about conceptual problems in his opinion. In Kuczynski's view, the work shows carelessness and interpretation errors with regard to the classics of Marxism-Leninism, among other things he quoted a supposedly inaccurate Marx quote. As the later positive reviews of the work also showed, this criticism was based solely on ideology.

The economic history of Hellenism was the subject of all three academic qualification papers, from the diploma thesis to the habilitation. The basic question of all three works was whether the ancient or the so-called Asian production method was predominant in Palestine . The same question was also decisive for his most important work, economy and society in the Seleucid Empire . In all of his works he came to the same conclusion: the Asiatic mode of production was predominant in Palestine as well as in the Seleucid Empire, although it was influenced by the ancient mode of production since the time of Alexander the Great . However, there was no mix. This opinion is based not least on Kreißig's view of the periodization of historical epochs, according to which there were only two economic formations in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, which were to be found in both epochs and all parts of the world and were based on the bondage of the producer and ownership of the upper class to the means of production. The ancient mode of production has much more in common with capitalism than with feudalism. Basically, for Kreißig, the ancient mode of production was a primitive capitalist mode of production. From an economic point of view, ancient slavery differed little from wage labor, according to Kreißt. In doing so, he brought his own ideas and thoughts into the ancient history of the GDR and also had points of contact with the work of Michael Rostovtzeff - albeit unintentionally . He put himself personally in an uncomfortable middle position in the ancient history of the GDR. For Marxists, the results were a “departure from pure teaching”, while non-Marxists dismissed his thoughts as being irrelevant for the actual research. Kreißig's position became clear even in Gert Audring's obituary : Heinz Kreißig's main concern may well be his striving, following in the footsteps of Karl Marx, the fundamental qualitative differences in the economy and society of the countries of the Eastern Orient on the one hand and the ancient states of the Mediterranean on the other to make it clear and to consistently take into account for a correct understanding of the course of history .

The value of Kreißig's work is difficult to measure today. His theoretical research on the Asian and ancient modes of production are to be regarded as outdated; both theoretical models have been replaced by more modern, more complex concepts. His research continues, however, where he goes beyond theory and approaches problems in practice. His works are still received today as Marxist contributions to ancient economic history.

Kreißig's middle position ensured that his influence in the GDR was comparatively small despite his prominent position. This can also be seen in the comparatively small number of academic students, namely Christian Mileta and Hagen Fischer. Despite the partial disdain for the research results in his own country, Kreissig became one of the most respected ancient historians of the GDR abroad. Through Welskopf he found connection to international research early on. Initially, this mainly included contacts with the Eastern Bloc , with researchers from Hungary , Poland , Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union . But there were also connections to historians from western countries, including representatives who were very critical of the GDR. He maintained personal and written contacts with Jan Pečirka , István Hahn, Joël Weinberg , Ilja Schifman , Siegfried Lauffer , Pierre Briant , Moses Finley , Peter Garnsey and Geoffrey de Ste. Croix . It was not just many of his eastern colleagues who Kreizut invited to lectures in Berlin. In May 1974 he organized an unofficial international colloquium on the occasion of a “private” visit by Moses Finley to the GDR. Since his appearances at the international congresses for economic history in Leningrad in 1970 and Copenhagen in 1974, but especially since the publication of his economic history of the Seleucid Empire, Kreißig has been an internationally recognized authority in the field of ancient social and economic history.

Kreißig's international reputation had no major influence on his status in the largely closed scientific system of the GDR. The routine at work at ZIAGA was especially tiring for him. In addition, the major projects he accompanied were far less successful than hoped, not least because the work had to be coordinated by employees from various institutions, but also because ZIAGA employees had to be withdrawn from their actual work areas, such as the Inscriptiones Graecae , for this work . In the collective ventures, Kreissig had used up a lot of his strength - collective work was anathema to him, as it had to come at the expense of quality with its compulsion to reach consensus. He preferred individually written monographs or edited volumes with independently written contributions. Until his death he drove such an anthology project with a project on the early polis, which was not continued after his death. Much greater than on the work of ZIAGA were Kreißig's influences on research on Hellenism and the relationship between free and unfree work. For this reason, after his heart attack in 1975, he focused primarily on these fields. After he had given up the management of his department in 1980, he only rarely appeared in ZIAGA, which was probably due to a boredom at the facility. Towards the end of his life he is portrayed as melancholy and disaffected.

Kreißig's connection to the GDR was ambivalent in parts, but in the end he was a critical but loyal comrade. Not least for this reason, Welskopf was able and wanted to support Kreißig so sustainably. Although there were disappointments over the years, he regarded the GDR as the better German state until the end of his life. He never became a “political whip”. In his research, too, unlike Rigobert Günther , for example , historical sources were more important to him than the statements of the classics of Marxism-Leninism . Dogmatism was alien to his research

Wolfgang Schuller wrote that the example of Heinz Kreissig had impressively shown him how a Marxist approach to ancient history is possible in an exemplary manner that cannot be corrupted by current events. and the Judaist Joël Weinberg, a friend of Kreißig , wrote that Kreißig was not only an excellent scientist, but also, and this is not self-evident and easy, a highly decent person in not very decent times and circumstances .

Fonts

Scientific monographs and editorships
  • The social context of the Judean War. Classes and class struggle in Palestine in the 1st century BC (= writings on the history and culture of antiquity. Volume 1). Academy, Berlin 1970.
  • The socio-economic situation in Judah during the Achaemenid period. (= Writings on the history and culture of the ancient Orient. 7). Academy, Berlin 1973.
  • Economy and society in the Seleucid Empire. The ownership and dependency relationships. (= Writings on the history and culture of antiquity. Volume 16). Academy, Berlin 1978.
  • Greek history. Until 146 BC (head of the collective of authors), DVW, Berlin 1978
  • History of Hellenism. Akademie, Berlin 1982. (2nd edition 1984, 4th edition 1991, also Verlag Das Europäische Buch, West-Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88436-140-6 )
  • Ancient forms of dependency in the Greek areas without a polis structure and the Roman provinces. Actes du Colloque sur l'Esclavage, Iéna, September 29 - October 2, 1981. (= Writings on the history and culture of antiquity. Volume 25). (Ed. With Friedmar Kühnert ), Academy, Berlin 1985.
Children's books
  • The stone man and other stories from the ancient Orient. Children's book publisher, Berlin 1972.
  • with Stephan Hermlin and Hannes Hüttner : sagas and epics of the world. Retold. Children's book publisher, Berlin 1977.
  • The adventures of the princes of Magada. After the amazing incidents recorded in the difficult Sanskrit language by an Indian named Dandin more than 1000 years ago. Children's book publisher, Berlin 1983.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Birth register, registry office Leipzig II, No. 1432/1921
  2. ↑ Death register, registry office Berlin-Mitte, No. 1228/1984
  3. ↑ The article is largely based on: Christian Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. In: Isolde Stark (ed.): Elisabeth Charlotte Welskopf and the old history in the GDR. Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 266-281. Individual documents from this work were only made for critical statements.
  4. ↑ BBAW -Archiv, personnel file Kreissig
  5. ↑ Hans Kloft : The economy as a challenge. Observations on an ancient economic history in the GDR. In: Isolde Stark : Elisabeth Charlotte Welskopf and the ancient history of the GDR. Pp. 134-151.
  6. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 276; BBAW archive, Welskopf estate 105: Kuczynski report
  7. ↑ sketched in the typewritten version of the habilitation and in the article Two modes of production that precede the capitalist. In: Ethnographic-Archaeological Journal . 10, 1969, pp. 361-368.
  8. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 274.
  9. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 276.
  10. ↑ Gert Audring: Obituary for Heinz Kreissig. In: Klio. 66, 1984, p. 662.
  11. ↑ a b Chr. Mileta: Welskopf's legacy: Heinz Kreißig. 2005, p. 281.
  12. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 276 f.
  13. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 278f.
  14. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 280.
  15. ↑ Chr. Mileta: Welskopfs Erbe: Heinz Kreissig. 2005, p. 271.
  16. ↑ Wolfgang Schuller: Ancient History in the GDR. Preliminary sketch. In: Alexander Fischer, Günther Heydemann: History in the GDR. Volume 2, p. 37.
personal data
SURNAME Kreissig, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kreissig, Rolf Heinz (full name); Kreissig, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ancient historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1984
Place of death Berlin center