Helene Wieruszowski

Helene Wieruszowski (born December 13, 1893 in Elberfeld , † November 9, 1978 in Sorengo ) was a German-American historian .

Helene Wieruszowski came from the wealthy, educated middle class. Her father, Alfred Ludwig Wieruszowski, was President of the Senate at the Higher Regional Court and later honorary professor at the University of Cologne . The parents converted from Judaism to Protestantism . Wieruszowski was baptized Protestant and raised Protestant. She spent her childhood in Cologne. In 1912 she passed the high school diploma at the Humanist Girls' High School in Cologne. As a student, she decided to turn to the Middle Ages and auxiliary historical sciences . In 1913 she began studying history, German and philosophy at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . In 1913 she began studying history, German and philosophy at the University of Freiburg . It was particularly strongly influenced by Friedrich Meinecke during his studies . After just two semesters, she moved from Freiburg to Heidelberg, then to Bonn and finally to Berlin. In Bonn she was given the chance to do a doctorate. In 1918 she did her doctorate in Bonn under Wilhelm Levison with the thesis The composition of the Gallic and Frankish episcopate up to the Treaty of Verdun . From 1922 to 1924 she was a research assistant at the Society for Rhenish History in Cologne and from 1924 to 1926 at the Prussian Historical Institute in Rome . Her request for a habilitation was rejected by the University of Cologne.

From 1926 she trained as a librarian at the Prussian State Library in Berlin. In 1928 she went to Bonn University Library as a librarian. In 1933 she was initially on leave and released on February 1, 1934. Her attempts to get an unpaid position at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica or a position at a German research institute abroad were unsuccessful. Years of intensive research followed in Barcelona and Madrid (1934–1938) and in Florence since 1938. In 1940 she emigrated to the USA. There she taught at various universities. In 1949 she became a professor of history at City College New York , thus achieving the goal she was denied in Germany. She initially taught there as an assistant and later as an associate professor. In 1961 she retired and continued her research on politics and culture in medieval Spain and Italy. In 1971 she went back to Europe and settled in Lugano .

Helene Wieruszowski co-wrote a work on Charlemagne intended for a wider audience and wrote a book about the medieval university. The anthology Politics and culture in Medieval Spain and Italy , published in 1971, brings together important essays focusing on the Mediterranean expansion of Aragon into Sicily, especially the prehistory of the Sicilian Vespers , and Italian culture in the age of Dante . From her studies on Ars dictaminis arose the contribution on the equation of rex and tyrannus , the tyrant of the Sicilian Magna Graecia , at the rise of Rogers II of Sicily .

Fonts

• Politics and culture in Medieval Spain and Italy. Rome 1971.
• From empire to national royalty. Comparative studies on the journalistic struggles of Emperor Frederick II and King Philip the Fair with the Curia. Aalen 1965 (new printer of the Munich 1933 edition)

literature

• Hans-Paul Höpfner: The University of Bonn in the Third Reich. Academic biographies under National Socialist rule (= Academica Bonnensia. Vol. 12). Bouvier, Bonn 1999, p. 65, ISBN 3-416-02904-6 .
• Friedrich Meinecke. Academic teacher and emigrated student. Letters and notes 1910–1977 (= Biographical Sources for Contemporary History. Vol. 23). Introduced and edited by Gerhard A. Ritter . Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-57977-0 . Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57977-0 , pp. 66-69.
• Wieruszowski, Helene. In: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 387.

Web links

• Literature by and about Helene Wieruszowski in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications by and about Helene Wieruszowski in the Opac der Regesta Imperii
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