Helmut Schoppa

Helmut Schoppa (born December 24, 1907 in Katowice ; † August 13, 1980 in Wiesbaden ) was a German archaeologist .

Life

Schoppa, son of a teacher, attended high schools in Katowice . In 1922 the family was expelled from their now Polish hometown and settled in Leobschütz . Helmut Schoppa graduated from high school there at Easter 1926. In the same year he began studying classical philology and archeology at the University of Münster, which was interrupted by a semester in Bonn. After the winter semester 1929/30 he moved to the University of Heidelberg , where he heard classical archeology, German prehistory and art history and in the early summer of 1932 with Arnold von Salis on the subject of the representation of the Persians in Greek art until the beginning of HellenismPhD. He then worked briefly at the archaeological institute at Heidelberg University and at the Mannheim Palace Museum. In 1933 he was released for political reasons. This was followed by short-term activities in excavations and for three months each with the Roman-Germanic Commission (1934/1935) and the Landesmuseum Münster (1935/36). From autumn 1936 until the beginning of 1939 Schoppa worked in the Roman department of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. From March 1939 he was an employee of the newly founded State Office for Cultural and Historical Soil Antiquities in Wiesbaden.

From 1940 to 1945 Schoppa took part in the Second World War and became a prisoner of war. In 1951 he became curator and in 1955 head of his previous Wiesbaden office, which had since been renamed the Hessian State Office for Cultural and Historical Antiquities , the forerunner of today's State Office for the Preservation of Hesse . The city of Wiesbaden handed him over the management of the collection of Nassau antiquities in the city museum. From their holdings, he designed numerous special exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s and gradually built up a permanent exhibition. During Schoppa's service the state office moved to Biebrich Castle . From 1967 until his retirement at the end of 1972, Schoppa was the first state archaeologist in Hesse. From 1955 to 1972 he was honorary director of the Nassau antiquities collection . Here he was responsible for rebuilding the exhibition in the Wiesbaden Museum after the American occupation authorities had vacated the building in 1958.

Schoppa became known through his excavation activities and his publications. His research area was concentrated on the sites in the former Duchy of Nassau , the Prussian administrative district of Wiesbaden . He examined both Roman monuments and those from the time of the migration and the Frankish settlement of the Rhine-Main area , such as the cemetery of Eltville . He was also interested in Roman art in Cologne and also in Roman Gaul , Germania and Britain .

Helmut Schoppa had been a member of the Society for Nassau Antiquities and Historical Research since 1941 , was elected to the board for the first time in 1952 and headed the society from June 1962 to 1979. He took over the chairmanship of the association from Ferdinand Kutsch , the director of the Wiesbaden Museum . As part of the association's work, he wrote numerous publications and gave lectures throughout the working region. In 1948 Schoppa was elected to the Historical Commission for Nassau and appointed to its board in 1962. In 1955 he gave the impetus to found a museum association for the administrative districts of Wiesbaden and Montabaur. In 1968 he dissolved this association and transferred its Hessian part to the Hessian Museum Association , of which he became a board member. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Association of State Archaeologists of the Federal Republic, for which he acted as managing director and treasurer. Schoppa was also a co-founder and temporarily member of the board of directors in the German-American Wiesbaden men's club Good Neighbors, which was founded in 1956 . In 1973 he received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class and in 1977 the Citizen Medal in Gold from the city of Wiesbaden.

From 1953 Schoppa had a teaching position at the University of Marburg on the culture and history of Roman Germania, from 1962 as an honorary professor.

Schoppa was married to the art historian Wulfhild Schoppa-Prinz. The couple had a son named Peter. Helmut Schoppa died as a result of a traffic accident that he suffered on August 12, 1980.

Fonts (selection)

• The representation of the Persians in Greek art up to the beginning of Hellenism. Coburg 1933 (dissertation).
• The art of Roman times in Gaul, Germania and Britain. Recordings by Helga Schmidt-Glassner . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1957.
• The Franconian cemeteries of Weilbach , (Maintaunuskreis). F. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1959.
• Roman monuments to gods in Cologne . Verlag der Löwe, H. Reykers, Cologne 1959.
• Roman visual art in Mainz . F. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1963.
• Aquae Mattiacorum and Civitas Mattiacorum . In: Bonner Jahrbücher . 172, 1972, pp. 228-237.
• as co-author: Wiesbaden: History in the picture from Roman times to the present . Nobel-Verlag, Essen 1981, ISBN 3-922785-06-9 ,

literature

• Heinz-Eberhard Mandera: Nekrolog: Helmut Schoppa. In: Nassauische Annalen 1981 , pp. 363–365.
• Otto Renkhoff : Nassau biography. 2nd Edition. Historical commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1992.

Web links

• Literature by and about Helmut Schoppa in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Winfried Schüler: To preserve, experience, understand 200 years of the association for Nassau antiquity and historical research. Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815190-1-3 , p. 166.
2. ↑ Winfried Schüler: To preserve, experience, understand 200 years of the association for Nassau antiquity and historical research. Association for Nassau Classical Studies and Historical Research, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815190-1-3 , p. 219.