Hermann Behrens (prehistoric)

Hermann Behrens (born December 20, 1915 in Leer , Ostfriesland ; † August 15, 2006 in Wedel ) was a German prehistorian and between 1959 and 1980 director of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle (Saale) .

Life

Hermann Behrens was born on December 20, 1915 in Leer, East Frisia, as the son of a high school teacher. He attended elementary school there between 1922 and 1926 and the grammar school in Leer and Aurich from 1926 to 1935 . Towards the end of his school days he decided to study prehistory, which he began in Halle (Saale) in 1935. In addition to prehistoric lectures, he also attended courses in German , Indo-European , folklore , anthropology and geology . At the State Museum for Prehistory (at that time "State Institute for Ethnology") he also received practical training in museum work and in the preservation of monuments . In 1937 Behrens was able to take part in a university excursion to Czechoslovakia , Austria , Yugoslavia and Italy .

Since his father was dismissed from teaching in the same year due to his political views, Behrens was initially unable to continue his studies. In 1937 he was called up for military service. On April 20, 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Americans near Thale , from which he was released on October 24, 1945 in Munster . In the same year he continued his studies at the University of Hamburg . There he attended lectures in prehistory, folklore, medieval history , ethnology and archeology . In 1946 he moved to Göttingen , where he received his doctorate in 1948 on the subject of "The North Germanic depictions of people in the 1st millennium AD".

Until 1949, Behrens initially worked as a conservationist in the Stade district and as a volunteer research assistant at the Stade Local History Museum. In 1947, Behrens had met his wife Charlotte in Stade, whom he married in 1950. Also in 1950 he took up a position as a scientific assistant at the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle as the successor to Gerhard Mildenberger . In 1952 he was first appointed as acting curator and shortly thereafter as curator and deputy director. In 1958 the previous director of the State Museum Martin Jahn retired . At the same time, the personal union between the post of museum director and the chair for prehistory at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg was canceled. At the beginning of 1959, Behrens took over the management of the museum, while Friedrich Schlette was appointed to the chair for prehistory .

In 1962 , Behrens completed his habilitation on the subject of "Studies on the interpretation of the essence and historical problems of the Neolithic-Early Metal Age animal skeleton finds in the Old World". From 1953 to the mid-1970s he held lectures and seminars at Martin Luther University. Two long-term research excavations were also carried out under his direction: On the one hand between 1962 and 1981 on a young Neolithic fortified settlement in the Dölauer Heide in Halle and between 1967 and 1986 on the Schalkenburg near Quenstedt .

In 1980 Behrens retired. The following year he and his wife moved to Wedel near Hamburg . It was not until 1994 that the Minister for Science and Research of the State of Saxony-Anhalt appointed him an extraordinary professor . On August 15, 2006, Behrens died of complications from a stroke .

Scientific work

Behrens has been a member of the Section for Prehistory and Protohistory of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin since 1952 and was thus involved in drafting the “Ordinance on the protection and preservation of prehistoric and protohistoric soil antiquities”, which came into force in 1954 and is a modern and constituted a comprehensive legal basis for the protection of archaeological monuments in the GDR . On this basis, Behrens built a district maintenance system in the districts of Halle and Magdeburg , thanks to whose work numerous, mostly above-ground monuments could be placed under protection. District inventories of prehistoric and early historical finds were also made, but this did not succeed across the board. Annually held district conferences provided information about the activities of the district curators and voluntary ground monument curators.

In his work, Behrens mainly dealt with theoretical research on the Neolithic . He was thus in the tradition of numerous research colleagues, such as Paul Grimm or Nils Niklasson , who had already worked in Halle before the Second World War , and was able to consolidate Halle's reputation as a center of Neolithic research in Central Europe . Numerous conferences organized by Behrens also contributed to this, above all five "Neolith Colloquia" held between 1971 and 1980.

After his retirement, Behrens devoted himself more and more to theoretical questions about prehistoric and early history research, mainly dealing with ideological aspects of archeology in the GDR, but also criticized the suppression of the nomenclature and terminology common in East Germany that began in the 1990s .

Behrens was a member of numerous scientific organizations, for example from 1952 to 1969 of the Section for Prehistory of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from 1955 to 1980 of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Preservation of Land Monuments at the Ministry of Higher and Technical Schools of the GDR 1956 to 1970 the editorial advisory board of the magazine “Excavations and Finds”, from 1965 to 1969 the National Committee for Prehistory and Early History of the GDR and from 1971 to 1980 the Problem Council or Scientific Council for Ancient History and Archeology. In 1979 he became a full member of the German Archaeological Institute and in 1985 an honorary member of the Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory .

Between 1951 and 1958, Behrens was the editor of the series “Prehistoric Museum Work and Ground Monument Maintenance” and, in his role as director of the State Museum, between 1959 and 1980, he was the editor of the “Annual Journal for Central German Prehistory” and the “Publications of the State Museum for Prehistory in Halle”.

Fonts

• The North Germanic depictions of people from the 1st millennium AD (1948, unprinted)
• From the overall scientific research work of the State Museum for Prehistory Halle / Saale (1952/53)
• Archaeological treasures in the State Museum for Prehistory Halle / Saale (1958)
• Prehistoric and early historical gold finds in the State Museum for Prehistory Halle / Saale (1962)
• Stone Age-Bronze Age. The finds from the large burial mound »Spitzes Hoch« near Latdorf, Bernburg district. Inventaria archaeologica 12 (1963)
• Large burial mounds, large stone graves and large stones in the lower Saale region (1963)
• The finds from the large grave mound »Pohlsberg« near Latdorf, district of Bernburg. Inventaria archaeologica 13 (1964)
• The Neolithic-Early Metal Age animal skeleton finds from the Old World. Studies on their interpretation of nature and historical problems. Publications of the State Museum for Prehistory, Hall 19 (1964)
• Neolithic finds from Central Germany (1965)
• The Neolithic Age in the Middle Elbe-Saale Region (1973)
• Settlements and graves of the funnel cup culture and string ceramics near Halle (Saale). Publications of the State Museum for Prehistory Halle 34 (1980), with Erhard Schröter
• Prehistory and Early History in the GDR from 1945 to 1980. Experienced and jointly responsible research history (1984)
• Prehistory - Ethology - Ideology. Selected contributions from 40 years of creative work. 1950-1990 (1993)
• Basic questions of German prehistory. Where do archaeologists stand at the end of the 20th century? Old European Research NF 3 (1999)

literature

• Dieter Kaufmann : The State Museum for Prehistory in the years after 1945. In: Annual publication for Central German Prehistory. Volume 67, 1984, pp. 116-168.
• Dieter Kaufmann: The directors of the State Museum for Prehistory Halle (Saale). In: Annual journal for Central German Prehistory. Volume 67, 1984, pp. 37-71.
• Dieter Kaufmann: Hermann Behrens (1915-2006). In: Archäologisches Nachrichtenblatt. Volume 12, 2007, pp. 101-102.
• Dieter Kaufmann: Hermann Behrens on his 65th birthday. In: Ethnographic-Archaeological Journal. Volume 21, 1980, pp. 711-713.
• Dieter Kaufmann: Hermann Behrens on his 90th birthday. In: Annual journal for Central German Prehistory. Volume 89, 2005, pp. 9-13.
• Dieter Kaufmann: In memory of Hermann Behrens (1915–2006). In: Annual journal for Central German Prehistory. Volume 91, 2007, pp. 465-491.

Web links

• Literature by Hermann Behrens in the catalog of the German National Library