Hermann Diener (historian)

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Hermann Diener (born December 25, 1925 in Berlin , † January 18, 1988 in Rome ) was a German historian and diplomat .

Live and act

Diener was a grandson of the historian Karl Hampe, who was important in the first half of the twentieth century . After graduating from high school, he was called up for military service in World War II. In 1945 he was released from captivity and then studied with breaks in Heidelberg and Freiburg . In 1955 he was at Gerd Tellenbach Dr. phil. with the theme of studies on the history of Cluny in the time of his abbot Hugo (1049-1109) PhD . For the next three years he worked on the location register for the Germanicum Repertory . Thereupon he was appointed in April 1958 to the German Historical Institute in Rome as an institute assistant. There he was entrusted with editing the fifth volume of the Repertorium Germanicum during the term of office of Pope Eugene IV from 1431 to 1447. Diener always saw himself as an archivist and published little of his research. To this end, he looked for all the material that could be found in archives and libraries outside of Rome, partly with the help of assistants.

Not only his estate (in the German Historical Institute in Rome) shows that Diener has worked extensively and a lot. In an obituary, Reinhard Elze regrets that he apparently did not have a great need to make his research known through publications, although he had found sources among specialist colleagues with his extensive knowledge and repeatedly new questions for which he had found sources in the Vatican archive to answer there was no literature on it yet, often aroused enthusiasm. For more than thirty years he researched the archive almost daily and was one of the best experts on it. His advice was also sought by the officials employed there. Only towards the end of his scientific career did he give some preliminary results of his research in lectures, which were then published (partly posthumously).

During his activity it turned out that he was de facto in charge of the preparation of the entire repertory. This also included the completion of the work and the printing of the fourth volume on Pope Martin V. From 1962, printing was delayed due to differences with the Weidmann Verlag . After the contract with the latter was terminated in 1975, the manuscripts that were ready for printing years ago had to be revised, especially since Diener had already recognized from 1969 that the indexes of the works had to be revised due to the possibilities offered by electronic data processing. The solution to the resulting problems, for which Diener campaigned intensively, was only found after his death.

Diener was appointed a full member of the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique in 1980. In 1984 he was elected a corresponding member of the Societä Romana di Storia Patria . The Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon was awarded to him in 1986. He died in 1988 after a long illness. The fifth volume of the Repertorium Germanicum, which he mainly edited, was only published in 2004 after further editing by Brigide Schwarz .

Fonts (selection)

A list of publications appeared in: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries 68, 1988, pp. XXIX – XXXI ( online )

  • Repertory Germanicum. Volume 5: List of the persons, churches and places of the German Empire, its dioceses and territories appearing in the registers and camera files of Eugen IV. Volumes 1 to 3, Niemeyer-Verlag, Tübingen 2004.
  • The large series of registers in the Vatican Archives. Special edition. Niemeyer-Verlag, Tübingen 1972, ISBN 3-484-80067-4 .

literature

  • Reinhard Elze: Hermann Diener. 1925-1988. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries 68, 1988, pp. XXV – XXXI ( online ).
  • Brigide Schwarz: To Hermann Diener's estate. In: Das Repertorium Germanicum. Computerized evaluation of Vatican sources: new research perspectives (special edition). Tübingen 1992, pp. 341-344

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Reinhard Elze : Hermann Diener 1925–1988. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries. 68, 1988, pp. XXV – XXXI ( online )
personal data
SURNAME Servant, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1988
Place of death Rome