Hermann Menhardt

Hermann Menhardt (born December 22, 1888 in Bludenz ; † March 5, 1963 in Vienna ) was an Austrian philologist and manuscript scholar .

Life

Hermann Menhardt was born the son of a forester and after graduating from the University of Vienna studied Romance and German for teaching , briefly also in Paris. In Vienna he was a student of Rudolf Much , Joseph Seemüller and Jakob Minor . In 1912 he received his doctorate on Rabelais and then taught as a French lecturer at the Vienna University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences . In 1914 Menhardt was called up for military service. He was seriously injured in the leg in the First World War . As a war invalid , he got a job as a high school teacher in Klagenfurt in 1918 , where he stayed until 1928. In addition to this activity, he worked on a catalog of medieval manuscripts in Carinthia , and in 1927 he succeeded in finding one of the oldest records of the Nibelungenlied . In 1928 he completed his habilitation in Graz for German language and literature, got a position as a librarian in Vienna, transferred his Venia Legendi there and immediately began to teach. He concentrated on medieval German literature, especially handwriting and text criticism . In 1934 he became an associate professor at the University of Vienna because of his scientific merits , and in 1939 he was appointed professor.

Menhardt was of German nationality and became a member of the National Socialist Teachers' Association in 1933 . Since 1937 he has appeared in several Lower Austrian towns as a meeting speaker for a referendum in favor of the annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich, in the same year he became a member of the NSDAP, which was banned in Austria, and from 1938 had been the party's speech speaker . In 1940 he became NS trainer for the Hungerberg local group . In 1941 Menhardt was appointed to the University of Strasbourg , unofficially known as the 'Nazi Combat University of Strasbourg'.

Menhardt can be attested a steep rise at the time of National Socialism. But his appointment to Strasbourg was not solely for political reasons: even if his political views were not to be criticized by the NSDAP, his 'merits' for the party were not so high that they were the main reason for his appointment Strasbourg would have been enough. Investigations of his publications show that there are no signs of any change in the way of working or writing with regard to the National Socialist era. This is because Menhardt's work refrains from any interpretation of literary history and remains very close to the surface of individual texts. With its criticism of texts and traditions, his work presents itself as a classical positivist philology and thus appears largely immune to the use of or through ideology.

Menhardt had taught and researched in Strasbourg until the end of 1944, was then transferred to the University of Tübingen at short notice and returned to Vienna shortly before the end of the Second World War in 1945. In the summer of 1945 he applied for re-entry at the University of Vienna, but his early membership in the NSDAP turned out to be problematic. But Menhardt was classified as less exposed in 1948, which is why he asked again in 1949 for admission as a lecturer at the University of Vienna . The college of professors agreed, but his request was not granted until 1951. The Venia Legendi was reassigned, and Menhardt taught and researched at the University of Vienna in his usual fields.

When Menhardt's Venia Legendi expired in 1958 at the age of seventy, Otto Höfler obtained an extension, which was granted in 1960, with reference to the high number of students. From 1961 Menhardt was granted a paid teaching position . But just two years later Menhardt died in Vienna of a stroke, probably caused by overexertion .

Publications

• Manuscript index of the Carinthian libraries . Volume 1. Klagenfurt, Maria Saal, Friesach. State printing office, Vienna 1927.
• The St. Trudperter High Song . Critical edition with introduction. Niemeyer, Halle 1934.
• The Millstätter Physiologus and its relatives (= Kärntner Museumschriften 14). Publishing house of the State Museum for Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1956.
• The oldest manuscript index in the Vienna Court Library from 1576 . Critical edition of the manuscript Series nova 4451 from 1597. Rohrer, Vienna 1957.
• Directory of old German literary manuscripts in the Austrian National Library . Volume 1. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1960.
• Directory of old German literary manuscripts in the Austrian National Library . Volume 2. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1961.
• Directory of old German literary manuscripts in the Austrian National Library . Volume 3. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1961.

literature

• Gundolf Keil on: Hermann Menhardt, Directory of Old German Literary Manuscripts in the Austrian National Library, 2–3. In: No. German antiquity German lit. Volume 76, 1965, pp. 100-143.
• Irene Ranzmeier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005, p.?.
• Irene Ranzmeier: German studies - approaches in science that create continuity and the importance of collegial support . In: Mitchell G. Ash, Wolfram Niess, Ramon Pils (ed.): Humanities in National Socialism. The example of the University of Vienna . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht unipress, Göttingen 2010, pp. 427–453.
• Robert Teichl: Austrians of the present. Lexicon of creative and creative contemporaries . Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1951, p. 198 f.
• Peter Wiesinger, Daniel Steinbach: 150 years of German studies in Vienna. Non-university early German studies and university German studies . Praesens, Vienna 2001, p. 99.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Menhardt in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Wiesinger, Daniel Steinbach: 150 Years of German Studies in Vienna. Non-university early German studies and university German studies . Vienna: Praesens, Vienna 2001, p. 99.
2. ↑ Irene Ranzmeier :, Irene (2005). German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005, p. 43. 96.
3. ↑ Irene Ranzmeier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005, p. 95.