Hermann Overbeck

Hermann Overbeck (born March 21, 1900 in Aachen , † November 14, 1982 in Heidelberg ) was a German geographer .

Life

Overbeck studied geography, geology , history as well as business administration and economics at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main from 1918 to 1922 . In the summer semester of 1922 he obtained a commercial diploma and then taught at a commercial school in Aachen. From 1927 to 1930 he worked as an assistant at the Geographical Institute of the TH Aachen and obtained his doctorate in 1928 on "The Development of the Aachen Cultural Landscape". In 1930 he completed his habilitation in Aachen with “The industrial area on the central Saar” in the subject “Geography with special consideration for borderland studies”. The lecture was commissioned by the Saar Research Association (SFG).

In 1933 he succeeded Ludwig Strauss in the subject of literary studies at the TH Aachen, who was dismissed for anti-Semitic reasons (but was later reinstated). The student body in Aachen, which had operated Strauss' expulsion, asked for a nationally-minded professor. Overbeck joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 , shortly afterwards the National Socialist Teachers' Association and on November 1 the Sturmabteilung . He left the latter in 1935, but joined the mounted SA on December 1, 1938. In 1934 the Saar-Atlas was published on behalf of the Saar Research Association , a nationalistic and propagandistic, but nonetheless scientific map series, which he edited and edited together with Georg Wilhelm Sante .

In 1934 he was appointed head of the German Institute at the TH Aachen and in April 1935 head of the Rhineland regional planning community . However, Overbeck's attitude was denounced by a colleague as "little National Socialist" and he got into conflict at the TH Aachen. In 1936 he moved to the college for teacher training in Saarbrücken , where he taught geography. In 1939 he was appointed professor there.

In World War II he served as an Air Force meteorologist and was Councilor in Alsace , Lorraine and Luxembourg . In 1943 he was discharged from military service because of a chronic lung condition. In March 1944 he became a lecturer at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , where he received an unscheduled professorship at the Institute of Geography in 1951. In the 1960s he headed the regional studies department of the Institute for Franconian-Palatinate History and Regional Studies.

Works (selection)

author

• Geographical-methodical questions of the time (=  writings for commercial education . H. 4). GA Glockner, Leipzig 1925.
• The development of the Aachen cultural landscape. (Contributions to a cultural morphological consideration of the landscape around Aachen) . Dissertation (=  Aachen contributions to local history . H4). La Ruelle, Aachen 1928.
• Otto Follman: The Eifel . Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld 1928. (processing)
• Space and Politics in German History: Geopolitical Considerations on the Fate of the German Situation (=  Geographical Building Blocks . H. 15). Justus Perthes, Gotha 1929.
• with Georg Wilhelm Sante in connection with Hermann Aubin , Otto Maull and Franz Steinbach : Saar Atlas . J. Perthes, Gotha 1934.
• Landscape Research and Culture: Selected mainly methodological work (=  Heidelberger geographical work . No. 14 ). Geographical Institute of the University, Heidelberg 1965.

editor

• Together with Edwin Fels and Joachim-Heinrich Schultze (eds.): Geomorphological treatises: Dedicated to Otto Maull on the occasion of his 70th birthday (=  treatises of the Geographical Institute of the Free University of Berlin . No. 5 ). Reimer, Berlin 1957.
• Hans Schrepfer : General Geography and Regional Geography: Selected works to commemorate his 70th birthday on May 21, 1967 . F. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1967.
• Gottfried Pfeifer : General Geography and Regional Geography: Selected works to commemorate his 70th birthday on May 21, 1967 . Ed .: with Hans Graul (=  Heidelberg geographical works . No. 15 ). F. Steiner, Wiesbaden.

literature

• Wolfgang Freund: People, Empire and Western Frontier. German studies and politics in the Palatinate, Saarland and annexed Lorraine 1925–1945 (=  publications of the Commission for Saarland State History and Folk Research . No. 39 ). Commission for Saarland State History and Folk Research, Saarbrücken 2006, ISBN 3-939150-00-2 , p. 124-128 .