Horst Hammitzsch

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Reinhold Horst Hammitzsch (born November 3, 1909 in Dresden ; † November 8, 1991 ) was a German Japanologist . As a professor he taught at the University of Leipzig , the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Ruhr University in Bochum, among others .

Life

The son of the architect and builder Reinhold Hammitzsch attended the 31st Citizens' School in Dresden from Easter 1916 and the Dreikönigschule from Easter 1919 to Easter 1929 , which he left with the school leaving certificate. From the summer semester of 1929 to the winter semester of 1932/33, Hammitzsch studied Sinology , Japanology and Mongolian Studies at the University of Leipzig , but also attended the religious studies , history and philosophy colleges . After completing his studies, Hammitzsch moved to Japan, where from 1933 to 1941 he studied German language and literature at the Eighth Imperial High School in Nagoya(第八 高等学校, Dai-hachi kōtō gakkō , today: Nagoya University ) taught. In 1934 he joined the National Socialist teachers' association . On behalf of the NSDAP he served as a shop steward for the German community in Japan and as a representative of the German embassy and the consulate general. Among other things, he gave lectures at this time on the topic of "Racial and geographical elements in the Japanese people and their effects on emigration". In 1937 he received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig under André Wedemeyer . Hammitzsch, who was living in Nagoya at the time, headed the branch of the newly founded "German Aid Committee of the NSDAP, National Group Japan" from the end of September 1939.

In 1941 Hammitzsch succeeded his teacher Hans Übersaar at the Japanological Institute at the University of Leipzig, which was established in 1932/33 , but was drafted into the armed forces the following year , for which he worked as a language officer at the German military attaché in Nanjing from 1943 until the end of the war .

After the war in China interned , returned Hammitzsch 1947 to Germany, where he played a key role in building the Japanese Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich played. As early as 1949 he worked there as a lecturer, initially within the institutional framework of Sinology . In 1951 he became an adjunct professor for Japanese studies, in 1956 he became the chairman of the newly founded seminar for Japanese studies (today: Japan Center). He was particularly committed to building up the German-Japanese Society of Bavaria , of which he was president from 1962 to 1964. In 1964 he also taught as a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia . In 1965 he followed a call to the Ruhr University Bochum, where he worked until his retirement in autumn 1976. In 1990 he was honored with the Order of the Rising Sun for his work .

research

In the early years of his scientific activity, Hammitzsch mainly dealt with the early Shinto and its nationalistic reinterpretation by Hirata Atsutane and other thinkers of the Edo period . He wrote his dissertation on the subject of Yamato-hime no Mikoto Seiki: A source on the early history of the Shintô religion = report on Her Highness the Princess Yamato's walk on earth. Translated and explained by Horst Hammitzsch . As a result, he mainly worked in two areas: The intellectual history of the Edo period and Japanese poetry , especially the tanka and haiku poetry .

In the field of intellectual history of the Edo period, he presented works on the Kokugaku , the Kangaku , the Mitogaku and the Shingaku movement, among others .

In the field of poetics, he was particularly interested in the haiku poetry of Matsuo Bashō and his followers. Among other things, he translated the Kashima-kikō and Bashō's travel diaries. His translations, but also the haiku poems from his own pen, are considered to be the style of German haiku poetry.

In connection with poetry, he also dealt with Japanese aesthetics in general, on the basic concepts of which he wrote authoritative works; as well as with the tea path , where he submitted a study on Zencharoku in addition to a translation of Okakura Kakuzō's book on tea .

Hammitzsch wrote several articles for well-known encyclopedias, including the Brockhaus Encyclopedia and Kindlers Literature Lexicon . Together with Lydia Brüll and Ulrich Goch, he published the Japan-Handbuch , the most extensive German-language reference work on Japan. He also served as editor of the Japan Department of the Handbook of Oriental Studies .

In 1956, together with Oscar Benl, he published the Japanese Spiritual World with selected source texts on Japanese intellectual history.

Fonts (selection)

As an author
  • Hirata Atsutane: A spiritual fighter of Japan. German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia , Tokyo 1936.
  • Yamato-Hime no Mikoto Seiki: Report on Her Highness the Princess Yamato's walk on earth. A source on the early history of the Shintô religion translated and explained. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1937 (dissertation, University of Leipzig, 1937).
  • Shûyôdan: The renewal movement of contemporary Japan. German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia, Tokyo 1939.
  • Sangyô-Hôkoku: The Japanese Labor Front. German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia, Tokyo 1941.
  • Cha-dô, The Tea Way: An Introduction to the Spirit of Japanese Tea Teaching. OW Barth, Munich-Planegg 1958.
As editor
  • Studies in Japanese Studies. Monographs on the history, culture and language of Japan, Wiesbaden 1959-.
  • (with Oscar Benl ) Japanese spirit world. From myth to the present. Holle-Verlag, Baden-Baden 1956.
  • Japanese folk tales. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1964.
  • Japan. Glock and Lutz, Nuremberg 1975, ISBN 3-7738-2031-5 .
  • Japan manual. Country and people, cultural and intellectual life. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-515-02952-4 .

literature

  • Lydia Brüll, Ulrich Kemper (Hrsg.): Asia: Tradition and progress. Festschrift for Horst Hammitzsch on his 60th birthday. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1971, ISBN 3-447-01295-1 .
  • Thierry Carpent: Le japanologue Horst Hammitzsch et le “Front japonais du travail”: réflexions sur le cheminement d'un universitaire allemand entre conservatisme et national-socialisme , Le Texte et l'Idée 25/2011 (Nancy), p. 3–21 (German translation: The Japanologist Horst Hammitzsch and the “Japanese Labor Front”: the wrong path of an academic between conservatism and National Socialism. In: Library of the Leipzig University Archives , Bib 8666).
  • Thierry Carpent: La "cérémonie du thé" in le monde germanique de 1958 à 2003: enjeux de l'interculturalité. in Le Texte et l'Idée 22/2007 (Nancy), p. 51–85 (German translation: The "Tea Ceremony" in the German-speaking world from 1958 to 2003: Deployments of interculturality. In: Library of the Leipzig University Archives, Bib 7357);
  • Diana Donath: Prof. Dr. Hammitzsch passed away. An obituary for the senior in German Japanology. In: Japan magazine. Vol. 3 Issue 1 (1992), p. 44.
  • Bruno Lewin : Obituary for Horst Hammitzsch. In: Bochum yearbook for East Asia research. 15: 423-428 (1991).
  • Herbert Worm: Japanese Studies in National Socialism. An interim report. In: Gerhard Krebs / Bernd Martin (eds.): Formation and fall of the Berlin-Tôkyô axis. iudicium, Munich 1994, pp. 153-186.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c CV. In: Yamato-Hime no Mikoto Seiki: Report on Her Highness the Princess Yamato's walk on earth. A source on the early history of the Shintô religion translated and explained. Printed by A. Richter, Leipzig 1937.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Bruno Lewin : Obituary for Horst Hammitzsch . In: Bochum yearbook for East Asia research . 15: 423-428 (1991).
  3. ^ A b Horst Hammitzsch in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig .
  4. ↑ In the introduction to the dissertation he describes Wedemeyer as "my honored teacher" (p. 1). The dissertation was accepted on August 29, 1935 "on the basis of the expert opinions of Messrs Wedemeyer and Haas " (back of the title page) and published in 1937.
  5. ↑ News of the OAG , № 52, p. 3.
  6. ↑ a b c Klaus Kracht , Markus Rüttermann (ed.): Outline of Japanology. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, pp. 22-24 ( online ).
  7. ^ History , website of the Japan Center of the University of Munich.
  8. ↑ See, for example, review ( Memento of November 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Haiku-heute.de.
personal data
SURNAME Hammitzsch, Horst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammitzsch, Reinhold Horst (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Japanologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1991