Irmgard Höss

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Irmgard Höß (born November 1, 1919 in Nuremberg ; † April 23, 2009 ) was a German medieval historian .

life and career

Irmgard Höß passed her Abitur in 1939 and initially did an apprenticeship as a publishing bookseller from 1940 to 1941 . In 1941 she passed her examination for this and in 1942 began studying history, art history and German at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In 1943 she moved to the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU), where she received her doctorate with Willy Flach and Karl Heussi in April 1945 with a thesis on the subject of the German tribes in the investiture dispute . In December 1951 Flach also completed his habilitation with the work Georg Spalatin . A life in the decisive years of the Reformation . In the following year Höß became a lecturer at the FSU, and in September 1956 professor with a teaching position for the history of the Middle Ages. Simultaneously with the professorship she became director of the historical institute of the university. During this time, she was increasingly exposed to attacks, especially from students, as she was neither a member of the SED , nor was she socially committed as a bourgeois scientist in the way that was expected of her. So she worked closely with Karl Griewank and in 1957 refused to sign an appeal against nuclear armament in the FRG because it also contained attacks against fellow West German historians. When, following the ultimate request from Max Steinmetz and Kurt Pätzold at the beginning of the 1957/58 semester, she would only hold courses on a Marxist-Leninist basis in the future, her position became increasingly critical. In an article published in the FDJ magazine Forum , she was portrayed as a supposed advocate of nuclear war as well as an opponent of Marxism-Leninism. In addition, she lost her two assistants in December 1957, as the future focus should be placed on modern and recent history. After further attacks, Höß was released from her position as director of the institution. She resigned on March 31, 1958 and hoped to be able to leave the GDR legally afterwards. After she was not allowed to do so, she fled to the West on May 14, 1958.

After her escape, Höß became a research assistant for the historical commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1958 . In addition, she became a lecturer in 1958 and an adjunct professor at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1962 . In 1978 she became an Associate Professor for Medieval Reformation History. She was an honorary member of the Historical Commission for Thuringia .

Fonts

  • The German tribes at the time of the investiture controversy , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1951
  • Georg Spalatin 1484 - 1545. A life in the time of humanism and the Reformation , Böhlau, Weimar 1956 (2nd edition 1989 ISBN 3-7400-0119-4 )

literature

  • Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X , p. 295.
  • Konrad Marwinski: In memory of Irmgard Höß. In: Journal for Thuringian History. 63, 2009, ISSN  0943-9846 , pp. 7-9.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ University of Socialism: Studies on the History of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (1945–1990). Part 1, p. 1662
  2. ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Legitimation of a New State , p. 16
  3. ↑ Members of the Historical Commission for Thuringia ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.historische-kommission-fuer-thueringen.de
personal data
SURNAME Höss, Irmgard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medieval historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 2009