Josef Poppelreuter

Josef Poppelreuter (also Mathias Joseph Poppelreuter ; born August 20, 1867 in Laach ; † February 5, 1919 in Cologne ) was a German archaeologist and art historian . He was the first director of the Roman department of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, which later became the Roman-Germanic Museum .

Professional career

Josef Poppelreuter attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne and then studied archeology and art history in Berlin. He completed his studies with a doctorate in the winter semester of 1892/93 ; He wrote his dissertation on De comoediae Atticae primordiis particulae duae ( The beginnings of the Attic comedy based on old vase paintings ). He began his professional career as a volunteer and later as a research assistant in the Royal Museums in Berlin, where he arranged the ceramics in the Schliemann collection and the book illustrations of the Royal Museum of Applied Arts .

In 1899 Poppelreuter came to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne as an assistant, where he devoted himself to the stone sculptures of the Middle Ages and the burial ground on Luxemburger Strasse . He cataloged the museum's modern picture gallery and had the modern rooms of the gallery furnished. In 1908 he became director of the sculpture and antique collection. In 1914 the Roman Department had grown so large that it was run as an independent department under Poppelreuter as director. After the death of the museum director Alfred Hagelstange , he was acting head of the museum. He died in 1919 at the age of 52 after a long illness. The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger wrote in its obituary for Josef Poppelreuter: “He was known among his close peers and museum friends as a solid scholar and careful researcher; in the field of Roman studies he had earned himself a particularly respected name through lucky finds, ingenious combinations and in-depth research. "

Street naming

In May 2013, the responsible Cologne district council decided to rename the Poppelreuter-Strasse in Cologne-Ostheim , originally named after Walther Poppelreuter , to Josef-Poppelreuter-Strasse . The renaming took place due to the past of the psychiatrist Walther Poppelreuter during the time of National Socialism , also at the request of the descendants of the Bonn psychiatrist Otto Löwenstein , who had been ousted from the office of clinic manager by Walther Poppelreuter in 1933.

Publications (selection)

• The anonymous master of Poliphilo. A study of Italian book illustration and antiquity in the art of the Quattrocento . Heitz, Strasbourg 1904.
• Critique of the Viennese Genesis, at the same time a contribution to the history of the decline of ancient art . DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1908.
• The nations in the competition of the arts . DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1916.
• Model of the Roman Cologne . DuMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1916. Digitized

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Professor Poppelreuter †. Kölner Stadtanzeiger, February 6, 1919 (obituary). Quoted from: Suggestion according to S24 GO (NRW)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  (PDF; 5.2 MB) politik-bei-uns.de, August 14, 2012, accessed on December 14, 2015.
2. ↑ A Nazi as namesake. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, December 27, 2012, accessed on November 11, 2013 . 
3. ^ Minutes of the 31st meeting of the Kalk district council in the 2009/2014 electoral period. City of Cologne, April 25, 2013, accessed on December 14, 2015 .