Julius Aronius

Julius Aronius (born February 17, 1861 in Rastenburg ; died July 29, 1893 in Berlin ) was a German historian and diplomat .

Julius Aronius, son of a Jewish family, attended the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster in Berlin, where he graduated from high school in 1878. He then studied history , geography and philology at the University of Berlin for eight semesters before moving to the University of Königsberg . There he was in 1883 with the work of Diplomatic Studies of the older Anglo-Saxon charters doctorate . His academic teachers included Adolf Bastian , Harry Bresslau , Hans Droysen , Heinrich Kiepert and Karl Wilhelm Nitzsch .

After a brief activity as a teacher at the Realgymnasium in Berlin, Aronius turned to research into Jewish history. At Federation of Jewish Communities was 1885 Historical Commission for the History of the Jews in Germany was founded, was appointed its president Harry Bresslau. The aim of the commission was the systematic collection and indexing of all sources available for the Jewish history of Germany as well as the evaluation of their previous use in historical studies. Julius Aronius took over the processing of Regesten from Frankish times by the year 1273, the year in which the election of the king Rudolf I , the interregnum in the Holy Roman Empire ended.

After the first three parts of the Regesta were delivered in 1887–1889, Aronius fell seriously ill. Albert Dresdner - friend, fellow student and already a member of the Regesten team - supported the sick person, who had traveled to the south to recover, with the fourth delivery completed in 1890. The fifth delivery from Aronius' hand followed in 1892. He died on July 29, 1893 while working on the registers and supplements.

The plan to create supplements and corrections to the regesta was abandoned. The creation of the register was initially taken over by Albert Dresdner, who, however, had to discontinue the work unfinished. Ludwig Lewinski completed the register, the complete works were published in 1902 and reprinted in 1970.

With his dissertation , Julius Aronius had already found recognition in English history. With the Regesta on the history of the Jews, he presented the first collection of sources in the field of science compiled according to the historical-critical method . It influenced similar works in other countries and is still a much-cited standard work on the Jewish history of Germany.

Publications (selection)

• Diplomatic studies on the older Anglo-Saxon documents. Suter, Königsberg 1883 ( digitized version ).
• Regesta on the history of the Jews in the Frankish and German empires up to 1273. Edited by Julius Aronius with the assistance of Albert Dresdner and Ludwig Lewinski. Simion, Berlin 1902 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Harry Bresslau : Preliminary remark. In: Regesta on the history of the Jews in the Frankish and German empires up to the year 1273. Simion, Berlin 1902.
• Isaac Broydé:  Aronius, Julius. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Volume 1, Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906, p.  135 .
• Julius Aronius: Vita. In: Diplomatic studies on the older Anglo-Saxon documents. Suter, Königsberg 1883, p. 91 ( digitized version ).