Karl Brandi

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Karl Maria Prosper Laurenz Brandi (born May 20, 1868 in Meppen , † March 9, 1946 in Göttingen ) was a German historian . From 1902 until his retirement in 1936 he taught as a full professor for middle and modern history at the University of Göttingen . Due to the outbreak of the Second World War , he was also active in academic teaching after his retirement.

Live and act

Karl Brandi was the son of the high school teacher Hermann Brandi. His father's ancestors came from Italy and had come to Germany via France three generations earlier. Brandi's maternal ancestors came from England. He spent his school days in Osnabrück . There his father was appointed as head of the school inspectorate in the Catholic consistory. In 1886 Brandi passed the high school diploma in Carolinum . From April 1886 he studied history and geography in Munich for the next three semesters . Brandi completed a year-long military service in a Munich regiment in 1886/87. From Munich Brandi went to Strasbourg to see Paul Scheffer-Boichorst . Hermann Baumgarten directed Brandi's interest to the age of the Reformation and the history of Charles V. Brandi received his doctorate from Scheffer-Boichorst in 1890 with the thesis Critical Directory of Reichenau Documents from the 8th to 12th Century . His dissertation on the Reichenau documents was fundamental. Brandi followed his teacher Scheffer-Boichorst to Berlin . In 1891 Brandi passed the state examination in Berlin. From Berlin he returned to Munich. There he made the acquaintance of Hans Cornelius , Heinrich Wölfflin and Ludwig Traube . A friendship with Walter Goetz developed during this time . In 1893, Friedrich Althoff made him the offer to take on a Catholic history professorship at the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität Bonn if he would do his habilitation at this university. However, Brandi declined the offer. In Göttingen, Brandi completed his habilitation with Paul Fridolin Kehr in the summer of 1895 with an unpublished thesis on rural peace and alliances. After completing his habilitation, Brandi traveled to Italy. In the winter semester of 1897 he succeeded Michael Tangl as associate professor in Marburg . In 1898 Brandi married Hedwig Regelsberger, daughter of the professor of Roman law Ferdinand Regelsberger . With her he had three sons and two daughters. His son Diez later became known as an architect.

From 1902 Brandi was a full professor for middle and modern history in Göttingen . He gave his inaugural lecture on “The Development of the Renaissance”. In 1906 he founded the Archive for Document Research together with Harry Bresslau and Michael Tangl and was co-editor until 1944. From 1910 he was chairman of the historical commission he founded for Lower Saxony and remained so until 1938. At the age of 46, he took part in the First World War as an officer in a land defense unit that had occupied parts of Alsace-Lorraine. During the war he was awarded the Iron Cross I and II. He was the first to receive this award from all professors at the University of Göttingen. The defeat of Germany and the Treaty of Versailles were painful for Brandi. Brandi was a proponent of the stab in the back . In the third edition of his German History , published in 1923, he wrote: “Unbeaten, still victorious even in its obvious inferiority in numbers and material, this largest and most beautiful unified army in world history was recalled from the scene at the decisive moment. The General Staff and the troop leadership, under the leadership of the Field Marshal, who has now become venerable, proved their inherited circumspection and punctuality to the very end, and history will only hold its office if it gratefully presents the German officer with the laurel torn from him by the revolution. “He saw the Versailles Treaty as a“ crime against human culture ”. Nevertheless, he developed into a “Republican of reason”.

Brandi turned down appointments to Strasbourg (1913), Leipzig (1915) and Berlin (1929). From 1920 to 1921 he was rector of the University of Göttingen. In February 1931 Brandi organized together with Percy Ernst Schramm at the University of Göttingen, as the first German university, an "Ostmarkehochschulwoche", which was supposed to bring the students closer to the "meaning of the Ostmark for people and empire". Brandi was one of the keynote speakers at the event. The two Göttingen historians went on information trips with students and colleagues through Silesia , East Prussia and the Danzig area. In the summer of 1932 Brandi and Schramm organized a German Historians ' Day in Göttingen , which for the first time put the problems of the German East at a German historians' event . The subjects dealt with were unmistakably directed against the Versailles Treaty and the neighboring states, especially Poland. However, this focus did not go back to the Schramms and Brandis initiative alone. Neither were experts in the history of the Germans in East Central Europe, nor were they spokesmen for historical research on the East . In addition to his teaching activities in Göttingen, Brandi had teaching assignments in the winter semesters 1929/30 and 1930/31 at the Technical University of Hanover .

Brandi was a member of the Comité International des Sciences Historiques, founded in 1926 . In August 1933 he became its vice-president in Warsaw . At the celebration of the founding of the Reich of the University of Göttingen on January 18, 1934, he was criticized by the ancient historian Ulrich Kahrstedt for his international commitment and his visit to Warsaw. Kahrstedt accused Brandi and Schramm of failing to represent German interests in the East at the Warsaw Historians' Day in 1933.

Brandi retired in 1936 in Göttingen, but remained present in academic teaching in the years to come. Siegfried A. Kaehler succeeded him in the same year. After the outbreak of the Second World War , Brandi took over Schramm's representation in Göttingen at the age of 71. After the resumption of teaching in autumn 1945, Brandi held events. At the beginning of December 1945, however, a heart condition ended his teaching activity. Brandi supervised 122 doctoral theses until 1946. 58 of these papers dealt with regional history topics in Northwest Germany. Brandi's academic students included Wilhelm Berges , Reinhard Elze , Karl Jordan , Hans-Walter Klewitz , Erich von Lehe , Georg Schnath and Andreas Walther . Brandi died on March 9, 1946, shortly before his 78th birthday. He is buried in the city ​​cemetery in Göttingen.

Brandi submitted over a hundred publications. His main areas of work were diplomacy , the age of the Reformation , the Renaissance and the north-west German state history. Brandi's main work is his biography of Charles V, published in 1937. It was published eight times by 1986 and was translated into English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. Other major works are The Renaissance in Florence and Rome from 1900, which had seven editions by 1927. The German history from 1918 saw its third edition until 1923. The two-volume work German Reformation and Counter-Reformation from 1927 appeared five times by 1979, since 1941 under the title German History in the Age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation and since 1967 under the title Reformation and Counter-Reformation . Brandi researched the Reichenau forgeries intensively.

Brandi has received numerous scientific honors and memberships for his research. Brandi was a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (since 1927) and a corresponding member of the academies in Berlin , Budapest , Munich (since 1933), Copenhagen and Vienna . The University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary doctorate . From 1919 to 1946 he chaired the Göttingen University Association . From 1920 he was involved in the organization of the Göttingen Handel Festival . From 1929 to 1935 Brandi was chairman of the Economic Society of Lower Saxony. From 1909 to 1911 and from 1932 to 1937 he was chairman of the German Association of Historians . Brandi was also co-editor of the German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages, founded in 1936 .

Brandi was also politically active. He was a member of the National Liberal Party even before the war . In 1918 he co-founded the German People's Party (DVP) in Hanover and in the 1920s he was a member of the state parliament of the German People's Party and its chairman in Göttingen. Brandi did not join the NSDAP .

For Wolfgang Petke , Brandi was “not a National Socialist”. For Robert P. Ericksen (* 1945), Brandi and his Göttingen colleague Schramm were “not National Socialists in the full sense of the word”. Brandi's interests were "congenial with right-wing, and therefore also indirectly with National Socialist politics". Ericksen raised the question of whether Brandi and Schramm's commitment to the East was about unbiased research or whether they were primarily interested in results that could be used politically.

Fonts

List of publications by Georg Schnath: Karl Brandi. In: Edgar Kalthoff (ed.): Lower Saxony life pictures. Vol. 6, Hildesheim 1969, pp. 1-48, here: pp. 31-40.

  • Emperor Karl V. Becoming and fate of a personality and a world empire. 2 volumes, Bruckmann, Munich 1937–1941; 8th edition. Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-7973-0286-X .
  • German history in the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. 4th edition. Munich 1969.
  • The Renaissance in Florence and Rome. Eight lectures. 7th, revised edition, Leipzig 1927.

literature

  • Robert P. Ericksen: Continuities of Conservative Historiography at the Seminar for Middle and Modern History: From the Weimar Period through the National Socialist Era to the Federal Republic. In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism. 2nd, expanded edition. Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-10853-2 , pp. 427-453.
  • Beatrix Herlemann with the assistance of Helga Schatz: Biographical Lexicon of Lower Saxony Parliamentarians, 1919–1945 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen. Vol. 222). Hahn, Hannover 2004, ISBN 3-7752-6022-6 , p. 58.
  • Karl Jordan : Nekrolog Karl Brandi. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages , Vol. 8 (1951), pp. 250-251 ( digitized version ).
  • Sabine Krüger:  Brandi, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 523 ( digitized version ).
  • Otto Graf von Looz-Corswarem: Obituary Karl Brandi. In: Historisches Jahrbuch , vol. 69 (1949), p. 908 f.
  • Otto Heinrich May: Karl Brandi in memory. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Vol. 20 (1947), pp. 3–10.
  • Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures (= Göttinger Universitätsschriften. Vol. 2). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-35831-8 , pp. 287-320.
  • Engelbert Plassmann : Karl Brandi (1868–1946). On the 25th anniversary of his death. With a foreword by Diez Brandi. Schürmann & Klagges, Bochum 1972.
  • Arnd Reitemeier : Karl Brandi (1868–1946). University professor and first chairman of the historical commission. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Vol. 83 (2011), pp. 33–49. ( online ).
  • Georg Schnath : Karl Brandi. In: Edgar Kalthoff (ed.): Lower Saxony life pictures. Vol. 6, Hildesheim 1969, pp. 1-48.
  • Percy Ernst Schramm : Karl Brandi. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History . German Department , Vol. 65 (1947), pp. 464-477.
  • Gerd Steinwascher : Karl Brandi. In: Rainer Hehemann: Biographical manual for the history of the Osnabrück region. Rasch, Bramsche 1990, ISBN 3-922469-49-3 , p. 41 f.
  • Rudolf Vierhaus : German Biographical Encyclopedia , Vol. 2, Saur, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-598-25032-0 , p. 64.
  • Wolfgang Weber: Biographical lexicon for historical studies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The professor for history from the beginnings of the subject until 1970. Lang, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 1984, ISBN 3-8204-1051-1 , p. 61 f.
  • Ursula Wolf: Litteris et patriae. The Janus face of history (= Frankfurt historical treatises. Vol. 37). Steiner, Stuttgart 1996. ISBN 3-515-06875-9 .

Web links

Wikisource: Karl Brandi  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 292.
  2. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 292.
  3. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 293.
  4. ^ Arnd Reitemeier: Karl Brandi (1868–1946). University professor and first chairman of the historical commission. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Vol. 83 (2011), pp. 33–49, here: pp. 36 f.
  5. ↑ Robert P. Ericksen: Continuities of Conservative Historiography at the Seminar for Medieval and Modern History: From the Weimar Period through the National Socialist Era to the Federal Republic. In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism. 2nd, extended edition, Munich 1998, pp. 427–453, here: p. 434 f.
  6. ^ Arnd Reitemeier: Karl Brandi (1868–1946). University professor and first chairman of the historical commission. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Vol. 83 (2011), pp. 33–49, here: p. 38.
  7. ^ Karl Brandi: German History. 3rd revised edition, Berlin 1923, p. 274. Quoted from Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the history of science in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 300.
  8. ↑ Ursula Wolf: Litteris et patriae. The Janus face of history. Stuttgart 1996, p. 104.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 300.
  10. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 296.
  11. ↑ Robert P. Ericksen: Continuities of Conservative Historiography at the Seminar for Middle and Modern History. From the Weimar period through the National Socialist era to the Federal Republic. In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism. 2nd, extended edition, Munich 1998, pp. 427–453, here: p. 435.
  12. ↑ David Thimme: Percy Ernst Schramm and the Middle Ages. Changes in an image of history. Göttingen 2006, pp. 314-319; Eduard Mühle: Hans Rothfels, Percy Ernst Schramm, the 'Ostraum' and the Middle Ages. To some new historiographical publications. In: Journal for East Central Europe Research , Vol. 57 (2008), pp. 112–125, here: pp. 122 f.
  13. ^ Arnd Reitemeier : Karl Brandi (1868–1946). University professor and first chairman of the historical commission. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Vol. 83 (2011), pp. 33–49, here: p. 40.
  14. ↑ The speech is printed by Cornelia Wegeler: "... we say from the international scholarly republic". Classical Studies and National Socialism. The Göttingen Institute for Classical Studies 1921–1962. Vienna 1996, pp. 357-368.
  15. ↑ David Thimme: Percy Ernst Schramm and the Middle Ages. Changes in an image of history. Göttingen 2006, pp. 349-352.
  16. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 298.
  17. ↑ Cf. Dietmar von Reeken: Wissenschaft, Raum und Volkstum: Historical and contemporary research in and about "Lower Saxony" 1910–1945. A contribution to the regional history of science. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 68 (1996), pp. 43–90, here: pp. 46 f. with note 10. ( online ); Matthias Werner : Between political limitation and methodological openness. Paths and stations of German regional historical research in the 20th century. In: Peter Moraw , Rudolf Schieffer (Ed.): The German-speaking Medieval Studies in the 20th Century. Ostfildern 2005, pp. 251–364, here: p. 296, note 159 ( online ).
  18. ↑ Karl Brandi: The Reichenau document forgeries (= sources and research on the history of the Reichenau Abbey. Vol. 1). Heidelberg 1890.
  19. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 288.
  20. ↑ Ursula Wolf: Litteris et patriae. The Janus face of history. Stuttgart 1996, p. 419.
  21. ^ Wolfgang Petke: Karl Brandi and the science of history in Göttingen. In: Hartmut Boockmann (Ed.): History in Göttingen. A series of lectures. Göttingen 1987, pp. 287-320, here: p. 308.
  22. ↑ Robert P. Ericksen: Continuities of Conservative Historiography at the Seminar for Middle and Modern History. From the Weimar period through the National Socialist era to the Federal Republic. In: Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler (eds.): The University of Göttingen under National Socialism. 2nd, extended edition, Munich 1998, pp. 427–453, here: pp. 436 and 440.
personal data
SURNAME Brandi, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brandi, Karl Maria Prosper Laurenz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Meppen
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1946
Place of death Goettingen