Karl Gronau

This article deals with the university professor Karl Gronau. For the pastor and meteorologist see Karl Ludwig Gronau .

Karl Friedrich Hermann Gronau (born September 3, 1889 in Trautenstein , † November 6, 1950 in Braunschweig ) was a German university professor of philosophy.

Life

Gronau was the son of the superintendent and church councilor Carl Gronau. In 1904 he passed his Abitur at Wilhelm-Gymnasium (Braunschweig) , his future lifelong place of activity. This was followed by studying religion , classical philology and philosophy in Tübingen and Göttingen . In 1908 he received his doctorate on Gregor von Nazianz and his Plato reception. In the same year he passed the state examination. After a one-year legal traineeship (educational seminar in Braunschweig) at the Wilhelm-Gymnasium and his probationary year at the Progymnasium in Bad Harzburg, he gave his first lessons at the Martino-Katharinaeum in Braunschweig , appointed senior teacher in 1910 . In October 1910 he married. In 1916 he was a volunteer army soldier and was decorated several times.

In 1922 he was qualified as a private lecturer for philosophy at the Technical University of Braunschweig . His inaugural lecture was under the motto Nietzsche and the youth. This reflected his disappointment with the lost war and the elimination of the monarchy . In 1923 he joined a Masonic Lodge and rose to higher degrees there. More and more he turned to mysticism . In 1926 he was a. o. Professor. In 1933 he left the DVP and joined the NSDAP . In 1938, however, he was expelled from the NSDAP because he had concealed his former membership in a lodge when he joined. This exclusion gave him a democratic alibi after 1945 .

In 1939 he became an employee at the Institute for Research into and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life . In 1940 he was promoted to "Lecturer of the New Order" regardless of his expulsion from the party. In 1945, under British military administration, he was promoted to ministerial assistant for higher education and higher education in the Brunswick State Ministry. After his Nazi past became known, he endeavored since 1946 in several denazification proceedings to maintain his social position. Although he was proven to have been a forgery of a questionnaire, he was reinstated in all of his rights in 1949. In 1950 he was given an honorable retirement and became a full member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society . He passed away a few weeks later.

Fonts (selection)

• De Basilio Gregorio Nazianzeno Nyssenoque Platonis imitatoribus. Dissertation University of Göttingen 1908.
• Poseidonios and the Judeo-Christian Genesisexegesis. Leipzig 1914.
• Under the sign of mysticism. Braunschweig 1923.
• Plato's theory of ideas in the course of time. Braunschweig 1929.
• The State in the Judgment of Modern Times and Present. Braunschweig 1931.
• The state of the future from Plato to Dante. Braunschweig 1933.

literature

• Franz Kössler: Personal dictionary of teachers of the 19th century. Professional biographies from school annual reports and school programs 1825–1918. Volume Gabel - Guzy ( Memento from December 31, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 5.5 MB), preprint Giessen 2007.
• Hans Prolingheuer: We went astray. Cologne 1993.
• Detailed biography of Gronau in Uwe Lammers: Seven Lives : Scientists' biographies at the cultural studies department of the TH Braunschweig during National Socialism. 23 Jan 2015 published in the digital library of the Braunschweig University Library.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Gronau in the catalog of the German National Library