Karl von Hegel

Karl von Hegel

Karl Hegel , from 1891 Knight von Hegel (born June 7, 1813 in Nuremberg , † December 5, 1901 in Erlangen ) was a German historian . Hegel was one of the leading urban history researchers in the second half of the 19th century. In the history of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, however, it was forgotten.

Live and act

Karl Hegel was the son of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , who at the time of the birth of his son was the high school principal of the new Egidien high school . His father died in 1831 when Hegel was 18 years old. Hegel cherished his father's memory all his life, but at the same time suffered from his father's fame in his own career. His mother Marie Helena Susanna von Tucher (1791–1855) came from a long-established Nuremberg patrician family. Hegel spent the first three years in Nuremberg. In 1816 the family went to Heidelberg, where his father was appointed to a professorship for philosophy. In 1818 the family moved to Berlin, where Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel succeeded Johann Gottlieb Fichtehas been. Hegel graduated from high school in Berlin in 1830. He studied in Berlin with Leopold von Ranke and in Heidelberg. In 1837 he received his doctorate on Alexander the Great in Berlin . In 1838/39 he made a long trip to Italy and carried out numerous archive studies. He then worked for a short time as a high school teacher in Berlin. From 1841 to 1848 he was associate professor of history and from 1848 to 1856 full professor of history and politics at the University of Rostock and in 1854 and 1855 rector of the university . His two-volume account, published in 1847, of the history of the urban constitution of Italy from the time of Roman rule to the end of the 12th century made him known to a wider professional community. Hegel came into discussion for chairs in Leipzig, Kiel, Munich, Greifswald and Erlangen. From October 1848 he was editor-in-chief of the newly founded "Mecklenburgische Zeitung" for a year. In 1850 he was a member of the Volkshaus of the Erfurt Union Parliament as a Mecklenburg MP . In the same year he married his cousin Susanna Maria von Tucher. In 1856 he was appointed to the newly established chair of history at Erlangen University. In 1870 he became Vice Rector.

From 1862 to 1899, 27 volumes of the "Deutsche Städtchroniken" ( The Chronicles of German Cities ) were published under his direction , which Karl Hegel edited for the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. Hegel himself edited, in large part, six volumes of chronicles on Nuremberg, Strasbourg and Mainz. With Hegel as head of department, the chronicle series became one of the most successful publishing companies of the Munich Historical Commission at the Royal Academy, as it was called at the time, which was still young during his lifetime. The young and talented historian Theodor von Kern became his first assistant on this project. Later other proven historians, German scholars and lawyers such as Karl Lamprecht , Georg von Below , Matthias Lexer or Ferdinand Frensdorff joined the team.

Hegel published well into old age, following his early research again and again on research subjects from Italian urban history. In the 1870s he played a leading role in the dispute over the authenticity of the Dino Compagni's Florentine chronicle . In this context, there was an exchange of blows with Paul Scheffer-Boichorst . Hegel took the position of the authenticity of the chronicle and was thus proved right. In later times he turned to the Nordic city history and in 1891 published cities and guilds of the Germanic peoples in the Middle Ages . This presentation became the standard work. His last monograph was published in 1898 with The emergence of German cities . Hegel received numerous awards for his research.

In 1875 he became a member of the central management of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica . He was also a member of the academies in Munich, Göttingen, Berlin and Vienna. The University of Halle-Wittenberg awarded him an honorary doctorate . In 1872 he was awarded the Knight's Cross First Class of the Order of Merit of St. Michael in Bavaria , in 1876 the Maximilian Order for Science and Art , in 1889 the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown , in 1891 he was included in the register of nobility of the Kingdom of Bavaria and in 1893 he was made royal Secret council appointed. As early as 1884 he was referred to as a "well-known history professor" in an entry in Brockhaus' Conversations Lexicon.

Throughout his life, this historian maintained extensive and long-lasting contacts with colleagues from science and other personalities from society and politics as part of his scientific effectiveness . Special mention should be made here of Georg Beseler , Ernst Ludwig Dümmler , Ferdinand Frensdorff , Georg Gottfried Gervinus , Matthias Lexer , Heinrich von Sybel and Georg Waitz , which is evidenced by an impressive number of traditional correspondence in various estate administration institutions within the European Union as well as in private ownership.

In 1900 Karl Hegel published his memoir. In Richard Fester's obituary of December 1901, he was honored as the "town hedge". A large part of his scientific legacy is in the manuscript department of the Erlangen-Nuremberg University Library . Karl Hegel remained in the shadow of his father and fell into oblivion in historical studies. There is no article about him in the New German Biography (NDB). His scientific work can therefore be described with the formula “fame without post-fame”.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death, the Erlangen Chair for Modern History I organized the exhibition Karl Hegel - Historians in the 19th Century, together with the University Library Erlangen from November 20 to December 16, 2001 . The Karl Hegel Memorial Lectures have been held since 2007. Today's Department of History in Erlangen is reminiscent of the founder of the Historical Institute of the Friedrich-Alexander University. More recently, in the course of the establishment of the history seminar at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Helmut Neuhaus dealt with Karl Hegel in several studies . In 2012, Marion Kreis published her dissertation on its historical significance and closes this research gap with this "meritorious study".

Fonts (selection)

A list of publications can be found in: Marion Kreis: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012, pp. 354–359.

• History of the urban constitution of Italy from the time of Roman rule to the end of the twelfth century. Weidmann'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1847.
• Constitutional history of Cologne in the Middle Ages. Hirzel, Leipzig 1877.
• History of the Mecklenburg estates up to 1555. Adler, Rostock 1856.
• The Orders of Justice in the Florentine Republic. Young Erlangen 1867.
• The Chronicle of the Dino Compagni. Attempt to rescue. Hirzel, Leipzig 1875.
• On the historical value of the older Dante Commentaries with an appendix on the dinosaur question. Hirzel, Leipzig 1878.
• Cities and guilds of the Germanic peoples in the Middle Ages. 2 volumes. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891.
  • Volume 1: England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway
  • Volume 2: France, Netherlands, Germany
• The emergence of the German urban system. Hirzel, Leipzig 1898.
• Karl Hegel's memorial book. Life chronicle of a scholar of the 19th century. Published by Helmut Neuhaus. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21044-1 .

swell

• Helmut Neuhaus: Karl Hegel's letters to Susanna Maria von Tucher. From the engagement time of the Rostock history professor and the Nuremberg patrician daughter 1849/50 (= Archive for Cultural History. Supplements. Issue 87). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2018, ISBN 978-3-412-51128-9 .

literature

• Niklot Klüßendorf: Art. "Hegel" In: Biographical Lexicon for Mecklenburg, ed. by Sabine Pettke (= publications of the Historical Commission for Mecklenburg. Series A). Vol. 2, Rostock 1999, ISBN 3-7950-3711-5 , pp. 120-126.
• Helmut Neuhaus (Ed.): Karl Hegel - Historians in the 19th Century. With the collaboration of Katja Dotzler, Christoph Hübner, Thomas Joswiak, Marion Kreis, Bruno Kuntke, Jörg Sandreuther and Christian Schöffel (= Erlanger Studies on History. Volume 7). Palm and Enke, Erlangen et al. 2001, ISBN 3-7896-0660-X .
• Helmut Neuhaus: In the shadow of the father. The historian Karl Hegel (1813–1901) and history in the 19th century. In: Historische Zeitschrift , Vol. 286 (2008), pp. 63–89.
• Helmut Neuhaus: Karl Hegel and Erlangen. Neuhaus, Helmut. In: Yearbook for Franconian State Research Vol. 62 (2002) pp. 259–278.
• Helmut Neuhaus: Karl Hegel (1813–1901) - an (almost) forgotten historian of the 19th century. In: Armin Kohnle and Frank Engehausen: Between Science and Politics. Studies on German university history. Festschrift for Eike Wolgast for his 65th birthday. Steiner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-515-07546-1 , pp. 309-328.
• Helmut Neuhaus: The medieval historian Karl Hegel. In: Claudia Alraum, Andreas Holndonner, Hans-Christian Lehner, Cornelia Scherer, Thorsten Schlauwitz, Veronika Unger (eds.): Between Rome and Santiago. Festschrift for Klaus Herbers on his 65th birthday. Contributions from his friends and companions, presented by his students. Winkler, Bochum 2016, ISBN 978-3-89911-239-9 , pp. 383-395.
• Marion circle: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific history location (= series of publications of the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Vol. 84). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-36077-4 . (See e-book and reading sample )

Web links

Wikisource: Karl von Hegel  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Karl von Hegel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Writings by Karl von Hegel in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii
• Entry on Karl von Hegel in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Remarks

1. ^ Karl Hegel: De Aristotele et Alexandro Magno, Dissertatio inauguralis. Berlin 1837.
2. ↑ Helmut Neuhaus: In the shadow of the father. The historian Karl Hegel (1813–1901) and history in the 19th century. In: Historical magazine. Vol. 286 (2008), pp. 63-89, here: p. 80.
3. ^ Marion circle: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012, pp. 215-316.
4. ↑ See last Marion Kreis: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012, pp. 82–87.
5. ^ Marion circle: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012, p. 19.
6. ^ Marion circle: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012.
7. ^ Marion circle: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012, p. 11f.
8. ^ Marion circle: Karl Hegel. Historical significance and scientific historical location. Göttingen 2012.
9. ^ Review of Dirk Fleischer in: Das Historisch-Politische Buch , Issue 3/2014 (62nd year), pp. 242–243.