Karl Meyer (historian)
Karl Meyer (born November 21, 1885 in Buchs LU , † November 30, 1950 in Kreuzlingen ) was a Swiss historian and university professor .
Meyer graduated from high school in Lucerne and studied history and law at the University of Zurich , where he received his doctorate in 1911. From 1912 he worked as a teacher at the Lucerne School. From 1920 he was Professor of Medieval History at the University of Zurich, and from 1928 he was also Professor of Modern History at the ETH Zurich . Due to illness, he had to stop teaching in 1945 and retired in 1947.
In his research he dealt in particular with the Italian communal movement and the early history of the Swiss Confederation .
Meyer gave numerous lectures in the service of intellectual national defense and in 1939 became co-founder and president of the politically neutral association "Res Publica", which aimed to "strengthen the Swiss will to defend himself and promote the political, cultural and economic independence of the Swiss Confederation from the outside". In 1940 he was a founding member of the National Resistance Action . He was friends with the photographer Hans Hausamann and the theologian Karl Barth .
For the Swiss attitude in the face of the National Socialist threat, he coined the slogan of "high-spirited pessimism": one would have to expect the worst, arm oneself against it and at the same time remain confident.
Karl Meyer was married to Alice Meyer and was the father of the physicist Verena Meyer .
literature
- Georg Thürer: Karl Meyer. In: Erwin Jaeckle , Eduard Stäuble (Hrsg.): Grosse Schweizerinnen und Schweizerinnen. Gut, Stäfa 1990, ISBN 3-85717-064-6 , pp. 579-583.
- Edgar Bonjour : Meyer, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 358 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Peter Stadler : Between class struggle, corporate state and cooperative society. Political ideologies in Swiss history of the interwar period . In: Historical magazine . Volume 219, 1974, 290-358, esp.p. 332-340.
- Alice Meyer: Adaptation or Resistance. Switzerland at the time of German National Socialism . Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld, Stuttgart, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-7193-1542-9
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl Meyer in the catalog of the German National Library
- Publications by Karl Meyer in the Opac der Regesta Imperii
- Pierre Surchat: Meyer, Karl. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ^ Obituaries for Karl Meyer. Announcements from the Antiquarian Society in Zurich. Volume 37 1952
- ↑ [1] Online archive for contemporary history at ETH
- ↑ Gerhard Meister: Science in the fight for the fatherland. The historian Karl Meyer and the spiritual national defense . Licentiate thesis. Historical institute
- ↑ NZZ from July 19, 2000: Cheeky pessimism
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Meyer, Karl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 21, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Buchs LU |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 30, 1950 |
| Place of death | Kreuzlingen |