Klaus Conrad (historian)

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Klaus Conrad (born April 16, 1930 in Heidelberg ; † February 10, 2002 in Göttingen ) was a German historian and diplomat. He was a regional historian for Pomerania, East Prussia and West Prussia and dealt primarily with the history of the Middle Ages.

family

Conrad's father was the physicist Richard Conrad, who was born in Masmünster and spent his youth in Saarburg and Metz . The grandfather came from East Prussia and had been transferred to the realm of Alsace-Lorraine as a railway engineer . The paternal grandmother was born in Kaysersberg . Her parents came from the Palatinate (Bavaria) and were friends with Albert Schweitzer's parents . Conrad's mother Annemarie geb. Dragendorff was a daughter of Hans Dragendorff . His father was Georg Dragendorff , a brother of Ernst Dragendorff . Conrad's maternal grandmother, her brother and Elly Heuss-Knapp belonged to Schweitzer's circle of friends in Strasbourg .

Life

Conrad grew up in Heidelberg with one brother and two sisters. One of his teachers at the Kurfürst-Friedrich-Gymnasium Heidelberg was Otto Frommel . After he had passed the Abitur in 1949, he enrolled at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg for art history , archeology and history . In addition to his studies, he received training in restoration from Paul Hübner at the Augustinian Museum. In September 1950 he contracted poliomyelitis in Bologna . He suffered from the following impairments throughout his life. During his studies, he focused on history with geography and Latin as minor subjects. When he switched to the local Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , he heard from Erich Maschke and Fritz Ernst . He mastered the award task of the philosophical faculty for the Palatinate monastery Lambrecht with distinction. Fritz Ernst extended the dissertation, it was in July 1958 for promotion to Dr. phil. accepted. In the fall of 1959 he passed the state examination for high school teachers . Trained at the Heidelberg seminar for trainee students, he passed the assessor examination in 1961; However, he did not enter the school service, but was - very well identified in Medieval Studies - an employee of the Pomeranian Document Book and the Prussian Document Book. On April 1, 1962, he began working for the Herder Research Council . He was assigned to the Historical Commission for Pomerania and the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research as a research assistant. His main task was the further processing of the document books . His workplace was the Göttingen State Archive Camp . When the former Prussian State Archives Königsberg from Göttingen as XX. Main department were given to the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage , the document books (until Conrad's retirement) remained in the direction of the respective historical commission, the supervision at the Herder Institute (Marburg) , the technical supervision with the commission chairmen Roderich Schmidt (Pommersches UB) and Udo Arnold (Preuss. UB). Conrad was given a work room in the Göttingen State and University Library . From 1978 he was part of the editorial team of the Baltic Studies . From 1980 to 2000 he was chief editor. When the Herder Research Council became independent, the new Herder Institute in Marburg became Conrad's employer on January 1, 1994. Widowed and in a wheelchair, he retired on April 30, 1995 when he reached the age limit.

In his evangelical religiosity, “[he] loved the South German-Austrian Baroque very particularly; because the churches convey something of the glory of God, they make you shudder in awe and still cheer you up. This is a religious area that Protestantism withheld to a large extent from its believers and that I miss ”(September 1999). Jan Maria Piskorski was one of Conrad's Polish colleagues . He was married to Siw Brisholm Conrad († 1993) from Sweden. When he was buried in the grave of his wife in the park cemetery Junkerberg in Göttingen, Bernhart Jähnig was present. Conrad's marriage resulted in two sons.

“Since I started working on the document books of Pomerania and East and West Prussia in 1961, I have seen the point of my work in helping to ensure that the German history of these areas remains part of the historical consciousness of our people. ... I consider the Pomeranian document book to be a German task. We have lost Western Pomerania and have to come to terms with it. But the history of the country is German history. ... It is not difficult to foresee that East German history will disappear from the historical consciousness of our people (insofar as there is such a consciousness at all). But I believe that there will be a reaction against the current phase of arching the back, as soon as one moves into German history beyond the Oder and Neisse rivers. The more pressure of opinion is exerted on these issues, the stronger it will be. "

- Klaus Conrad

Works

Book editions

  • Pommersches Urkundenbuch, Vol. 1 (786–1253), revised 1970.
  • Prussian Document Book, Vol. 5 (1352–1361), 1969–1975.
  • Pommersches Urkundenbuch, Vol. 10 (1336-1340), 1984.
  • Prussian Document Book, Vol. 6 / 1–2 (1362–1371), 1986–2000.
  • Pommersches Urkundenbuch, Vol. 11 (1341-1345), 1990.

Contributions to anthologies or magazines

  • The creation of the collection of handicrafts of the Marshal's Office . 1963.
  • Lithuania, the German Order and Charles IV. 1972.
  • The third Lithuanian train of King John of Bohemia and the resignation of Grand Master Ludolf König . 1972.
  • Enfeoffment of the Dukes of Pomerania by Charles IV in 1348 . 1978.
  • Founding of ducal cities in Pomerania on spiritual soil . 1981.
  • The tenth volume of the Pomeranian Document Book as a source on Pomeranian history from 1336-1340 . 1981.
  • Documentary foundations of a settlement history in Pomerania up to 1250 . 1982.
  • The transfer of order and monastery ownership in Pomerania to the Teutonic Order . 1985.
  • Settlement and settlement conditions in Pomerania since Christianization . 1988.
  • The Teutonic Order and its regional development in Prussia . 1993.
  • Disputes between the cities of Szczecin, Greifenhagen and Gollnow with the Szczecin dukes after the Frankfurt treaties of 1338 . 1995
  • Contributions in: Mecklenburg / Pomerania (Handbook of Historic Places in Germany 12). 1996.
  • Unknown sources on the second Hanseatic War with King Waldemar IV of Denmark from a formula book in the Marienbibliothek in Danzig . 1997.
  • Experience in editing the Prussian document book . 1998.
  • Contributions in: The Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order 1190-1994 / 2012 . 1998, 2014.
  • The importance of the Pomeranian document book for historical research . 1999.
  • Contribution in: German history in Eastern Europe: Pomerania 1368–1478 . 1999.
  • The opposition to Grand Master Karl von Trier in the Order of Prussia . 2000.

Memberships

estate

Conrad's estate is kept in the Greifswald State Archives . The estate relating to East and West Prussia is in the deposit of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research in the Secret State Archives in Berlin.

literature

  • Udo Arnold : Klaus Conrad (April 16, 1930– February 10, 2002) . Prussia (Journal of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research), vol. 40 (2002), pp. 76–77.
  • Karl-Heinz Spieß : Das Pommersche Urkundenbuch , in: Publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania, ed. by Gerd Albrecht, Felix Biermann , Nils Jörn , Michael Lissok and Haik Thomas Porada . Series V: Research on Pomeranian History, Vol. 47 (2018), pp. 203–212.
  • Rudolf Benl: Klaus Conrad (1930-2002) . Baltic Studies, New Series, Vol. 88 (Vol. 134 of the complete series), pp. 7-11.
  • Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dissertation: The history of the Dominican convent in Lambrecht (near Neustadt an der Weinstrasse), examined on the basis of the sources up to the Reformation .
  2. ↑ Grave of Conrad and his wife in Göttingen
personal data
SURNAME Conrad, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medievalist, historian and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 2002
Place of death Goettingen