Konrad Kraft

Konrad Kraft (born April 4, 1920 in Reisdorf / Pfaffenhofen district; † October 22, 1970 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German ancient historian and numismatist .

Life and research

After graduating from high school in Freising in 1938, Kraft was drafted into military service against France, Poland and Russia during World War II . He was awarded high war medals for his bravery and leadership skills. He was able to escape from Soviet captivity by escaping. The force who was remote from the Nazi regime later became an American prisoner of war, from which he was released in June 1945. He then studied 1946-1948 Classical Philology and History in Munich and 1949 in Bern at Andreas Alföldi with the work to recruit the Alen and cohorts on the Rhine and Danube doctorate . From 1952 to 1959 he was a curator at the Staatliche Münzsammlung München and also held lectures and exercises at the University of Munich. During this time he completed his habilitation in 1954 at the University of Munich with Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg with the work The golden wreath of Caesar and the struggle to unmask the "tyrant" . From 1959 Kraft was an associate professor for “ auxiliary sciences in antiquity”, from 1962 until his untimely death in 1970 he was then a full professor for ancient history at the University of Frankfurt am Main .

From 1952 to 1965 he worked in various functions for the Numismatic Commission of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany . He was a member and editor-in-chief of the Bavarian Numismatic Society . In addition, he was a member of the Roman-Germanic Commission since 1952, a corresponding member from 1953 and a full member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) from 1957 . In 1962 he was at the place of the late Hans Schaefer in the Commission for Ancient History and Epigraphy chosen the DAI.

Kraft dealt primarily with ancient numismatics and monetary history. Together with Hans Gebhart, he was the publisher of the collective work Die Fundmünzen der Romanzeit im Deutschland in Deutschland, published from 1960, and suggested literature reviews on Greek numismatics in the Yearbook for Numismatics and Monetary History , of which he was co-editor since 1952. Particularly groundbreaking was his investigation The End Date of the Haltern Legionary Camp , in which he used the occurrence of the so-called Nemausus aces and the Lyon altar series to provide dating approaches for a number of sites of the Augustan Germanic campaigns, including the Varus Battle .

Fonts

• For recruiting the ales and cohorts on the Rhine and Danube. Francke, Bern 1951 (extended version of the dissertation, University of Bern 1949).
• The end date of the legionary camp Haltern. In: Bonner Jahrbücher . Volume 155/156, 1955/56, pp. 95-111.
• The golden wreath of Caesar and the struggle to unmask the tyrant. In: Yearbook for Numismatics and Monetary History. Vol. 5-6, 1954-1955, S, 4-97.
  • The golden wreath of Caesar and the struggle to unmask the tyrant. 2nd edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1969 (new edition as a monograph, supplemented by a supplement).
• The "rational" Alexander. Edited and edited from the estate by Helga Gesche . Laßleben, Kallmünz 1971, ISBN 3-7847-7105-X .
• The system of imperial coinage in Asia Minor. Materials and designs. Mann, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-7861-2178-8 .
• Collected essays on ancient history and military history. 2 volumes, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1973–1985, ISBN 3-534-06527-1 , ISBN 3-534-08032-7 .

literature

• Andreas Alföldi : Konrad Kraft. In: Gnomon . Volume 43, 1971, pp. 318-320.
• Helga Gesche: On the death of Prof. Dr. Konrad Kraft. In: Konrad Kraft: The "rational" Alexander. Edited and edited from the estate by Helga Gesche. Laßleben, Kallmünz 1971, ISBN 3-7847-7105-X , pp. 133-136.
• Helmut Castritius , Dietmar Kienast : List of publications / Curriculum Vitae K. Kraft. In: Konrad Kraft: Collected essays on ancient monetary history and numismatics II (= small writings. Volume 3). Edited by Helmut Castritius and Dietmar Kienast. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1985, ISBN 3-534-08032-7 , pp. 221-227.
• Dietmar Kienast, Helmut Castritius: Prof. Dr. Konrad Kraft (1920–1970). In: Reiner Cunz (Ed.): Concordia ditat. 50 years of the Numismatic Commission of the States in the Federal Republic of Germany 1950–2000. Gietl, Regenstauf 2000, ISBN 3-924861-37-4 , pp. 79-94.
• Kay Ehling : Kraft, Konrad. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 668-670.

Web links

• Literature by and about Konrad Kraft in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jakob Seibert : "From seminar to seminar". In: Derselbe (Ed.): 100 Years of Old History at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich (1901–2001) (= Ludovico Maximilianea. Research and sources. Volume 19). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-428-10875-2 , pp. 23-39, here pp. 25 f.