Kurt Stegmann from Pritzwald

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Kurt Friedrich Woldemar Stegmann of Pritzwald (* May thirtieth . Jul / 12. June  1901 greg. In Birkenruh in Wenden ( Livonia ); † 21st December 1962 in Marburg ) was a German Indo-Europeanist , linguist and university teachers .

Origin, studies and career entry

Kurt Stegmann von Pritzwald was the son of the agronomist and university professor Friedrich Percival Stegmann von Pritzwald (1868–1938) and his wife Alice, nee Neander.

He completed his school career at grammar schools in Riga and from 1918 in Stettin and Meiningen , which he completed in 1920 at the Bernhardinum with the Abitur . After the end of the First World War , he worked in the Jena Freikorps as well as in the Iron Division and the Baltic State Army until February 1920 . For participating in the battles in the Baltic States , he was awarded the Baltic Cross and the Landeswehr Cross with Swords. After graduating from high school, he studied Indo-European linguistics, German, Slavic, classical philology, history and economics at the universities of Giessen, Jena and Munich. During his studies he worked as a student trainee and went on study trips to other European countries. After completing his studies and passing the exam to become a lecturer in 1925, he worked as a Russian editor at the University of Jena. In 1928 he was awarded a doctorate by Albert Debrunner in Jena with his dissertation “On the history of the relations between Homer and Plato”. phil. PhD . From 1929 he taught on a substitute basis at a grammar school in Salzwedel and then at the Oberlyzeum in Merseburg . In 1932 he moved to Kiel and completed his habilitation there in February 1933 with a work on “The attribute in Old Lithuania” from Ernst Fraenkel .

Since 1929 he was married to Christa, nee Buchfink. The couple had a daughter (Elisabeth, * 1935) and a son (Raimund, * 1937).

time of the nationalsocialism

Political activity

Stegmann was one of the signatories of an appeal for the NSDAP in July 1932. In the course of the transfer of power to the National Socialists , he joined the SA in November 1933 , where he became a squad leader. Since October 1934 he has been involved as a trainer for folklore and homeland at the DAF . In addition, he belonged to the NS teachers 'association since December 1933, to the NSV , to the NS lecturers' association and to the Reich Air Protection Association since October 1934 . He was admitted to the NSDAP in June 1937 with retroactive effect from May 1, 1937 ( membership number 5.580.554).

He was a member of the scientific council of the Stuttgart- based German Foreign Institute . During the Weimar Republic , he had been senior group leader at the Volksbund for Germanness Abroad since 1921 . From 1932 he led the Carl Schirren Group he founded in Kiel.

Lecturer and professor at universities

After his habilitation he worked as a private lecturer for Indo-European linguistics at the University of Kiel . Through the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft he received a scholarship for linguistic studies on "Culture and State of the Romans"; he carried out the research project from April 1934 to January 1936. In November 1936 he completed his habilitation at the University of Marburg . From 1938 to 1939 he took over the chair for comparative linguistics from Leo Weisgerber , who had moved to Marburg, at the University of Rostock . In March 1940 in Marburg he was appointed a permanent diet lecturer for comparative linguistics.

Completely unexpected for Stegmann in 1937/38 the Gestapo u. a. at the instigation of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry confiscated an edition of the specialist journal ““ words and things ”that it had published . The background to this measure was the printing of a map with language boundaries published for the first time in 1914, which was not accepted by the National Socialists .

Second World War

After the beginning of the Second World War , Stegmann was drafted into the Wehrmacht and used as an interpreter. From the end of October 1941 he was a university clerk at the Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO) based in Riga. He also held the position of head of the scientific advisory board in the RKO. In Dorpat he headed a delegation of scientists who on April 15, 1943 pathetically proclaimed the "war effort of science in the East". After all, from November 1943 on, he took on part-time and from the beginning of June 1944 full-time management of the special department for science and culture in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories . He returned to Marburg by mid-November 1944 at the latest and resumed teaching. At the end of January 1945 he was appointed adjunct professor in Marburg.

post war period

After the end of the war, Stegmann was released and was temporarily detained. This was followed by a stay in Davos due to illness . From 1952 to 1962 he taught again as a permanent lecturer for comparative linguistics at the University of Marburg.

From 1952 he was secretary of the German section of the Institut International de Sociologie in Rome . In the same year he took over the deputy chairmanship of the Carl-Schirren-Gesellschaft . In the latter function he was involved in policy on expellees. His research focus was comparative linguistics.

Fonts

  • Language and personality: The sense of comparative personal designations , Frommannsche Buchhandlung, Jena 1927
  • On the history of the designations of rulers from Homer to Plato: An attempt at the history of meaning , CL Hirschfeld, Leipzig 1930. In: Research on ethnic psychology and sociology; Vol. 7
  • The attribute in Old Lithuanian , Carl Winter Verlag, Heidelberg 1934. In: Indo-European Library, Volume 14
  • Use of linguistics , Armanen-Verlag, Leipzig 1936.
  • Ideological interpretation of history? A discussion with Friedrich Heer / Ernst Neubauer , Musterschmidt, Göttingen; Berlin; Frankfurt; Zurich 1963

literature

  • Inge Auerbach (arrangement): Catalogus professorum academiae Marburgensis. The academic teachers at the Philipps University in Marburg from 1911 to 1971 . Marburg 1979, p. 613 f.
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 166.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Baltic Historical Commission (ed.): Entry on Kurt Stegmann von Pritzwald. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
  2. ↑ a b Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 166.
  3. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 598f.
personal data
SURNAME Stegmann von Pritzwald, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stegmann von Pritzwald, Kurt Friedrich Woldemar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Indo-Europeanist, linguist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Birch rest at Wenden in Livonia
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1962
Place of death Marburg