Kurt Wehrle (historian)

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Kurt Wehrle (born January 4, 1938 in Basel ; † May 28, 1994 ; resident in Basel) was a Swiss historian .

Life

Wehrle graduated from the Swiss Federal Matura Type B . He studied history , philosophy , German and French at the universities of Basel , Paris and Geneva . In 1964 he did his doctorate with Edgar Bonjour with a dissertation on "The spiritual development of Johannes von Müller " . He made the senior teacher diploma and taught from 1967 as a permanent high school teacher with part-time work. In 1977 he completed his habilitation with a paper on "Analectics and Dialectics of Restorative Intention" .

Although Wehrle was not on the list of three of the appointments committee of the Philosophical-Historical Faculty and was deemed unsuitable by the latter, the government council of the canton of Basel-Stadt appointed him on April 27, 1982 as successor to Herbert Lüthy as full professor of modern general history and Swiss history . The groups of lecturers, assistants and students at the History Department of the University of Basel protested against this decision. The students carried out a three-day strike and other actions. The Tages-Anzeiger described the march of 900 to 1000 participants in front of the Basel town hall on May 6, 1982 as the "largest student demonstration since 1968".

Wehrle's competence was questioned and his approach to the history of ideas (accusation of a Eurocentric and racist way of thinking) and his unnecessarily complicated manner of expression were criticized. It was also alleged that Wehrle was elected by the then majority bourgeois government council on the basis of political considerations. Many students boycotted his courses for years.

When Wehrle became head of the historical seminar in the winter semester 1988/89, an open conflict arose within the seminar. Finally, Wehrle's chair was spun off as a separate institute ( Institute for Special Aspects of European History and International Politics , from 1991 Institute for Special European History ) and the Lüthy Chair was released for new appointments. The newly created institute was dissolved again in 1994 after Wehrle's death.

One of his assistants was Lukas Schmutz , who is now head of the national editorial team at Radio SRF .

From 1982 Wehrle was a lieutenant colonel in the general staff of the Swiss Army .

Fonts

  • The intellectual development of Johannes von Müller: A historical contribution to the freedom problem of young idealism (= Basel contributions to historical science. Vol. 98). Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1965 (dissertation, University of Basel, 1963).
  • Analectics and dialectics of the restorative intention: A basic contribution to the continental European behavior problem 1780–1840 (= Basel contributions to historical science. Vol. 141). Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1980, ISBN 3-7190-0759-6 (habilitation thesis, University of Basel)

literature

  • Department of History of the University of Basel (ed.): Our strike for history: The Wehrle case moves Basel. Self-published, Basel 1982.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ General History Research Society of Switzerland: Bulletin. No. 55 (1994), p. 73.
  2. ↑ http://www.sciencesofa.info/2012/09/wissenschaftsskandale-3-streik-an-der-universitat-basel/ .
  3. ^ Files in the State Archives Basel-Stadt; Guy P. Marchal : Brief History of the History Department of the University of Basel .
  4. ↑ people. In: Cash . April 12, 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Wehrle, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1994