Martin Sommerfeld

Martin Sommerfeld (born May 2, 1894 in Angerburg ( East Prussia ), † July 26, 1939 in Bristol (Vermont) USA) was a German literary historian .

Life

Martin Sommerfeld was a son of the factory owner Heinrich Sommerfeld and his wife Bertha, nee. Small. After attending school in Königsberg (Prussia) and Insterburg and graduating from the Prinz-Heinrich-Gymnasium in Schöneberg , he studied German, philosophy and history in Berlin and Munich from 1912 , where he worked with Franz Muncker (1855-1926) in 1916 Friedrich Nicolai received his doctorate . In 1919 he married Helene Schott (1892–1974). After completing his habilitation in German literary history with Franz Schultz (1877–1950) at the University of Frankfurt , he became a private lecturer there in 1922 and an associate professor in 1927. He wrote numerous contributions to the real dictionary of German literary history .

After the transfer of power to the Nazis , he was 1933 racial grounds due to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil the teaching license revoked. He emigrated to the USA , where he earned his living from visiting professorships. a. at Columbia University in New York . Since 1936 he taught at Smith College in Northampton . For the winter semester of 1939 he had accepted a call to the newly founded Queens College , but died while teaching at the Middlebury Summer School in Bristol (Vermont).

His doctoral thesis was placed on the list of banned authors in Germany in 1936 . On May 30, 1939, he was expatriated from the German Reich and on August 1, 1940, the Reichsanzeiger announced that the University of Munich had revoked his doctorate .

Fonts (selection)

• Friedrich Nicolai and the Sturm und Drang. A contribution to the history of the German Enlightenment . Dissertation Munich 1916; Leipzig: Bonna, 1917; Hall a. S .: Niemeyer, 1921
• (Ed.) Moritz August von Thümmel: Wilhelmine; or, The Pedant In Love . Munich: Roland-Verlag, 1918
• (Ed.) Vormärz. A lyric anthology . Munich: Roland-Verlag, 1918
• (Ed.) Jean Paul: Peace Sermon. A selection from his political writings . Munich: Dreiländerverlag, 1919
• Hebbel and Goethe. Studies on the history of German classicism in the 19th century . Habilitation thesis; Bonn: F. Cohen, 1923
• With Paul Hirsch. German history of clutter in broad outline. A bibliopsiles revision course. Dedicated to the members of the Frankfurt Bibliophile Society . Offenbach: W. Gerstung, 1924. 14 pp.
• The book reader. Thoughts to justify it. Dedicated for the members of the Frankfurt Bibliophile Society and dedicated to them on February 22, 1925 . Frankfurt a. M .: Frankfurt Bibliophile Society, 1925. 29 pp.
• (Ed.) Johann Christoph Sachse: The German Gil Blas, introduced by Goethe . Frankfurt a. M .: Frankfurter Verlags-Anstalt, 1925
• (Ed.) Johann Georg Hamann: attempt of a Sibylle over marriage . Frankfurt a. M .: Hirsch, 1925
• (Ed.) German baroque poetry . Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1929
• (Ed.) German poetry 1880-1930, selected and arranged according to motifs . Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1931
• (Ed.) Romantic poetry, selected and organized according to motifs . Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1932
• (Ed.) Judith dramas of the 16th and 17th centuries along with Luther's preface to the book Judith . Berlin: Junker & Dünnhaupt, 1933
• (Ed.) George, Hofmannsthal, Rilke . New York: Norton, 1938
• Goethe in the environment and subsequent time. Collected Studies . Leiden: AW Sijthoff, 1935
• "Die Gestalt des Lehrers in der Deutschen Literatur", German Quarterly 10 (1937) pp. 107-122

literature

• Wolfgang Adam: Sommerfeld, Martin. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 3: R-Z. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1760-1761.
• Anna Eberhardt: "Martin Sommerfeld - pioneer of reception aesthetics?" In: Frankfurter Literaturwissenschaftler 1914-1945 , ed. by Frank Estelmann and Bernd Zegowitz. 2014. Online version
• Stefanie Harrecker: Graduated doctors. The revocation of the doctorate at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich during the Nazi era . Munich: Utz, 2007. ISBN 978-3-8316-0691-7
• Sommerfeld, Martin. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 19: Sand – Stri. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-598-22699-1 , pp. 285-290.
• Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 347
• Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography . Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1979. ISBN 3-262-01204-1 (reprint of the Czernowitz edition 1925)

Web links

• Literature by and about Martin Sommerfeld in the catalog of the German National Library
• Appreciation of the Goethe University Frankfurt with a portrait photo