Max Herrmann (theater scholar)

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Max Herrmann, ca.1900
Stumbling block in front of the house, Augsburger Strasse 42, in Berlin-Charlottenburg
Grave site at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee (bottom right)

Max Herrmann (born May 14, 1865 in Berlin ; † November 17, 1942 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp ) was a German literary historian and theater scholar .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1884, he studied Germanic philology and history in Freiburg, Göttingen and Berlin. After his habilitation on Albrecht von Eyb , he taught from 1891 as a private lecturer in Germanic philology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. In 1898 Herrmann married Helene Herrmann , née Schlesinger. After being appointed professor in 1903, he also worked as a freelance lecturer and was involved in numerous companies, such as B. in the Society for Theater History . In 1916 he founded the library of German private and manuscript prints in the Royal Library of Berlin .

In 1900 Max Herrmann gave the first theater studies lectures within the German Institute at Berlin University . In his investigation of Goethe's Plundersweilern fair , he did not limit himself to a pure study of the sources, but included the stage history of the work. In 1914 his main work, Research on German Theater History in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , appeared, in which he specified his approach to theater studies.

Herrmann consistently advocated the emancipation of theater studies from German studies . In 1919 he received a chair at Berlin University. When the Theater Studies Institute was opened in 1923 , Herrmann became its alternate director together with Julius Petersen .

In 1933, Max Herrmann's teaching was brought to an abrupt end. First he was forcibly retired.

On September 10, 1942, Max Herrmann and his wife Helene were deported on the 63rd Berlin transport to the so-called "old people's ghetto" Theresienstadt. There he died on November 17, 1942. Until the end he worked with severe disabilities (for example, he was only allowed to look at books standing in the Berlin State Library) on his book The Origin of Professional Acting in Antiquity and Modern Times . Herrmann's student Ruth Mövius (1908–1989) saved the manuscript, but it was not published until 1962 by the East Berlin Henschel Verlag.

The Berlin State Library awards every year on May 10, the day the Nazi book burning , the Max Herrmann-price of the Friends of the State Library .

In the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf , a street is named after Max Herrmann.

On November 17, 2008, a stumbling block was laid in front of his former home on Augsburger Strasse in Berlin-Charlottenburg .

Works

  • Research on German theater history in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Weidmann, Berlin 1914.
  • The stage of Hans Sachs. An open letter to Albert Köster . Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Berlin 1928.
  • The emergence of professional acting in ancient and modern times. Edited and with an obituary by Ruth Mövius. Henschel, Berlin 1962. online

literature

  • Stefan Corssen: Max Herrmann and the beginnings of theater studies. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1998.
  • Ronny Kabus: The most Protestant of all songs, a Luther manuscript forger and the fate of a German Jew. In: Series of publications by the State Luther Hall in Wittenberg. Issue 4/1988, pp. 41-46.
  • Hans Knudsen :  Herrmann, Max. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 690 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Any degeneration into gimmickry is to be excluded. In: Humboldt. The newspaper of the Alma Mater Berolinensis. October 14, 1993.
  • Herrmann, Max. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 11: Hein – Hirs. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-22691-8 , pp. 107-119.
  • Martin Hollender: The Berlin Germanist and theater scholar Max Herrmann (1865–1942). Life and work . Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz 2013. (= contributions from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz; Vol. 32) ISBN 978-3-88053-184-0 .

swell

  1. ↑ “Stumbling blocks” for Helene and Max Herrmann and for Käte Finder ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.gender.hu-berlin.de

Web links

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Wikisource: Max Herrmann  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Herrmann, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater scholar
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 17, 1942
Place of death Theresienstadt concentration camp