Max Pohlenz

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Max (imilian) Hugo Pohlenz (born July 30, 1872 in Hänchen near Cottbus; † January 5, 1962 in Göttingen ) was a German classical philologist .

Life

Max Pohlenz, the son of the landowner Julius Pohlenz (1829–1879), studied classical philology from 1892, first at the University of Erlangen , where he had already joined the Frankonia Erlangen fraternity in 1890 , and later in Berlin and at the University of Göttingen with Ulrich by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Friedrich Leo . In 1895 he passed the state examination in Göttingen and started teaching. At the same time he was working on a dissertation on Poseidonios , with which he received his doctorate in Berlin in 1898. After the probationary year at the Friedrichs-Gymnasium Berlin and the seminar year at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium , he was employed in 1898 as an assistant teacher at the Hohenzollern-School in [Berlin] - Schöneberg . On April 1, 1900 he was employed as a senior teacher.

On April 1, 1906, Pohlenz was appointed associate professor at the University of Göttingen. His position was set up to relieve the full professors Friedrich Leo and Eduard Schwartz in view of the growing number of students. Pohlenz turned down a call to the University of Basel (1912). In 1916 he was appointed as the successor to Paul Wendland , who had succeeded Schwartz in his chair for classical philology in 1909. Because of this appointment, the University of Münster refrained from appointing Pohlenz.

After reaching the age of 65, Pohlenz retired in 1937. Due to a dispute over the award of an honorary doctorate to the Italian philologist Gino Funaioli , the ministry forbade him to continue lecturing, but after a successful protest Pohlenz was able to hold his lecture in the winter semester of 1937/38. In 1940 he was appointed a corresponding member of the Reale Accademia Virgiliana of Mantua . After the end of National Socialism in 1945, teaching in Göttingen had to be re-established. In 1947, Pohlenz found himself ready to take part in the provisional training program. On April 1, 1956, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a lecturer in Göttingen.

Services

Pohlenz's extensive academic work is divided into five focal points: the philological interpretation of philosophical texts, the critical edition of the Moralia Plutarchs , his studies of Stoic philosophy , research on constitutional law and attitudes towards the state of antiquity, and research on Attic drama. Especially The Greek Tragedy (1930), The Stoa. History of a Spiritual Movement (1942) and The Hellenic Man (1946) should be emphasized.

The publication of Plutarch had a special fate. Pohlenz participated in this work, initiated by Wilamowitz in 1908, as an employee from the start. After the editor's death, he published the first volume posthumously in 1925. During the period of National Socialism and World War II, his work was made even more difficult. The laborious collation of the manuscripts also caused great difficulties for Pohlenz because of his poor eyesight. Despite the abandonment of the planned seventh and last volume, Pohlenz did not see the end of this work: the last fascicle appeared after his death.

personality

Pohlenz saw himself primarily as an academic teacher. During his time as a grammar school teacher he felt sufficiently prepared for this and often emphasized the importance of these experiences for his teaching. He demanded the greatest possible accuracy from his students, also in detail. His great and personally motivated concern for his students was reflected in the dedication of his book on the Stoa: "My students, the living and the dead".

Like the majority of university lecturers in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, Pohlenz was politically conservative and in 1926, in a training college for teachers, expressed criticism of the multi-party system of the Weimar Republic, which he wanted to see replaced by the “strong government” of a small elite. However, he was skeptical about National Socialism. In a newspaper article in 1933 he pleaded for the retention of the humanistic grammar school education.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • State thought and political theory of the Greeks. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1923.
  • Ancient leadership. Cicero de officiis and the ideal of Panaitios. Teubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1934.
  • Hippocrates and the Justification of Scientific Medicine. Berlin 1938.
  • The foundation of occidental linguistic teaching through the Stoa. In: News from the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class, subject group 1. New series, Volume 3, No. 6, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1939, pp. 151–198.
  • Basic questions of stoic philosophy (= treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class. Volume 3, No. 26). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1940.
  • The Hellenic man. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1946.
  • The stoa. History of a Spiritual Movement. 2 volumes, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1949.
  • Greek freedom. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1954.
  • Heinrich Dörrie (ed.): Small writings. 2 volumes, Olms, Hildesheim 1965.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Elsheimer (ed.): Directory of the old fraternity members according to the status of the winter semester 1927/28. Frankfurt am Main 1928, p. 391.
  2. ^ A b Heinrich Dörrie: Max Pohlenz †. In: Gnomon. Volume 33, 1962, p. 635.
  3. ↑ Cornelia Wegeler: "... we say from the international scholarly republic". Vienna 1996, p. 233.
  4. ^ Heinrich Dörrie: Max Pohlenz †. In: Gnomon. Volume 33, 1962, pp. 635-636.
  5. ↑ Cornelia Wegeler, “… we say from the international learned republic” , Vienna 1996, pp. 87-88.
personal data
SURNAME Pohlenz, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pohlenz, Maximilian; Pohlenz, Max Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicken
DATE OF DEATH 5th January 1962
Place of death Goettingen