Max von Oppenheim

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Max von Oppenheim
Map: The ruins of Assyria : From the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf (1900)
Relief with two heroes from Tell Halaf

Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (born July 15, 1860 in Cologne , † November 15, 1946 in Landshut ) was a German diplomat , orientalist and archaeologist specializing in the Near East . In 1899 he discovered the settlement hill Tell Halaf and carried out excavations there until 1929. He brought many of his finds to Berlin and exhibited them there in a private museum that was destroyed in the Allied air raids on Berlin. Most of these finds, however, were restored after the fall of the Wall and shown in exhibitions in Berlin and Bonn.

Life

Max von Oppenheim was the second child of Paula Engels and Albert von Oppenheim , a personally liable partner of the Cologne private bank Sal. Oppenheim and a member of the Oppenheim family .

education

At the request of his father, he studied law at the University of Strasbourg from 1879 , where he joined the Corps Palatia Strasbourg in 1880 . After the state examination in Cologne he became 1883 in Goettingen to the Dr. jur. PhD . In 1891 the assessor exam followed in Cologne.

Research trips and work

The following year, financed by his father, he went on a long research trip to the Middle East , which began with a stay of several months in Cairo , where he learned the Arabic language . His professional goal was a diplomatic post in the Orient. Noble origins, legal training, language skills, cosmopolitanism and economic independence recommended him for this. However, he had underestimated the anti-Semitism in the Foreign Office . His application was repeatedly rejected with reference to his Jewish origin. It was not until the intervention of influential friends that Oppenheim was finally accepted into the consular service, which, however, was viewed as secondary. Oppenheim spent the period from 1896 to 1909 as an employee of the Imperial Consulate General in Cairo, to which he was assigned. First he was an attaché , in 1900 he was appointed legation councilor. He had no special assignment at the Consulate General. Therefore he was able to undertake various research trips to East Africa and the Middle East, where he temporarily performed diplomatic functions. On his research trips he had often met Bedouins , whose "feeling of freedom, hospitality and archaic understanding of male virtues" inspired him. It was then that he began to conduct scientific research into their way of life, which should lead to findings that are still valid today. His life in Cairo was shaped by the approach to the manners and customs of the Arab culture. He made many personal relationships and had several Arab women on a temporary basis . He also made contact with several Arab tribal leaders. Kaiser Wilhelm II later made a trip to the Orient at Oppenheim's suggestion.

In the meantime, von Oppenheim became familiar with the pursuit of pan-Islamism , which states that all Muslims residing in Europe or the USA should still be subjects of the Ottoman sultan. He later met with Sultan Abdul Hamid , where this was discussed among other things. Von Oppenheim deduced from this an enormous benefit for Germany if all European Muslims were subject to a state that was close to Germany, especially with regard to the growing Muslim population of the German opponents for European supremacy, France and England. Until 1910 he was Prime Minister in Cairo. He then resigned because he was stuck in the diplomatic service.

Tell Halaf

In November 1899, Oppenheim discovered the settlement hill Tell Halaf , which was to gain importance because of the prehistoric Halaf culture named after it and the Aramaic - Neo-Assyrian city ​​of Guzana discovered here . The finds from the early Iron Age , including some monumental sculptures, made Oppenheim a celebrity among German amateur archaeologists. From 1910 to 1913 he directed the excavations and continued them after the war in 1927 and 1929. Finally, Oppenheim negotiated a division of the property with the then French mandate government of Syria. Half of the works of art were presented in a museum he founded in Aleppo, the other half he brought to Berlin. Since the Pergamon Museum there was unable to adequately display the statues, Openheim set up the private Tell Halaf Museum in a converted machine hall at Berlin University in 1930 . The museum and Oppenheim's collection were largely destroyed in a bomb attack in 1943. The basalt figures, initially unharmed by the bombing, burst when the fire brigade tried to put out the fire.

First World War

Memorial to the genocide of 1915 against the Assyrians in the Friedenspark on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Locarno, Switzerland .

During the First World War he worked in the Foreign Office in Berlin , where he founded the intelligence agency for the Orient , and in the German embassy in Istanbul . During the war he sought to mobilize the Muslim population of the Middle East against Great Britain and can thus almost be seen as the German counterpart to both Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell ; after all, his activities in the interests of a religious war against the colonial rulers among the Arabs earned him the nickname Abu Djihat . In its strategy, the Foreign Office supported Islamic revolts in the colonial hinterland of the war opponents of the German Reich. The spiritual father of this double concept, of war firstly through troops at the front and secondly through völkisch rebellion “in the depths”, was von Oppenheim. This strategy developed by Max von Oppenheim had fatal consequences for the following 3 Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire: Pontic Greeks , Armenians and Assyrians (also known as Arameans or Chaldeans ). In the shadow of the First World War, the committed Ottoman Empire a genocide against the Christian minorities and the Yazidis .

Last years

Grave of Max von Oppenheim in Landshut, Lower Bavaria

In 1939 he made one last trip to Syria. On July 25, 1940, he wrote a memorandum to Theodor Habicht in support of the Nazi advance in North Africa. During the First World War he had high hopes for a pro-German revolution of devout Muslims through religion through jihad . Now, in the memorandum, he did not mention Islam as a lever for renewed German influence.

He survived the Holocaust and the Second World War in Berlin, although he was considered a so-called “ half-Jew ” - even if he was baptized Catholic . An Allied air raid on Berlin in 1943 destroyed his apartment in Berlin and large parts of his book and art collection. He moved to Dresden, where he survived the air raids in February 1945 . After losing all of his possessions, he moved to Ammerland Palace in Bavaria and lived there with his sister Wanda von Pocci. He died of pneumonia in Landshut in 1946 and is buried there. In Landshut, the Max-von-Oppenheim-Weg is named after him.

The text-bound estate of Max von Oppenheim and his photo collection are in the house archive of the Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. in Cologne. The archive is owned by the Max Freiherr von Oppenheim Foundation, founded in 1929 by its namesake . The photo collection can also be accessed online using keywords.

Whereabouts of the finds

For a long time after the Second World War, the sculptures of Tell Halaf were considered destroyed or lost because British bombers set the Tell Halaf Museum in Berlin on fire in 1943. By chance they were rediscovered in a storage room in the Pergamon Museum in the 1990s and then restored. It was planned to design the restoration in such a way that the entrance of the Pergamon Museum should be equipped with the original entrance sculptures of the Aramaic temple.

The rubble has been restored since 2001. 30 sculptures have been reawakened, along with other architecture and stone. 27,000 fragments had to be sorted and identified. In 2011 the “Gods Saved” were presented in a special exhibition in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Exhibitions

Movie

  • A Cologne baron on a treasure hunt: Max von Oppenheim's Orient Adventure. Documentary, Germany, 2016, 44 min., A film by Jens Nicolai. Editor: Christiane Mausbach, Lena Brochhagen, production: WDR , first broadcast: January 15, 2016, table of contents with online video and picture series.
  • In secret mission. The find of Tell Halaf . Documentary and docu-drama , Germany, 2011, 44 min., Written and directed: Saskia Weisheit, Kay Siering, production: ZDF , first broadcast: January 9, 2011
  • Max von Oppenheim . 1) The emperor's diplomat. 2)  The treasure of Tell Halaf. Documentary and docu-drama , Germany, 2009, 2 parts each 43 min., Script and director: Maurice Philip Remy , editor: Silvia Gutmann, speaker: Rolf Schult , music: Klaus Doldinger , MPR Film- und Fernsehproduktion and NDR , 1 Part 2. Part
  • The holy war . Episode 4: Jihad for the Emperor . Docu-drama, Germany, 2011, 40 min., Author: Georg Graffe, camera: Martin Christ, Marc Riemer, editors: Stefan Brauburger, Georg Graffe, directors: Peter Arens, Guido Knopp, 4th episode

Publications

  • Project of a plantation company in Handei (Usambara) in German East Africa. 1894 (printed as a manuscript).
  • From the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, through the Hauran, the Syrian desert and Mesopotamia. Vol. 1-2. Berlin 1899, 1900. French as: Voyage en Syrie et en Mesopotamie, de Damas a Bagdad. Trad. et résumé by Jacottet. Paris 1900.
  • Rabeh and the Lake Chad area . Berlin 1902.
  • For the development of the Baghdad railway area and especially Syria and Mesopotamia using American experience . Berlin 1904 (printed as a manuscript).
  • Tell Halaf and the veiled goddess . In: Der alten Orient , 10/1 (1908).
  • Inscriptions from Syria, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Collected in 1899. 3 volumes. (= Contributions to Assyriological and Semitic Linguistics, Vol. 7). Vol. I: Arabic inscriptions. Edited by Dr. Max van Berchem. Leipzig 1909. Vol. II: Syrian inscriptions. Edited by Bernhard Moritz. Leipzig 1913. Vol. III: Hebrew inscriptions. Modifications made by Julius Euting. Leipzig 1913.
  • Revolutionizing the Islamic territories of our enemies. 1914.
  • The Turkish news room organization of the news office of the Imperial Embassy in Istanbul in the service of German advertising in the Orient. Berlin 1914.
  • The news room organization and economic propaganda in Turkey, its takeover by the German overseas service. Berlin 1917.
  • The development of the balance of power in Central and North Arabia. Berlin 1919.
  • Bedouin and other tribes in Syria, Mesopotamia, northern and central Arabia. Berlin 1919.
  • Glories of Tell Halaf - a Great Discovery. In: The Illustrated London News. No. 4775 and 4776 Oct-Nov. 1930.
  • The Oldest Monumental Statues in the World. A Great Discovery in Mesopotamia. In: The Illustrated London News. No. 4804, 1931.
  • Tell Halaf, a new culture in the oldest Mesopotamia. Leipzig 1931. English as: Tell Halaf. A New Culture in Oldest Mesopotamia. Translation by Gerald Wheeler. London 1932; London / New York 1933. French as: Tell Halaf, la plus ancienne capitale subaréenne de Mésopotamie. Paris 1933.
  • Tell Halaf Museum guide. Berlin 1934.
  • Tell Halaf, une civilization retrouvée en Mésopotamie. Edition française complétée par l'auteur, translation by J. Marty, Paris 1939.
  • The Bedouins. With the collaboration of Erich Bräunlich and Werner Caskel. Vol. I: The Bedouin tribes in Mesopotamia and Syria. Leipzig 1939. Vol. II: The Bedouin tribes in Palestine, Transjordan, Sinai, Hedjaz. Leipzig 1944. Volume III: The Bedouin tribes in northern and central Arabia and in Iraq. Ed. And ed. by Werner Caskel, Wiesbaden 1952. Vol. IV: Register and bibliography. Ed. And ed. by Werner Caskel, Wiesbaden 1968.
  • The inscriptions from Tell Halaf. Cuneiform texts and Aramaic documents from an Assyrian provincial capital. Edited and edited by Johannes Friedrich , Gerhard Rudolf Meyer , Arthur Ungnad , Ernst Friedrich Weidner , Archive for Orient Research Supplement 6 (1940).
  • History of the Engels family in Cologne and Hartung in Mayen. Dresden 1943 (printed as a manuscript).
  • My research trips to Upper Mesopotamia. Map 1: 500,000 with accompanying words and index of place names. Berlin 1943 (special issue 21/22 on the news from the Reich Surveying Service).
  • Tell Halaf. Volume I: The Prehistoric Finds. Edited by Hubert Schmidt . With an introduction to the complete works of Max Frh. Von Oppenheim. Berlin 1943. Volume II: The buildings, by Felix Langenegger, Karl Müller, Rudolf Naumann. Edited and supplemented by Rudolf Naumann . Berlin 1950. Volume III: The sculptures. Edited and edited by Anton Moortgat, Berlin 1955. Volume IV: The small finds from historical times. Edited and edited by Barthel Hrouda , Berlin 1962.
  • Memorandum on revolutionizing the Islamic territories of our enemies . Verlag Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946990-20-8 ; Review by Ulrike Freitag in: Frankfurter Allgemeine "Bücher" on August 12, 2018 [1]

literature

  • Max von Oppenheim (1860-1946) (bibliography) on Islamic Academy, accessed on August 19, 2019. [2]
  • Nadja Cholidis, Lutz Martin : Tell Halaf and its excavator Max Freiherr von Oppenheim. Heads up! Courage up! and humor high! . Zabern, Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-8053-2853-2 and ISBN 3-8053-2978-4 .
  • Nadja Cholidis, Lutz Martin: Monuments destroyed in the war and their restoration (= Tell Halaf / Max von Oppenheim. Vol. 5). De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-022935-6 .
  • Martina Doering: The 27,000-stone puzzle. In: Berliner Zeitung , December 13, 2008; on Max von Oppenheim's Tell Halaf collection.
  • Lionell Gossman: The Passion of Max von Oppenheim. Archeology and Intrigue in the Middle East from Wilhelm II to Hitler . Open Book Publishers, ISBN 978-1-909254-22-0 ( openbookpublishers.com [accessed May 23, 2013]).
  • Simone Hamm: West-East Divan. Utopia and Reality: Discoverer and Spy for Emperor and Empire . In: The Feature . Deutschlandfunk , May 4, 2012 ( dradio.de ).
  • Marc Hanisch: Max Freiherr von Oppenheim and the revolutionization of the Islamic world as anti-imperial liberation from above. In Wilfried Loth, Marc Hanisch: First World War and Jihad. The Germans and the revolutionization of the Orient. Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, pp. 13–38.
  • Stefan M. Kreutzer: Jihad for the German Kaiser. Max von Oppenheim and the Reorganization of the Orient (1914–1918). Ares , Graz 2012, ISBN 978-3-902732-03-3 .
  • Ursula Moortgat-Correns:  Max von Oppenheim. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 562 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Oppenheim, Max von. In: Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 2: L-Z. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB 453960294 , pp. 1361-1362.
  • Michael Stürmer , Gabriele Teichmann, Wilhelm Treue : Wagons and Wagons. Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. History of a bank and a family. Piper, Munich 1989 (and other revised editions), ISBN 3-492-03282-6 .
  • Gabriele Teichmann, Gisela Völger: Fascination with the Orient: Max von Oppenheim, researcher, collector, diplomat. DuMont, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5849-0 .
  • Gabriele Teichmann: Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1860–1946), archaeologist, oriental researcher, diplomat. Short biography of Oppenheim on the website Portal Rheinische Geschichte of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR), online (accessed on March 20, 2014).
  • Ernst Friedrich Weidner (Ed.): From five millennia of oriental culture. Festschrift dedicated to Max Freiherrn von Oppenheim on the occasion of his 70th birthday by friends and employees. (= Archive for Orient Research. Supplement 1), Weidner, Berlin 1933. Reprint: Biblio, Osnabrück 1967.

Web links

Commons : Max von Oppenheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Max von Oppenheim  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 35 , 26
  2. ^ Gabriele Teichmann: Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (1860-1946), archaeologist, oriental researcher, diplomat. Short biography of Oppenheim on the website Portal Rheinische Geschichte of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR), online (accessed on March 21, 2014)
  3. ^ Klaus Jürgen Bremm: Propaganda in the First World War. Theiss-Verlag 2014; Meeting them in the Ö1 broadcast context of 28 March 2014 online (accessed on 28 March 2014)
  4. ↑ Wolfgang G. Schwanitz: Jihad "made in Germany". The dispute over the Holy War 1914–1915. In: Social.History Online . Journal for Historical Analysis of the 20th and 21st Centuries, 18, 2003, no. 2, pp. 7–34
  5. ↑ Aziz Said: Seyfo 1915: The Assyrian Genocide (video). ASSYRIA FILMS, 2015, accessed on March 28, 2020 (among others, in German).
  6. ↑ Svante Lundgren: The Assyrians: from Nineveh to Gütersloh . Ed .: LIT, 2015. LIT Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-13256-7 .
  7. ↑ Susanne Güsten: Genocide: The year of the sword . In: The time . April 18, 2015, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed on March 28, 2020]).
  8. Jump up ↑ Gerhard Höpp : The Koran as a "Secret Reichssache". Fragments of German Islam policy between 1938 and 1945 (PDF; 1.9 MB). In: Center for the Modern Orient (ZMO)
  9. ↑ Bundeskunsthalle: Adventure Orient (accessed on May 19, 2014)
  10. ↑ Collective review, together with the title: Alexander Will: Keine Griff nach der Weltmacht. Secret services and propaganda in the German-Austrian-Turkish alliance 1914–1918. Böhlau, Cologne 2012
  11. ^ First Junge Welt , March 30, 2004. A short summary of his own book of the same title, which is out of print. See also here the notes, title from 2003
personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Max von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oppenheim, Max Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1946
Place of death Landshut