Maximilian Adler

Maximilian Adler (born September 21, 1884 in Budweis ; † October 16, 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a Jewish - Czech philologist and university professor who was a victim of the Holocaust .

Life

Maximilian Adler, the son of the businessman Jakob Adler, studied classical philology and philosophy at the University of Vienna . In 1906 he was in Hans von Arnim with a dissertation on Plutarch's writing De facie in orbe lunae doctorate . After graduating, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Halle (Saale) and as a teacher at a girls' high school in Prague.

In addition to school service, Adler pursued a scientific career. He emerged through studies of Plutarch and Stoic philosophy. A special focus were the writings of the Jewish-Greek philosopher and writer Philon of Alexandria . In 1930 , Adler completed his habilitation in Classical Philology at the University of Prague and has held lectures at the university since then. From 1932 he took the chair of the late professor Edgar Martini . After five years he was appointed associate professor in 1937 and was thus empowered to take the Rigorosum and the state examination. In the same year he took the Rigorosum from his only doctoral student Martin Sicherheitsl , who received his doctorate with a dissertation on Greek magic papyri.

After the annexation of the Sudetenland , the situation for Jews in the Czech Republic worsened. In order to give in to the pressure of public opinion, the Czech government put several Jewish professors on leave on January 10, 1939, including Maximilian Adler. For the Nazis, Adler was unpopular both because of his Jewish origins and because of his advocacy of Zionism . After the smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic , Adler was retired with minimal earnings. He did not think of emigration. Even when he was offered a professorship in the United States , he turned it down because he did not want to leave his old mother behind in Budweis.

In Prague, Adler experienced all the humiliations of National Socialist rule. On March 6, 1943, he was deported to Theresienstadt . In the ghetto he headed the education department and taught Jewish children. He also participated in cultural activities and socialized with other prominent prisoners, including Rabbi Leo Baeck , psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, and geographer Alfred Philippson . In October 1944 Adler was taken to Auschwitz on one of the last transports and murdered there on October 16.

Services

In Classical Philology, Adler was recognized as a teacher as well as a researcher. His lectures and seminar exercises dealt with Greek and Latin literature, placing great emphasis on the explanation of the poets and teaching his students above all the methods of the subject.

His scientific publications began with small contributions about the writer Plutarch , whose extensive literary legacy Adler explored from various angles. More important and more extensive, however, was Adler's preoccupation with Hellenistic philosophy. He created the index volume of the large edition of the Stoicorum veterum fragmenta by his teacher Hans von Arnim (1924) and then dealt with the writings of the Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and writer Philon of Alexandria . In particular, he took part in the large-scale translation of his works, which was directed by Isaak Heinemann . Together with Heinemann he wrote the sixth volume in the series (1938), the last to be published before the Second World War .

Fonts (selection)

• Quibus ex fontibus Plutarchus libellum 'De facie in orbe lunae' hauserit . Vienna 1910 ( Dissertationes philologae Vindobonenses 10.2)
• Stoicorum veterum fragmenta. Vol. 4: Quo indices continentur . Leipzig 1924
• Studies on Philo of Alexandria . Wroclaw 1929

literature

• Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century . Volume 1: A-I. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 14.
• Kulturní adresář ČSR .: Biografický slovník žijících kulturních pracovníků a pracovnic . 2nd edition (1936), p. 10
• Miroslav Kárný: Terezínská pamětní kniha . Prague 1995, p. 1172
• Elena Makarova, Sergeĭ Makarov, Victor Kuperman: University over the abyss: the story behind 520 lecturers and 2,430 lecturers in Theresienstadt concentration camp 1942–1944 . Jerusalem 2000, p. 433
• Martin Sicherheitsl : Memories of Prague (1933–1937) . In: Eikasmós . Volume 4, 1993, pp. 85-94
• Rudolf M. Wlaschek: Biographia Judaica Bohemiae . Volume 1 (2003), p. 4

Web links

• Literature by Maximilian Adler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial