Annelise Modrze

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Annelise Modrze (born December 2, 1901 in Katowice , † August 14, 1938 in Berlin ) was a German classical philologist and librarian . Her career was overshadowed by the racial laws of National Socialism and protracted illness. In the few years of her academic activity, she submitted several papers, including about 50 articles for Pauly's Realenzyklopädie der Klassisch Antiquities (RE).

Life

Childhood and education

Annelise Modrze came from an assimilated Jewish family. Her parents, the Reichsbahn official Friedrich Modrze (1870–1951) and Elfriede geb. Fraenkel (1873–1943), had been baptized Protestants before 1900 . The father's career path led via Hanover to Breslau , where he was Reich Railway Director at the Railway Directorate. There he joined the Silesian Society for Patriotic Culture in 1929 .

Annelise Modrze attended the private Lyzeum Sudhaus in Hanover from October 1908 to Easter 1918 and then attended the upper level of the municipal high school at the Sophienschule , where she passed the matriculation examination at Easter 1921. She then studied philosophy, German and history at the University of Heidelberg . In 1924 she moved to Breslau , where her family now lived. Inspired by studying philosophy, she learned Greek, in 1924 acquired the humanistic university entrance qualification at the Friedrichsgymnasium in Breslau and shifted her main focus to the subjects philosophy, classical philology and archeology . Her academic teachers included the philosopher Richard Hönigswald and the classical philologists Wilhelm Kroll and Ludolf Malten . In the spring of 1930 she was awarded the title magna cum laude for Dr. phil. PhD . Her dissertation, supervised by Hönigswald, on the problem of writing. A contribution to the theory of decipherment examined from a philosophical-psychological perspective the prerequisites and framework conditions for writing development .

In May 1930 Modrze passed the teaching examination in the subjects Latin, Greek and Philosophical Propaedeutics. She then worked for a year part-time as a high school teacher at the municipal women's vocational school in Wroclaw, where she taught philosophy and psychology. From June 1930 she also wrote prosopographical articles for the Realenzyklopädie der Klassertumswwissenschaft (RE), which was edited by Wilhelm Kroll. Kroll also supported her in her application for a position as a librarian in the USA (early 1931), which she did not receive. On April 25, 1931, she applied to the University Library in Breslau and received a position as a trainee on November 9, 1931. The library director Karl Christ was very satisfied with her work. When he moved to the Berlin State Library on October 1, 1932 , Modrze followed him as a trainee. Her low salary, which was further reduced from April 1, 1933, due to austerity measures, she improved through tutoring. In her second year of traineeship, she wrote two palaeographic - provenance history studies, which she submitted as assessor work.

Dismissal and emigration to England (1933–1935)

Her further career was overshadowed by National Socialism . Since her parents were converted Jews, she - as well as her brother Hans Joachim Modrze (1907–1996) - was classified as a "non-Aryan". According to the law for the restoration of the civil service (April 7/11, 1933), their continued employment in the civil service was thus called into question. In August 1933 she learned from the library director that her position could not be extended. Modrze thus resigned from service at the Berlin State Library after the library specialist examination, which she had passed “with distinction” on September 26, 1933. Her father was also forced to retire in Breslau on October 1, 1933. Her parents moved to Berlin-Wilmersdorf , where they lived with Annelise Modrze. Her brother, who had lost his livelihood as a patent attorney in Berlin, emigrated to London in May 1933, where he took the name John Henry Modrey in 1935 . He later moved on to the United States , became a US citizen in 1953 and lived in Lake Worth , Florida until his death at the age of 90 .

Annelise Mordze also tried to gain a foothold abroad. With reports of their academic teacher and promoter Karl Christian Ludolf Malten and Wilhelm Kroll, she applied for a job as a research assistant at Corpus Christi College of the University of Oxford , which she received on 22 December 1933rd Her contract ran from January 1, 1934 to spring 1936. Her duties in Oxford included working on a directory of facsimiles of Latin manuscripts ( Index of Facsimiles of Latin Manuscripts ) and the Catalogus codicum astrologicorum Graecorum by Franz Cumont , which Wilhelm Kroll had arranged .

Illness and return to Berlin (1935–1938)

Modrze had to give up her work in England for health reasons (recurrent respiratory infections) and left Oxford in March 1935. She returned to her parents in Berlin. During the lengthy treatment she did not give up on her plan to return to England. On July 1, 1935, she wrote to Franz Cumont, who transferred money to her in June 1935: “... I hardly know how to thank you. The fact that you come to my aid in this way, apart from all the understanding and patience that my long illness unfortunately requires, really shook me. [...] I feel much better; I start walking around and eating. So I hope to finally be able to return to England at the end of July. ”However, her health did not improve. A year later she received again financial support from Cumont and stated in her letter of thanks: “But it means more to me that I can see from this that you, esteemed Professor, are satisfied with my work. What they recently wrote to me - that I could contact you again after my recovery - is for me as if the door suddenly opens into the sun in a darkened room! ”Her condition continued to deteriorate, so that Wilhelm Kroll, the visited her regularly from 1937, wrote to Cumont on May 9, 1938: “Miss. Annelise M. is dying, I am afraid: la tisi non gli accorda che pochi mesi, as it is called in the Traviata. It's a shame […] ”On August 14, 1938, Annelise Modrze died at the age of 36 from advanced tuberculosis.

Her successor in Oxford was her former college friend Stefan Weinstock from March 1939 , who also emigrated from Germany because of racist persecution. He evaluated her postponed notes, which arrived in Oxford in April 1939.

Fonts (selection)

  • To the problem of writing. A contribution to the theory of decipherment . Dissertation . Wroclaw 1930.
  • On the ethics and psychology of Poseidonios. Poseidonios at Seneca in the 92nd letter. In: Philologus. Volume 87 (1932), pp. 300-331.
  • Poggio's copy of Cicero's letters Ad Atticum, Cod. Hamilton Lat. 166 of the Berlin State Library. In: Central Journal for Libraries. Volume 51 (1934), pp. 499-505.

literature

  • Utz Maas : Persecution and emigration of German-speaking linguists 1933–1945 . Volume 2 (2004), p. 321f. on-line
  • Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-465-03442-2 , pp. 345-362.

Web links

Wikisource: Annelise Modrze  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 347.
  2. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 350; see. Utz Maas: Persecution and emigration of German-speaking linguists 1933–1945. Volume 2 (2004), p. 321f.
  3. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 350.
  4. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 352f.
  5. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 353-356.
  6. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 347f.
  7. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 349.
  8. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 358.
  9. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 360.
  10. ^ Academia Belgica, ArchivioCumont, Correspondenza, I CP933.
  11. ^ Academia Belgica, ArchivioCumont, Correspondenza, I CP10574 XL.
  12. ^ Academia Belgica, ArchivioCumont, Correspondenza, I CP11365.
  13. ↑ Werner Schochow: Annelise Modrze - unfinished and forgotten. In: The Berlin State Library and its surroundings. 20 chapters of Prussian-German library history. Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 361.
  14. ^ Harold Idris Bell to Franz Cumont, March 4, 1939. Academia Belgica, ArchivioCumont, Correspondenza, I CP522.
  15. ^ Stefan Weinstock to Franz Cumont, April 20, 1939. Academia Belgica, ArchivioCumont, Correspondenza, I CP11698 XL.
personal data
SURNAME Modrze, Annelise
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Katowice
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1938
Place of death Berlin