Otto double field

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Otto Doppelfeld (born February 26, 1907 in Borbeck near Essen ; † May 15, 1979 in Cologne ) was a German prehistoric and Roman provincial archaeologist . He was director of the Roman-Germanic Museum for many years and made a significant contribution to the exploration of underground Cologne after the destruction of the Second World War .

Life

As the son of the primary school principal Johannes Doppelfeld and Johanna (née Chavet), Otto Doppelfeld first attended primary school and the humanistic grammar school in Borbeck . Here he passed his Abitur in 1926.

Otto Doppelfeld studied from 1926 to 1930 at the Universities of Tübingen, Berlin, Cologne and Vienna Pre- and Early History, Classical Archeology , Ancient History and Medieval History, German Philology as well as the History of Architecture and Art. During his studies in Tübingen he became a member of the AV Cheruskia Tübingen in 1926 . In 1930 he received his doctorate at the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory of the University of Cologne under Herbert Kühn with the dissertation The Hallstatt Period in the Lower Rhine Region . He then went to the Museum of Prehistory and Protohistory of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin as an assistant ("scientific laborer") and stayed there until 1939. Here he gained his first practical experience and was involved in major prehistoric and protohistoric excavations. So he headed the u. a. the excavations of Zantoch , Lebus and Nauen -Bärhorst in the Mark Brandenburg .

Fritz Fremersdorf , then director of the Roman Department at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum , won Otto Doppelfeld as custodian for Cologne archeology in 1939, who was then drafted into military service when the war broke out. After he was badly wounded in 1941 and thus unfit for duty, he returned to Cologne that year and tried with others to save archaeological finds that could still be saved. Otto Doppelfeld recognized the unique opportunity for Cologne's urban archeology after the war with its great destruction. Now he had the opportunity to intensively explore Roman and Franconian Cologne like no other before him.

In 1941, the year he returned to war, he discovered the peristyle house with the Dionysus mosaic south of the cathedral. Against many doubters, Doppelfeld recognized the four different construction periods of the peristyle house.

Since 1946, Doppelfeld was curator at the now independent Roman-Germanic Museum of the City of Cologne.

Immediately after the end of the war, the Metropolitan Chapter of Cologne Cathedral appointed him to head the excavations under Cologne Cathedral. On May 26, 1946, Otto Doppelfeld began the excavations under Cologne Cathedral with a first search trench in the middle of the bomb-ravaged cathedral nave . In the summer of the same year he came across the western apse of the old cathedral.

From then on, Otto Doppelfeld devoted himself with all his might and dedication to the excavations in the cathedral, the “underground cathedral”, in particular the Carolingian cathedral church, thereby establishing “the archeology of the Middle Ages”. In doing so, he developed new scientific excavation methods and recording techniques. Not least because of this, German archeology has become such a leading science. Among his most important finds are without a doubt the Franconian graves under Cologne Cathedral from around 550 AD with extremely rich additions.

Doppelfeld began with a large-scale research excavation, which is still ongoing today. He succeeded u. a. the discovery of the Carolingian cathedral and the excavation of several city quarters of the Roman city on the south side of the cathedral before the eyes of interested and enthusiastic citizens.

In the consciousness of the Cologne population, his name is linked primarily to the discovery and protection of the Roman governor's palace, the praetorium and the medieval town hall , for the preservation of which he was committed to the sometimes fierce resistance in the city. With his discoveries, Doppelfeld was able to shed light on numerous periods of the previously almost unknown early history of Cologne. In 1953 he recognized the Roman praetorium , which he was able to excavate over a large area, in the mighty walls, which were exposed after the destruction of the western town hall in Cologne's old town . This scientific challenge earned him the greatest popularity, not least because he moved into his headquarters right next to the excavation site in a modest construction trailer. He made history an interesting topic of urban conversation. Doppelfeld was able to convince all those responsible and especially the Cologne council representatives to preserve the important archaeological remains of the Roman governor's palace for future generations with a roof.

Other important discoveries in Doppeldeld were the temple of the Capitoline Triassic under the Romanesque church of St. Maria in the Capitol and the discovery and, in some cases, the preservation of parts of the Roman city wall. In 1950 Doppelfeld described its course with all information known at the time. Due to the great destruction of the war, the surrounding wall had become visible in several places in the city. In the years that followed, Otto Doppelfeld campaigned again and again to keep the newly found parts of the wall visible. He was the first to present a comprehensive study of the history of Cologne's Roman city wall. The numbering of the individual sections of the city fortifications has been binding in Cologne archeology since then.

Due to the extensive construction work during the reconstruction of the heavily destroyed city of Cologne and the construction of the subway, Otto Doppelfeld was also always aware that not everything could be saved that could be saved, from which he then suffered greatly.

In 1959 Otto Doppelfeld succeeded Fritz Fremersdorf as director of the Roman-Germanic Museum and state shop steward for cultural and historical soil antiquities in the city of Cologne. He crowned his work with the planning and construction of the new Roman-Germanic Museum, directly above the Dionysus mosaic on the south side of the cathedral, which was discovered in 1941. Here, too, he had to assert himself against fierce resistance in the city. Through persistence and his argumentation, the museum was opened shortly after his retirement on March 4, 1974.

In 1963 Otto Doppelfeld received a teaching position at the University of Cologne and held a. a. Exercises on provincial Roman and Franconian archeology with special consideration of the Cologne area. In 1967 he was made an honorary professor. Doppelfeld was also chairman of the Cologne Archaeological Society, which was founded by his predecessor Fritz Fremersdorf.

Otto Doppelfeld was a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute since 1954 (full member from 1960) and the Roman-Germanic Commission and since 1961 of the Trier Archaeological Commission.

Of particular importance far beyond Cologne was the special exhibition "Römer am Rhein", curated by him, in 1967, with which the newly built Kunsthalle Cologne was opened. For two and a half months the best pieces from Cologne's Roman and Franconian past were presented together with finds from the entire Rhineland. In addition, Otto Doppelfeld curated the special exhibitions “Romans in Romania” (1969) and “Romans at the Cathedral” (1970/71), all of which recorded visitor records.

Otto Doppelfeld was known for his numerous scientific publications, most of which followed shortly after his field work. He made the numerous plans for this himself. He presented fundamental studies on Roman, Merovingian and Carolingian Cologne. He was the first to recognize the full importance of the monumental pillar tomb of Lucius Poblicius , discovered in a cellar on Chlodwigplatz by some amateur archaeologists in 1965 and 1967 , and for whose acquisition he worked tirelessly. Today the grave monument (over 15 m high), which the city of Cologne acquired in 1970, is one of the top exhibits in the Roman-Germanic Museum. Otto Doppelfeld's discoveries in the extensive collections of the Roman-Germanic Museum include the Roman glasses, the glass Augustus head and the great cameo Marlborough.

Otto Doppelfeld loved literature and was enthusiastic about the fine arts. His captivating lectures and generally understandable publications on the Cologne past were widely praised. He often jokingly referred to himself as the "archaeological eagle eye".

He fought for an ideology-free science and has never been unfaithful to this principle ... He did not make friends with the contemporary tendencies of his youth.

Otto Doppelfeld was often described as a good-natured person and astute scholar. The list of his publications includes more than 170 titles, including many popular scientific works. On his 70th birthday, his scientific treatises were published as an anthology with his own comments.

In his last work, which was published by Gerd Biegel in 1979 after his death , Otto Doppelfeld tries to draw the sum of his archaeological work in Cologne.

Otto Doppelfeld had a son with his wife Aenne, the physician Elmar Doppelfeld (* 1939).

Special exhibitions supervised by Doppelfeld

  • Art and Life of the Etruscans , 1956 (in the State House of the Mass)
  • Rome in Carthage , 1964
  • Römer am Rhein , 1967 (opening of the Cologne art gallery on Neumarkt am Josef-Haubrich-Hof )
  • Romans in Romania , 1969
  • Rome at the cathedral , 1970/71

Fonts (selection)

  • The Roman city wall of Cologne . In: Walther Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Investigations into the early Cologne city, art and church history (= Die Kunstdenkmäler des Rhineland. Supplements. 2, ZDB -ID & key = zdb 527523-4 ). Fredebeul & Koenen Essen 1950, pp. 3-40.
  • On the prehistory of the Georgskirche in Cologne. First report on the excavations from 1928–1931. In: Walther Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Investigations on the early Cologne city, art and church history (= The art monuments of the Rhineland. Supplements. 2). Fredebeul & Koenen Essen 1950, pp. 90-104.
  • Sources on the history of Cologne in Roman and Franconian times (= Robert Frohn , Arnold Güttsches (Hrsg.): Selected sources on Cologne city history. 1). Bachem, Cologne 1958.
  • The rosette brooches from Cologne Cathedral. In: Heinz Ladendorf , Horst Vey (Ed.): Mouseion. Studies in art and history for Otto H. Förster. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1960, pp. 168–173.
  • Roman Cologne as the basis for the medieval city. In: Dietwulf Baatz (ed.): Roman cities in Germany (= Germania Romana. 1 = Gymnasium . Supplements. 1). Winter, Heidelberg 1960, pp. 11-28.
  • About the wonderful size of Cologne. Becoming and growing the Rhenish metropolis (= writings on Cologne topography. 1, ZDB -ID 1040927-0 ). Steimel, Cologne-Zollstock 1961.
  • The diatret glass from the grave district of the Roman estate of Cologne-Braunsfeld. In: Cologne yearbook for prehistory and early history. 5, 1960/1961, ISSN  0075-6512 , pp. 34-44.
  • Cologne as a bridge to the West. In: Victor H. Elbern (Red.): The first millennium. Culture and art in the emerging West on the Rhine and Ruhr. Text volume 2. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1964, pp. 616-633.
  • with Renate Pirling : Franconian princes in the Rhineland. The graves from Cologne Cathedral by Krefeld-Gellep and Morken (= writings of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn. 2, ISSN  0067-9968 ). Rheinland-Verlag Düsseldorf 1966.
  • Roman and Franconian glass in Cologne (= series of publications by the Cologne Archaeological Society. No. 13, ZDB -ID 258516-9 ). Greven, Cologne 1966.
  • The heyday of the Cologne art of glassmaking (= small writings on the knowledge of the Roman occupation history of Southwest Germany 2, ZDB -ID 236356-2 ). Society for Prehistory and Early History in Württemberg and Hohenzollern, Stuttgart 1966.
  • with Jörgen Bracker : Two glass imperial portraits in Cologne. In: Cologne yearbook for prehistory and early history. 8, 1965/1966, pp. 22-31.
  • From underground Cologne. Edited by Gerd Biegel. Greven, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7743-0173-5 (posthumous).
  • with Willy Weyres : The excavations in Cologne Cathedral (= Cologne research. 1). von Zabern, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-8053-0458-7 (posthumous).

literature

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Borger 1979, p. 9.
  2. ↑ Borger 1979, p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Double field, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prehistoric and Roman provincial archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1979
Place of death Cologne