Otto Eugen Mayer

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Otto Eugen Mayer (born August 8, 1888 in Aachen , † September 10, 1981 in Eupen ) was a German archaeologist and publicist . From 1924 to 1933 he was the curator of Aachen City Archeology. Mayer gained fame between 1945 and 1961 as a columnist for the Grenz-Echo newspaper , where he wrote the gloss "Zum Dämmerschoppen" under the pseudonym "Rabelais" .

Life

Mayer came from a middle-class Aachen family. His father, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Mayer (1825–1905), was a secret medical councilor and co-founder of the Luisen Hospital in Aachen. His grandfather was Jacob Anton Mayer , who came from a Jewish family and who founded Mayer's bookstore .

Otto Eugen Mayer studied medicine from 1908, initially at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, later at the University of Bonn , but dropped out in 1912. During World War I , Mayer served as a medic on the Western Front . After the war in 1918 he began to study Roman provincial archeology and prehistory and early history in Freiburg im Breisgau, and in 1922 he moved to the University of Tübingen . In 1922 and 1923 he carried out excavations for the University of Tübingen in Bischoffingen and in the ancient Roman settlement Sumelocenna near Rottenburg am Neckar .

During his later occupation, Mayer held a doctorate. The question of his doctorate, however, is controversial. In a commemorative publication on his 100th birthday, a doctorate at the University of Tübingen is mentioned, but is no longer verifiable there.

After completing a traineeship, Mayer worked as a museum assistant at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in his hometown Aachen from 1924 and was appointed curator there in February 1933.

Although Mayer's grandfather Jacob Anton Mayer had already converted from Judaism to the Protestant faith in 1829 , Mayer fell under the provisions of the so-called Aryan paragraph in the “ Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service ” of April 1933. With a view to Mayer's Jewish roots, Aachen activists of the Kampfbund called for German culture publicly dismissed him in June 1933. Because of the anti-Semitic agitation against him, Mayer left Germany in July 1933 and emigrated with his wife and two daughters via Paris to Eupen.

Mayer found a job in Eupen as editor of the East Belgian daily Grenz-Echo. After the occupation of Belgium by German troops in May 1940, Mayer went into hiding and lived with his family under a false name in Verviers .

Even after the Second World War, Mayer stayed in Belgium and continued his journalistic activities at Grenz-Echo until he retired in 1961. Under the pseudonym "Rabelais" he wrote the column "Zum Dämmerschoppen", which appeared daily between 1945 and 1961 .

In addition to his work as a journalist, Mayer devoted himself to researching the history of Raeren stoneware . From 1949 he started regular excavations according to scientific standards in the early modern pottery district between Verviers, Eynatten and Aachen. From 1963 to 1978 he worked as an honorary curator at the Raeren Pottery Museum .

Awards

Publications (selection)

  • Contributions to the early history of Aachen. In: News sheet for Rhenish home care. Volume 2, 1930/31, pp. 5-7.
  • Medieval ceramics from Eynatten. In: Journal of the Aachen History Association. Volume 77, 1965, pp. 81-87.
  • On the building history of "Burg Raeren". In: Historical Eupen. Volume 6, 1972, pp. 69-72.
  • Twenty-five years of excavations in the Raerener Land. In: Herbert Lepper (Ed.): Stoneware from the Raeren and Aachen area. Aachener Geschichtsverein, Aachen 1977, ISBN 3-87519-017-3 , pp. 163–202.

literature

  • Tünde Kaszab-Olschewski : The life of the archaeologist Otto Eugen Mayer in the field of tension between world and local politics. In: Archäologische Informations 33, Nr. 1, 2010, pp. 43–50 ( online ).
  • Irenäus Matuschik: The "Jew" Otto Eugen Mayer and the "German Prehistory" . In: Archäologische Nachrichten aus Baden 67, 2003, pp. 48–62.
  • Heinrich Toussaint: The three lives of Otto Eugen Mayer. For the 100th birthday of the archaeologist, publicist and "potter doctor" . Meyer & Meyer (in comm.), Aachen 1989, ISBN 3-923099-60-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Page of the city archeology Aachen.
  2. ^ Short portrait of Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Mayer on the Teutonia Bonn website
  3. ↑ Otto Eugen Mayer: A grave find from the earliest Bronze Age from Bischoffingen am Kaiserstuhl. In: Baden find reports. No. 4, 1926, pp. 100-102.
  4. ↑ Kaszab-Olschewski 2010, pp. 43–44.
  5. ^ Toussaint 1989, p. 18.
  6. ↑ Matuschik 2003, p. 49.
  7. ^ Grenz-Echo, edition of November 13, 1980. p. 5.
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Otto Eugen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1981
Place of death Eupen