Otto Renkhoff

Otto Renkhoff (born  December 28, 1905 in Biskirchen ; †  March 31, 1995 in Wiesbaden ) was a German archivist , regional historian, former director of the Hessian main state archive and long-time editor of the Nassau Annals as well as secretary of the Association for Nassau Archeology and Historical Research .

Career

Otto Renkhoff was born on December 28, 1905 in Biskirchen an der Lahn, where he also spent his childhood and youth. After graduating from high school at the Humanistic Gymnasium in Wetzlar , he began studying history , German and ancient languages at the universities of Marburg and Munich in 1925 . In 1930 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the territorial history of the Principality of Nassau-Dillenburg under Edmund Ernst Stengel in Marburg. The dissertation, which remained unprinted, was one of the Hessian "atlas works", which represented both a valuable processing of the regional territorial history and the preparation for the later published Historical Atlas of Hesse . After receiving his doctorate, he entered the Prussian civil service and began his training at the Institute for Archival Science at the Prussian Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem , which he completed in March 1933 with the "Great Archive Examination". He was appointed state archivist in 1931, state archivist in 1934 and in 1959 senior government archivist.

From 1933 until his retirement in 1970 he worked at the Prussian State Archives and later the Hessian Main State Archives in Wiesbaden, which he headed from 1961 to 1970 as archive director.

He was a member of the Historical Commission for Nassau since 1934, the Historical Commission for Hesse and Waldeck since 1947 and the Hessian Historical Commission since 1952.

Renkhoff was editor of the Nassau Annalen from 1939 to 1971 and co-editor of the Nassauische Heimatblätter from 1939 to 1960. From 1956 to 1962 he was co-editor of the papers for German national history . He is the author of the Nassau biography . With Karl Ernst Demandt he created the Hessian town coat of arms .

Services

Above all, Otto Renkhoff made great contributions to the history of the country as the editor of important scientific journals. Since 1938, as secretary of the Society for Nassau Antiquities and Historical Research, he was also the editor of the Nassau Annals , which, under his editorship, became one of the most important regional historical journals in Germany. While the annual volumes in the 1930s usually only contained a good half a dozen articles, it was not only the number of scientific articles that increased under Renkhoff; he also initiated an extensive discussion section and the national history magazine show. He also edited the Nassauische Heimatblätter until they could no longer appear in 1961 for financial reasons.
After Renkhoff had also been co-editor of the yearbook of the Hessian Church History Association at the beginning of the 1950s , he took over the editing of the papers for German national history in 1956 , which he initially published together with Professor Georg Wilhelm Sante and from 1963 to 1970 alone. He was so committed to this task that the volume of the volumes quickly doubled. This had a positive effect on the number of book reviews, but also benefited the regional history magazine show, which also grew in scope and steadiness.

The simultaneous publication of two major scientific journals was a life's work in itself, even though Otto Renkhoff was a passionate magazine publisher who carefully thought through all the details. The fact that, despite constant pressure of deadlines, he initially helped to shape the operations of the Hessian Main State Archives as Santes’s deputy and since 1961 has taken over its management as archive director - all of this could only be managed through night and weekend work. He also served as deputy chairman of the Historical Commission for Nassau from 1947 to 1975 ; also since 1947 he was a member of the Historical Commission for Hesse and Waldeck , a little later also of the Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt and from 1949 onwards he was a member of the board of the Hessian Church History Association. His love, however, belonged mainly to the association for Nassau antiquity and historical research. Renkhoff oversaw the historical lecture series and numerous excursions with extreme care and precision, which led far beyond the Nassau territory to churches, castles and palaces in southwest Germany. So it happened that Otto Renkhoff could only achieve his most important scientific achievements in retirement. After he and Demandt had already published the Hessisches Ortswappenbuch in 1956 - heraldry was also part of his special fields of interest - he published the volume Wiesbaden in the Middle Ages in 1980 . This work closed an important gap in Wiesbaden's city history. In addition, however, he had long been collecting materials for another standard scientific work - the Nassau biography - which appeared in 1985 with around 2500 résumés of well-known and famous Nassauers. Due to the great response this work received and which was reflected in countless letters, he decided at the age of 85 to try a second edition. This is twice as long as it has around 5,000 short biographies and was published in 1992.

Otto Renkhoff was characterized by a high sense of duty, an iron work discipline and a love of the country's history. His great scientific merits were recognized in 1974 by the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class , in 1980 by the honorary membership of the Society for Nassau Antiquity and Historical Research and in 1981 by the award of the Silver Citizen Medal of the City of Wiesbaden .

Fonts (selection)

• Wiesbaden in the Middle Ages. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1980, ISBN 3-515-03402-1 .
• Nassau biography. Short biographies from 13 centuries. Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1985, ISBN 3-922244-68-8 . 2nd edition ibid 1992 (= publications of the Hist. Kom. F. Nassau. Volume 39), ISBN 3-922244-90-4 .
• Territorial history of the Principality of Nassau-Dillenburg. Marburg 1932, PhD thesis phil.

literature

• Nassauische Annalen 106 (1995), pp. 265–272 (short biographical outline and a complete list of publications, 121 literary works - multiple answers available / possible )
• Wolf-Arno Kropat : Otto Renkhoff: born. December 28, 1905 in Biskirchen, died March 31, 1995 in Wiesbaden. In: Nassauische Annalen 107 (1996), pp. 481-482.

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Renkhoff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Renkhoff's biogram