Otto Stamm

Otto Stamm (born July 29, 1915 in Frankfurt am Main , † October 19, 1979 in Tübingen ) was a German medievalist and medieval archaeologist .

Life

Stamm attended the Adlerflychtschule (today's Klingerschule ) from 1926 to 1933 , then the Liebig-Oberrealschule in Frankfurt am Main . After the death of his parents, he pursued a commercial profession and only dealt with local history in his free time. In 1941 Stamm was drafted into military service, and transferred to Athens , he completed his Abitur at the German school there in May 1944.

After his release from captivity and return to his hometown, Stamm began studying history at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in 1946 , which he successfully completed with a doctorate in 1952. At the same time he began working as a freelancer for the German Library and the newly established Frankfurt Historical Commission .

Although Stamm was originally supposed to take up a volunteer position at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt in 1954 , he was released in the same year for the old town excavations of the newly founded Museum of Prehistory and Early History, which began in 1953 . Together with Walter Sage , he was in charge of the excavation on the cathedral hill in 1955, which was able to uncover the remains of the Carolingian - Ottonian royal palace in Frankfurt with great success ; Stamm published the results in advance in the Germania magazine that same year .

Subsequently, he was entrusted with the processing of the late Roman and early medieval ceramics from the old town excavations. Stamm was able to present the findings in 1962 in a standard work on old town stratigraphy and ceramics of this epoch in the Rhine-Main area , which is still valid today and was last reprinted in 2002 . In the same year he published the results of the investigations carried out under his direction at the Saalhof since 1956 . Among other things, he finally cleared out its Carolingian origins, which had been assumed for a long time, and proved that the building was rebuilt as a Hohenstaufen - Romanesque royal castle in the second half of the 13th century .

As early as 1957, Stamm had taken over the post for medieval archeology at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, which has now expanded his activities to the entire city area. In the following years, however, the vast majority of the staff was busy with excavations in the Roman city of Nida . From 1969, the difficult era for archeology, the rapid redevelopment of the western cathedral hill, began. With the exception of the archaeological garden, the entire cultural soil between the cathedral and the Römer was excavated.

The new building of the Historical Museum, which began in 1970, brought further heavy losses, this time to the parts of the Hohenstaufen royal castle that were in the ground. Stamm was involved in emergency excavations the entire time; excerpts from his diaries, which were only published in 2007, show a widespread misunderstanding of the private as well as municipal bodies involved in the construction of the archaeological concerns he asserted.

Stamm died in Tübingen in 1979 , his estate is in the Institute for Urban History in Frankfurt am Main.

Publications (selection)

• The Citizens' Books of the Imperial City of Frankfurt 1311–1400 and the population register from 1387. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1955 ( publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission 12).
• To the Carolingian royal palace in Frankfurt am Main. In: Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute (Hrsg.): Germania. Bulletin of the Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute. Year 33, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin 1955, pp. 391–401.
• The royal Saalhof in Frankfurt am Main. With a preliminary report on the excavations of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History 1958–1961. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1962 (special print from the writings of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt am Main 12).
• Late Roman and early medieval ceramics in the old town of Frankfurt am Main. Reprint of the original edition from 1962. Archaeological Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-88270-346-6 ( writings of the Frankfurt Museum for Early and Prehistory 1).
• Was there a Staufer Palatinate in Frankfurt? In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Find reports from Hessen. 19th / 20th year 1979/80, self-published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse, Wiesbaden 1980, pp. 819–842.

literature

• Ulrich Fischer: Excavation of the old town in Frankfurt am Main. One hundred years of urban archeology, prehistory to the high Middle Ages. In: Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum - Research Institute for Pre- and Early History (ed.): Excavations in Germany. Funded by the German Research Foundation 1950–1975. Part 2. Roman Empire in free Germania. Early Middle Ages I. Verlag of the Römisch Germanisches Zentralmuseum commissioned by Rudolf Habelt Verlag, Bonn 1975 ( monographs of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseums 1/2), pp. 426–436.
• Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . Second volume. M – Z (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 2 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 . , P. 416.
• Magnus Wintergerst: Franconofurd. Volume I. The findings of the Carolingian-Ottonian Palatinate from the Frankfurt old town excavations 1953–1993. Archäologisches Museum Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-8827-0501-9 ( writings of the Archäologisches Museum Frankfurt 22/1), pp. 112–121.

Web links

• Publications by Otto Stamm in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii