Ronald Loetzsch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ronald Lötzsch (born October 1, 1931 - † June 16, 2018 ) was a German linguist and university professor .

Life

Lötzsch studied Russian at the University of Leningrad from 1951 to 1955 . In his diploma thesis he dealt with a problem of Sorbian grammar. As part of the trial against the “ Schröder-Lucht Group ”, he was sentenced in 1958 to imprisonment in the Bautzen II state security prison for alleged aiding and abetting treason. Due to the amnesty announced in September 1960, he did not have to serve his entire sentence. From 1961 he was able to work again in his profession as a linguist at the Institute for Slavic Studies at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin .

In 1963, Ronald Lötzsch received his doctorate from the Humboldt University in Berlin with the thesis The specific innovations of the Sorbian dual flexion for Dr. phil. He worked at the Academy of Sciences in the GDR until it was liquidated in 1991. From 1993 to 1995 he held the chair for Sorbian Studies at the University of Leipzig and was director of the Institute for Sorbian Studies there . He published scientific papers on Slavic languages , the Yiddish , the German and Esperanto , about dialectology , contact linguistics , lexicography and lexicology , interlinguistics , history of linguistics , minority and language policy and German spelling . Lötzsch is also the author of dictionaries . Lötzsch was a member of the Society for Interlinguistics (GIL).

He was involved in the Esperanto Association in the Kulturbund of the GDR and, after merging with the German Esperanto Association in 1991, was its deputy chairman.

Lötzsch was married to Gesine Lötzsch for the third time in 1987 and was the father of four sons from two marriages. Due to a serious illness, Ronald Lötzsch was admitted to the emergency room of a Berlin hospital at the end of March 2012. On April 10, 2012, his wife resigned from the post of chairman of the party Die Linke in order not to be absent from Berlin that often. Ronald Lötzsch died on June 16, 2018 at the age of 86.

Employee of the GDR State Security

From 1962 to the mid-1980s, Lötzsch worked as an unofficial employee with the code name "Heinz" for the Ministry for State Security (MfS). This results from one of the files of the MfS available to the Stasi records authority about him , which comprises 457 pages, documents more than 100 meetings and, among other things, includes 19 handwritten reports written by him. The file also contains the handwritten declaration of commitment from March 29, 1962. It says: “I will conscientiously carry out all orders I have received and report honestly to the MfS. I won't even hint at the cooperation with anyone. ”His commanding officer at the MfS assessed him as follows:“ He carries out his assignments conscientiously, on his own initiative and reliably. He is mainly used to work on linguists. ”When he was recruited as a Stasi informant, no pressure was exerted according to the files. Two years after the Stasi recruitment, his sentence was overturned in 1964.

Publications

  • Unity and structure of Sorbian. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1965.
  • Yiddish dictionary. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1990; Mannheim 1992 ( Duden Taschenbücher , Vol. 24), ISBN 978-3-411-06241-6 ; Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-411-06243-0 .
  • Langenscheidt's large dictionary German-Russian. 2 volumes. Langenscheidt, Munich 1997, ISBN 978-3-468-02295-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ronald Lötzsch: The end of an "unbreakable friendship" . In: Stasi records authority (ed.): Decline of the GDR - honestly fought and lost (=  securing evidence . Volume 4 ). GNN-Verlag, Schkeuditz 2002, ISBN 3-89819-110-9 , p. 215 ff .
  2. ↑ Aert van Riel: LINKE boss resigns. In: New Germany , April 12, 2012.
  3. ↑ Armin Jähne: Nekrolog on our member Prof. Dr. Ronald Loetzsch. Leibniz-Sozietät, July 2, 2018, accessed on July 6, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Dirk Banse, Uwe Müller: Stasi problems for future Left Party leader. In: The world . March 16, 2010, accessed April 26, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Stasi: Gesine Lötzsch's husband is under IM suspicion. In: Spiegel Online . March 16, 2010, accessed April 26, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Rudi Wais, Nicole Knill: Lötzsch: Resignation out of concern for sick husband. In: Main-Post . April 11, 2011, accessed April 26, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Loetzsch, Ronald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German linguist, Stasi-IM
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1931
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 2018