Rudolf Helm

This article describes the classical philologist Rudolf Helm . For the politician of the same name see Rolf Helm .

Rudolf Wilhelm Oskar Helm (born March 2, 1872 in Berlin , † November 29, 1966 in Kiel ) was a German classical philologist .

Life

Rudolf Helm studied from 1889 Classics at the University of Berlin and was in 1892 when John Vahlen with a dissertation on the epic Thebais of Statius doctorate ( De P. Papinii Statii Thebaide ). After graduation, he traveled through Italy and Greece (1893/1894 as a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute ) and taught for a short time as an assistant teacher. In 1897 he was appointed to the newly established assistant position at the Institute for Classical Studies at Berlin University. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , who had come from Göttingen in the same year, had pushed through the establishment of this position with the university management. As an assistant, Helm gave courses, managed the institute library and was the technical contact for the students. As early as 1899 Helm achieved his habilitation and thus the appointment as a private lecturer. The assistant position was newly advertised and in 1900 it was awarded to Richard Heinze .

After seven years as a private lecturer in Berlin, Helm was appointed associate professor at the University of Rostock in 1907 . When his colleague Otto Plasberg moved to the University of Prague in 1909 , Helm was appointed full professor. In 1920, Helm took part in the Kapp Putsch as a member of an anti-republic volunteer regiment. That is why he was briefly investigated for high treason. But already in July 1920 Helm was appointed rector of the University of Rostock, which he remained until 1922. During the period of National Socialism was called because of the Jewish origins of his wife in 1937, where already his retirement , forcibly displaced had taken place to retire (and thus received lower payments than as Emeritus). His chair was represented by Andreas Thierfelder , who was appointed associate professor in 1938.

After the end of the Second World War , Helm received his professorship back in 1947 and taught for several years as an emeritus in Rostock and at the University of Greifswald . Werner Hartke was appointed his formal successor in 1948 . In 1953, at the age of 81, Helm retired and moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg . In the last years of his life he devoted himself entirely to his research work.

Rudolf Helm died at the age of 94 on a trip in Kiel and was cremated in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . The burial took place in the Heerstraße cemetery in Charlottenburg in today's Westend district (grave location: II-Ur 3-144).

His daughter Ilse Warkentien geb. Helm (1889–1988) and her husband ran the Warkentien university bookstore in Rostock until it was closed during the GDR era.

His daughter Dorothea "Dörte" (1889–1941) became known as a painter and graphic artist.

His daughter Dr. Ursula Makowski b. Helm studied pharmacy and worked as a pharmacist in a Berlin hospital.

Services

Rudolf Helm was mainly a Latinist . His research focus was Roman literature since the 1st century BC. BC, especially during the imperial period and in late antiquity . At the beginning of the 20th century he dealt with the Greek satirist Lukian of Samosata , whose work he saw as an adaptation of the (not preserved) satires of Menippus of Gadara . Helm's central writings in this area are his series of essays Lucian und die Philosophenschulen ( New Yearbooks for Classical Antiquity , Volume 5 [1902], pp. 188–213. 263–288. 351–369), his monograph Lucian and Menipp (Leipzig 1906 , Reprint Hildesheim 1967) and the article Lukianos in the Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (Volume 13,2 [1927], Col. 1725–1778). Helm's positions on Lukian are now partially outdated.

Helm's lifelong preoccupation with the ancient novel culminated in his work Der antike Roman (Berlin 1948. Second edition, Göttingen 1956). The work that was fundamental at the time has now been largely replaced by Niklas Holzberg's monograph The Ancient Roman: An Introduction (Munich / Zurich 1986. Third edition, Darmstadt 2006).

Helm also published translations of the poets Horace , Catullus , Martial , Tibullus and Properz and the critical edition of the Metamorphoses, Apologia and Florida of Apuleius (1908/1931, 1910), Bibliotheca Teubneriana.

literature

• German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE), Volume 4 (1996), p. 571.
• Works from the field of classical studies: Festschrift Rudolf Helm on March 2, 1962 , Rostock 1963 (with list of publications).
• Michael Buddrus : The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich. A biographical lexicon. Munich 2007, pp. 183-184.
• Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Memories 1848–1914 , Berlin 1928, p. 283.

Web links

• Literature by and about Rudolf Helm in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Rudolf Helm in the state bibliography MV
• Entry on Rudolf Helm in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium
• Rudolf Helm's personnel sheet in the BIL's personal file in the archive database of the Library for Research on Educational History (BBF)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Buddrus; Sigrid Fritzlar: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich: A biographical lexicon . Walter de Gruyter, Munich 2007, ISBN 9783110957303 , p. 183.
2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places. Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 487.
3. ↑ David S. Du Toit, Theios anthropos: On the use of theios anthrōpos and related expressions in the literature of the imperial era , Tübingen 1997, p. 201, note 59.