Stephan Skalweit

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Stephan Skalweit (born February 5, 1914 in Gießen ; † September 9, 2003 in Bonn ) was a German historian .

The son of the national and agricultural economist August Skalweit attended the Beethoven-Gymnasium in Bonn and passed the humanistic Abitur in 1932 at the Kiel School of Academics . In the summer semester of 1932 he began studying history, Romance studies, philosophy and economics at the University of Kiel , but went to Heinrich von Srbik at the University of Vienna in the winter semester of 1932/33 and to Frankfurt am Main in 1933 . In 1935/36, with the help of a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, he spent a year at the École normal supérieure in Paris with the economic historians Henri Hauser and Jean Meuvret . In Frankfurt he was at Georg Küntzel 1937 Dr. phil. PhD. The dissertation was entitled The Berlin Economic Crisis of 1763 and its Background and examined the economic and political reactions of the Prussian administration and the king to the surprising collapse of over-indebted Berlin textile companies.

Due to his distance from National Socialism and the resolute rejection of membership in the NSDAP , Skalweit had little prospect of an academic career since the summer of 1937. Instead, he completed an archivist course from 1937 to 1939 at the Prussian Institute for Archival Studies in Berlin-Dahlem , where he made acquaintance and friendship with Helmut Beumann , Theodor Schieffer , Paul Egon Hübinger and Eugen Ewig . Ernst Posner became his teacher. In 1939 he passed the state examination for scientific archive service. In autumn 1939 he was appointed assessor at the Prussian Secret State Archives , and in 1942 he was promoted to the State Archives Council. He had been a soldier in the Wehrmacht since August 1939 , but the "unsoldier" Skalweit was soon assigned to the office. From 1942 he was employed as a French interpreter and then as a language teacher.

In August 1945, Skalweit was released from American captivity . In 1947 he took up a position as a research assistant at the University of Bonn , where in 1951 Max Braubach did his habilitation with the study of France and Frederick the Great . The rise of Prussia in public opinion of the ancien régime . In Bonn, Skalweit was primarily responsible for the reconstruction and maintenance of the seminar library, which was largely destroyed during the war. In 1953/54 a nine-month research fellowship from the British Council took him to Cambridge , where Herbert Butterfield supervised him. The work on "Edmund Burke and France" was created. In 1954 he received a “diet lecturer”, in 1956 he was awarded the title of extraordinary professor by the minister of education. As a full professor of early modern times , he taught from 1957 to 1963 as the successor to Jean-Baptiste Duroselle at the University of Saarbrücken , from 1963 to 1964 at the Free University of Berlin and from 1964 to his retirement in 1982 at the University of Bonn.

Scalweit's academic students included a. Günter Buch , Bernhard R. Kroener , Matthias Pape , Karl Josef Seidel and Hermann Weber . In 1959, Skalweit was co-opted into the Scientific Commission for Research into the History of Franco-German Relations . He was on the advisory board of the German Historical Institute in Paris (1959–1984) and London (1976–1984). He was a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts . The Ordre des Palmes Académiques (officer) was awarded Skalweit .

Skalweit's main research interests were Prussia in the 18th century and comparative studies of the constitution, economy and society of Prussia, England and France in the age of absolutism . He also dealt with the history of concepts and theoretical problems in historical studies.

He was married but had no children.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

  • The Berlin economic crisis of 1763 and its background (= quarterly journal for social and economic history. Supplement, No. 34). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1937.
  • France and Frederick the Great. The rise of Prussia in public opinion of the "ancien regime" (= Bonn historical research. Volume 1). Röhrscheid, Bonn 1952.
  • Edmund Burke and France (= publications of the working group for research of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Humanities, issue 60). Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne a. a. 1956.
  • Empire and Reformation. Propylaea Verlag, Berlin 1967.
  • The "modern state". A historical term and its problems. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1975, ISBN 3-531-07203-X .
  • The beginning of the modern age. Epoch boundary and concept of epoch (= income from research. Volume 178). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-534-06095-4 .
  • Forms and Problems of the Early Modern Age. Selected essays (= historical research. Volume 32). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-06243-4 .

Editorships

  • with Konrad Repgen : Mirror of History. Ceremony for Max Braubach on April 10, 1964. Aschendorff, Münster 1964.

literature

  • Klaus Hildebrand : Stephan Skalweit. In: North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences. 2005 Yearbook , pp. 159-165.
  • Matthias Pape : Stephan Skalweit. Bonn research on France after 1945. Topics - Methods - Research organization . In: Ulrich Pfeil (Ed.): The German Historical Institute Paris and its founding fathers. A personal history approach . Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, pp. 139-173, ISBN 978-3-486-58519-3 .
  • Matthias Pape: Stephan Skalweit (1914–2003). In: Historisches Jahrbuch , Vol. 124 (2004), pp. 547-549.
  • Matthias Pape:  Skalweit, Stephan. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 483 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Matthias Pape: From Prussia to Western Europe. Stefan Skalweit and Bonn History 1947–1982 . Bouvier, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-416-03329-9 .
  • Konrad Repgen : Nekrolog Stephan Skalweit 1914-2003. In: Historische Zeitschrift , Vol. 281 (2005), pp. 262–271.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Skalweit, Stephan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH to water
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 2003
Place of death Bonn