Ulrich Knoche

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Ulrich Knoche (born September 5, 1902 in Berlin ; † July 24, 1968 in Hamburg ) was a German classical philologist who worked as a professor in Göttingen (1936–1939), Hamburg (1939–1941, 1950–1968) and Cologne (1947 –1950) worked. His research interests were the textual criticism of the Roman satirists, the Roman concept of fame and the philosophy of Seneca .

Life

After graduating from the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in Berlin-Charlottenburg at Easter 1920, Knoche studied classical studies at the universities of Jena , Göttingen and Berlin . At the suggestion of his Berlin lecturer Eduard Fraenkel , Knoche applied for admission to the so-called “gifted home” of the Bergmann House in Kiel and moved with Fraenkel to the University of Kiel . In addition to Fraenkel, he was impressed by Professor Felix Jacoby , who recognized and promoted Bone's talent for textual criticism. He inspired Knoche with his research on the Latin satirists, especially Juvenal . In 1925 Knoche received his doctorate with the dissertation "Prolegomena to the satires of Juvenals".

After completing his doctorate, Knoche worked for a short time on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae and then went to the University of Cologne , where he came into contact with Günther Jachmann and Josef Kroll . At her suggestion, he wrote his habilitation thesis “Sample of a Critical Edition” (Cologne 1932). After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , he joined Alfred Rosenberg's anti-Semitic Kampfbund for German culture in 1933 . Knoche was one of the founders of the Cologne NS Lecturer Association and in 1934 also became a member of the Reich Faculty of University Lecturers in the NS Teachers Association . In 1937 he joined the NSDAP and was appointed associate professor in Göttingen. In 1939 he was appointed full professor at the University of Hamburg as the successor to Ernst Kapp, who had been expelled by the National Socialists . His publications between 1939 and 1941 show a clear rapprochement with National Socialist ideology, while in 1933 he had expressed himself more critically about National Socialism in private. During the Second World War , Knoche had to interrupt his academic career: he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1941. In 1943 he was awarded the War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords .

As a Nazi burden, Knoche was dismissed as a university lecturer at the end of May 1945. At that time he was still in an English camp in Carinthia, from which he was released to Hildesheim in March 1946 because his Hamburg apartment with his private library had been destroyed in 1943. He found his wife terminally ill. In this emergency, his former colleague Josef Kroll asked him to help him rebuild the university in Cologne. Knoche followed the call and has been a visiting professor at the Cologne Chair for Greek Studies since 1947 . With the support of his friends, he succeeded in building a new private library. His wife died during this time.

Knoche appealed against his dismissal in Hamburg and was able to return to his chair in the 1950 summer semester after he had been classified as "exonerated" in the denazification process in June 1949 . He married for the second time in Hamburg and spent a lot of time with his colleagues and students in private. He turned down a call to the Philipps University of Marburg , which he had received in 1952. On July 24, 1968, Knoche died of complications from a heart attack at the age of 65.

plant

Since his student days in Berlin, Bone's work has concentrated heavily on textual criticism , especially the Latin satirists. He continued to develop the research from which his doctoral thesis and his habilitation thesis emerged, first into a monograph "The handwritten foundations of the Juvenal text" (Leipzig 1940), then (with an interruption due to the war effort and the loss of his library) into a commented translation : "Saturae with a critical apparatus" (Munich 1950). His text-critical method, which was refined by Juvenal, he extended to other authors of satire and poetry. The statement that younger manuscripts do not necessarily deliver a worse text form than older ones, he expressed succinctly in the formula that has become the principle of modern text criticism: Recentiores non sunt deteriores (German: "Younger means not worse"). Knoche, who often pointed out the problem of the contamination of medieval manuscripts, was called the " laughing man of contamination" by Giorgio Pasquali .

In addition to textual criticism, Knoche has pursued two other areas since his habilitation: studies on the Roman principle of glory and the philosopher Seneca . Knoche came across the first, more semasiological field through a colloquium. His most important publication in this area is his monograph on the magnitudo animi , published in Leipzig in 1935 . He published several essays on Seneca, especially on friendship in Seneca's philosophy. This essay stimulated Bone's student Gregor Maurach to write his habilitation thesis “The construction of Seneca's Epistolae morales” (Heidelberg 1970).

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 320.
  • Gerhard Lohse: Classical Philology and Current Events. On the history of a seminar at Hamburg University during the National Socialist era . In: Eckart Krause (Ed.): Everyday university life in the “Third Reich”. The Hamburg University 1933–1945 . Part 2, Reimer, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-496-00882-2 , pp. 775-824.
  • Hans Joachim Mette : Ulrich Knoche † , in: Gnomon , Volume 41 (1969), pp. 99-100.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 320.
  2. ^ Gerhard Lohse: Classical Philology and Current Events. On the history of a seminar at Hamburg University during the National Socialist era . In: Eckart Krause (Ed.): Everyday university life in the “Third Reich”. The Hamburg University 1933–1945 . Part 2, Reimer, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-496-00882-2 , pp. 786-792.
  3. ↑ a b Rainer Nicolaysen: The question of return. On the remigration of Hamburg university lecturers after 1945 . In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History . tape 94 , 2008, p. 145 .
  4. ^ Gerhard Lohse: Classical Philology and Current Events. On the history of a seminar at Hamburg University during the National Socialist era . In: Eckart Krause (Ed.): Everyday university life in the “Third Reich”. The Hamburg University 1933–1945 . Part 2, Reimer, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-496-00882-2 , pp. 801-802.
  5. ↑ Quoted from: Gnomon 41/1969, p. 100.

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personal data
SURNAME Knoche, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1968
Place of death Hamburg