Ursula Vogel-Weidemann

Ursula Vogel-Weidemann (born September 26, 1930 in Windhoek ; † May 6, 1997 in Pretoria ) was a German-South African ancient historian .

Ursula Weidemann was the daughter of a German who was the principal of the German School in Windhoek. She began her academic training at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein and moved from there to the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 1954 . There Hans Schaefer became her most important teacher, with whom she also received her doctorate in 1957 with the thesis The Lieutenants of Africa and Asia in the years 14–54 AD, an investigation into the personnel policy of the Julio-Claudian emperors . She then held a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute . In 1960 she became a research assistant at Schaefer. In the following year, a scientific obligation prevented participation in an excursion at the Heidelberg seminar to Turkey. It was to be Weidemann's personal happiness in one of the worst personal catastrophes in German ancient history. On September 23, 1961, Schaefer, Jacques Moreau and eight other assistants and students died in a plane crash near Ankara . Two years later, together with Walter Schmitthenner , another Schaefer student, she published his little writings (essays, etc.) in memory of her teacher . After the accident, Weidemann was appointed Scientific Councilor. Until Fritz Gschnitzer was reappointed in 1962, she represented ancient history in Heidelberg. She returned to South Africa in 1967 with her South African husband. There she taught ancient history at the University of South Africa in Pretoria from 1969 until her retirement in 1995. From 1981 to 1995 she was head of the Department of Classics there.

Vogel-Weidemann researched in particular the politics and prosopography of the first century after Christ. In 1982 she brought out her dissertation in a revised and expanded form, the work now had more than 700 pages. It is considered a basic work on the early Principate . She also published the Acta Classica series of the Classical Association of South Africa for a decade and a half until 1996 .

Fonts

• with Walter Schmitthenner : Hans Schaefer: Problems of old history. Collected treatises and lectures. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1963.
• The governors of Africa and Asia in AD 14–68. An investigation into the relationship between Princeps and Senate. Habelt, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-7749-1412-5 ( Antiquitas . Series 1, Vol. 31).

literature

• Klaus Rosen : Ursula Vogel-Weidemann †. In: Gnomon . Volume 70, 1998, pp. 574f.