Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research

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Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research
purpose Research into the antiquities and history of Nassau
Chair: Rolf Faber
Establishment date: November 2, 1812
Number of members: 1473 2012
Seat : Hessian main state archive
Website: nassauischer-altertumsverein.de

The association for Nassau antiquity and historical research was founded in Wiesbaden in 1812 , making it one of the oldest historical associations in Germany. It is dedicated to the national historical research of the territories of the House of Nassau and adjacent areas and currently has around 1500 members, 943 of them in the main association. The seat of the association is the Hessian main state archive in Wiesbaden. There are branch clubs in Bad Ems , Diez , Idstein , Limburg , Nassau , Selters (Taunus) and Selters (Westerwald) .

The association has published the Nassau Annals since 1827 . This is an extensive historical yearbook. In addition, he appears irregularly as the editor of other publications. The association and its branches organize numerous historical lectures and excursions.

In addition to the Hessian Main State Archive, the association cooperates with the Nassau Antiquities Collection , the Wiesbaden State Library , the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse and the Historical Commission for Nassau . These institutions are historically closely linked to the association.

history

Johann Isaak von Gerning
Johann Christian Reinhard Luja
Christian Friedrich Habel

The association was founded in 1812 on the initiative of pastor Johann Christian Reinhard Luja , the court chamber councilor Christian Friedrich Habel from Wiesbaden and Johann Isaak von Gerning from Frankfurt. The original intention of founding the association was to explore the Limes in the area of ​​the Duchy of Nassau . In the founding phase, the association's goals were expanded to include research into regional history. The founding of the association was preceded by the emergence of the duchy in 1806, through which a coherent state in Taunus and Westerwald was formed.

The date of foundation is November 2, 1812, on which Habel and von Gerning presented the first statutes with the basic laws of the ancient society for the Duchy of Nassau and the neighboring countries . These statutes were approved by Duke Friedrich August and Prince Friedrich Wilhelm in 1812/1813. As the domestic director, Habel was responsible for organizing the association. State minister Ernst Franz Ludwig Marschall von Bieberstein was one of the early supporters of the association, and he hoped that the association's activities would provide additional legitimation for the duchy. In addition to Marschall von Bieberstein, District President Carl Friedrich Emil von Ibell and Government Director Georg Möller as well as other high-ranking officials were among the early members of the association. According to Gerning, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of the members of the early days. From 1827, Goethe was officially listed as a foreign honorary member.

Due to the turmoil of the coalition wars and the Congress of Vienna and the subsequent state reorganization, but also due to Habel's death in 1814, the association's activities came to a temporary standstill. It was only on Luja's initiative that State Director Möller pushed for the resumption of the association's activities from 1820 onwards. New statues were decided upon for the Society for Nassau Antiquities , which in addition to research also provided for the establishment of a museum. The formal re-establishment of the association took place in 1821.

The Erbprinzenpalais was the original seat of the association

The re-established association was a state-affiliated institution of the Duchy of Nassau . He was given the task of state archeology (until 1869) and monument preservation (until 1902). In this function he built up the Nassau antiquities collection on behalf of the state . The basis of the collection was the private collection of Johann Isaak von Gerning acquired in the 1820s. The association systematically added historically valuable objects and documents. Some of these came from archaeological excavations initiated by the association. The association and the collection of Nassau antiquities were housed together with the Nassau State Library in the Erbprinzenpalais .

Friedrich Gustav Habel

The archaeologist and archivist Friedrich Gustav Habel , a son of the association's founder, was a formative person for the association during this phase . He carried out several archaeological excavations on behalf of the association, founded the editing of the Nassau Annals (1827) and was a member of the board for 30 years. He also set up an archive of documents at the state library . The archive was the basis of a historical commission to research the history of the state of Nassau and its regent house. In addition to Habel, Christian Daniel Vogel and Johannes Weizel were members of the commission. After the commission ceased work without any official result, the document archive was closed again.

The concentration on archaeological issues that Habel pushed led to more conflicts within the association. In a runoff election to the club's board in 1851, Habel was defeated by the teacher Karl Rossel . These led to Habel then returning membership. Rossel had attracted attention as a radical liberal during the March Revolution and was dismissed from school in 1850. As a result, the content was realigned and the association was more democratized. The number of club members rose from 175 (1851) to 570 (1860). The new members came to a large extent from the educated middle class .

Carl Braun

The association was a founding member of the general association of German history and antiquity associations in Mainz in 1852 . In 1861 the first general assembly of the Nassau Association outside of Wiesbaden took place in Limburg an der Lahn . In the same year the opposition politician Carl Braun took over the board of directors. In return for the emancipation of the association, the Duchy of Nassau increasingly took over the tasks assigned to the association on its own.

In the second half of the 19th century, the association took part in numerous archaeological excavations. Above all, these were the excavations on the Limes, especially at the Saalburg fort . In addition, sites from prehistory and early history such as barrows and especially the Steedener caves were explored. The head of the excavations was the curator Karl August von Cohausen , who was also one of the most prolific authors of the Nassau Annals. In addition to the excavations, the history of the country increasingly moved into the focus of the association's work, which led to a stronger relationship with archives .

State Museum Wiesbaden

With the annexation of the Duchy of Nassau by the Kingdom of Prussia as a result of the war against Austria in 1866, the association was ousted from public duties. The museum and the collection of Nassau antiquities were completely transferred to the city of Wiesbaden, which set up the Wiesbaden Museum for the scientific collections . The state archeology was entrusted to a civil servant conservator and the association library was handed over to today's Wiesbaden State Library . The association for Nassau antiquity and historical research turned into an association for the care of the homeland idea and broad education. To this end, public lectures and excursions were increasingly organized. The Historical Commission for Nassau , which still exists today, was founded in 1897 and publishes numerous publications on the history of the country.

With the growing importance of the Heimat movement at the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, the perspective of the association's work shifted more towards folklore and local research. The association continued to focus more intensively on regionalization by founding local groups. Following the example of the Idstein local group (1902), ten local groups were founded by the First World War , mostly in the former residence towns of the House of Nassau. One consequence of the stronger regionalization was the significant increase in membership. In 1899 the association still had 441 members, there were already 817 in 1914. The association magazine Mitteilungen , which was only intended to provide information about the association's activities, developed into the Nassauische Heimatblätter , an illustrated popular journal. In their nationalism and their initial enthusiasm for the war, they were a mirror of the time of the Wilhelmine Empire.

In the early 1920s, the club suffered from the aftermath of the war. The Nassau Annals had not appeared for several years. The association's assets were lost due to war bonds and inflation and not all local groups resumed their work in full. At the 100th anniversary in 1921, the association referred to its re-establishment in 1821. In the late 1920s, the situation normalized. New local groups could be founded and the number of members rose to 1,072 in 1928, whereby women were now increasingly recruited as members.

In National Socialism the club was " brought into line " by the board four of the seven members of the NSDAP had to belong to the association as such remained. The chairman of the association from 1932 to 1962 was the archaeologist Ferdinand Kutsch . During the Second World War , the association's work came to a standstill. In November 1945, however, the association resumed its work. On June 8, 1946, the license was issued by the occupation authorities. However, some local groups stopped working after the war.

The Wilhelmsbau of Wiesbaden City Palace was a temporary association seat

The re-approved association was housed in the Wilhelmsbau of the Wiesbaden City Palace for the first few years before it returned to the Wiesbaden Museum. The Nassau Annals have been published annually since 1950. The Nassauische Heimatblätter appeared again since 1951 with a focus on archeology. The Heimatblätter were discontinued with the publication of the find reports from Hessen by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen in 1961. The Historical Commission for Nassau separated in 1948 by mutual agreement from the Association for Nassau Antiquity and Historical Research and constituted itself as an independent association. The association succeeded in founding other local groups. Some of the local groups of the association developed into independent branch associations.

The Hessian Main State Archives

After the construction of the new building of the Hessian Main State Archives, the association moved its headquarters there in 1985. There are close ties to the State Office for Monument Preservation in Hessen and the State Library of Wiesbaden as a regional library for the association's territory. Despite the efforts of the association, the collection of Nassau antiquities in the Museum Wiesbaden was replaced by the art collection. The collection is currently not open to the public. However, it should be part of the exhibition in the planned Wiesbaden City Museum.

In 2012, the association, which is now active in the federal states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate , celebrated its 200th anniversary.

Directors or chairmen

Until 1921, the club's chairman held the title of director.

Nassau Annals

The association has published the Nassau Annals since 1827 . They are therefore among the oldest regional historical magazines in Germany. Initially, it was an irregular sequence of individual booklets that were combined in volumes. An extensive historical yearbook has been published almost every year since Volume 20 of 1888. In particular, due to interruptions caused by the war, no volume of the annals was published in individual years. The Nassau Annals are a respected national historical periodical. The geographical framework of the Nassau Annals includes the region between the Rhine , Main , Dill and Siegen . Another focus is on the dynasty history of the House of Nassau . In 2012 the 123rd volume was published with a length of about 886 pages. The association leaves part of the edition to the Wiesbaden State Library, which uses it to exchange and store other periodicals on regional history.

The editor, formerly the club secretary, is responsible for the publication of the Nassau annals.

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literature

  • Winfried Schüler: Preserve - Experience - Understand. 200 years association for Nassau antiquity and historical research . Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815190-1-3 .
  • Historical commission for Nassau (ed.): Duchy of Nassau 1806–1866 Politics · Economy · Culture . Historical Commission for Nassau , Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-922244-46-7 , p. 294 .
  • Report on the activities of the association and its branch associations (March 2011 to March 2012) . In: Nassau Annals . tape 123 . Verlag des Verein für Nassau antiquity and historical research, 2012, ISSN  0077-2887 .

Web links

Commons : Association for Nassau Antiquity and Historical Research  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association for Nassau Antiquity and Historical Research e. V.
  2. ↑ Full text of older volumes of the Nassau Annals , accessed on March 27, 2016.
  3. ↑ Information on the Nassau Annals from H-Soz-Kult , accessed on April 3, 2014.
  4. ^ Friedrich Otto :  Rossel, JH Karl L. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 254-256.