Volker Schmidt (archaeologist)

Grave of Volker Schmidt in the cemetery in Burg Stargard

Volker Schmidt (born June 26, 1942 in Burg Stargard ; † April 2, 2002 in Neubrandenburg ; full name: Volker Karl Hermann Schmidt , also called Rethra-Schmidt ) was a German medieval archaeologist , museum director and Rethra researcher and long-time unofficial employee of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR.

life and work

Volker Schmidt was born as the son of the dentist Friedrich Franz Schmidt (1909–1945) in the small town of Burg Stargard in southeast Mecklenburg. He attended schools in his hometown and in Neubrandenburg and began early to be interested in the prehistory and early history of his near home. First he wanted to take up his father's profession. His studies in dentistry at the University of Greifswald , which he began in 1967, ended abruptly when he was de-registered the following year for participating in protest demonstrations in connection with the Prague Spring and, after a year in prison, was given a lifelong study ban for universities in the GDR.

Then Schmidt initially worked as a dental technician and in 1970 turned his hobby into a profession as a research assistant in the Neubrandenburg City Museum . As a museum employee, restorer and department head in the field of archeology, he made a significant contribution to the fact that the Neubrandenburg Museum distinguished itself through archaeological research and gained international recognition. The Slavic history of the region and the central Slavic sanctuary Rethra were the focus of his research for several decades. Since the beginning of the 1970s Schmidt headed the youth club "Heinrich-Schliemann" located at the museum (most recently the oldest German specialist working group for young people in the field of archeology and local history; the work of the youth club was discontinued in 2010) as well as the district working group for honorary monument preservationists in Neubrandenburg. His many years of successful youth work and his voluntary work created the prerequisites for the re-establishment of the Neubrandenburg Museum Association, with which the Neubrandenburg Museum is building on the great old association tradition of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Volker Schmidt completed a distance learning course in prehistory at the University of Halle in 1977 as a graduate historian. In 1984 he was at the Humboldt University of Berlin with a first study of its research results in a Slavic settlement area at the south end of the Tollense and Lieps Dr. phil. PhD. Since 1990 Schmidt has been director of the Neubrandenburg Museum, which under his leadership changed its profile from the "Historical District Museum" to the Regional Museum Neubrandenburg .

Schmidt volunteered in the new home movement in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania that emerged after the fall of the Wall . He was a co-initiator and, until 1994, a member of the presidium of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania regional home association. The founding of several local groups of the Mecklenburg Landsmannschaft , especially in Neubrandenburg and the surrounding area, go back to Schmidt's work. On September 24, 1994, the Mecklenburg Landsmannschaft awarded him their Fritz Reuter Medal. In 2002 Volker Schmidt succumbed to cancer and found his final resting place in the Burg Stargard cemetery.

Schmidt's career and work are portrayed in the film “Arkona, Rethra, Vineta - Journey to Sunken Places” by Volker Koepp .

Even if some of his hypotheses and interpretations are controversial in the professional world, Volker Schmidt is nonetheless one of the most important archaeologists of the 20th century from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . He has been married twice and has three daughters.

Since 1992, Schmidt worked primarily as an archaeologist for the State Office for Monument Preservation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. He led several large archaeological excavations, discovered a Slavic aristocratic residence in Glienke and was most recently active on the A20 motorway.

Activity as IM of the State Security

In the early 1990s it became known that Schmidt had served the oppressive apparatus of the Ministry of State Security for over a decade and with growing commitment as an unofficial employee (IM, code name "Günter Bittow") and also spied on professional competitors . Schmidt's exposure ended his decades of activity at the Neubrandenburg Museum in September 1992.

According to one of his victims, Schmidt was “one of those ... who have learned nothing from the past. ... Fidel like before [he sailed] through life taking advantage of the favorable tail wind ”. Schmidt received support from the museum as well as from the state archeology, where one could not or would not do without his professional competence.

Publications (selection)

The state bibliography MV lists more than 170 publications by Volker Schmidt , including the monographs:

• Historic District Museum Neubrandenburg. Guide through the permanent exhibitions on the prehistory and early history of the Neubrandenburg district . Neubrandenburg 1980.
• Lieps. A Slavic settlement chamber at the southern end of Lake Tollensee . [ Contributions to the prehistory and early history of the districts of Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg ; 16]. Berlin 1984 (= dissertation)
• The medieval pottery trade in Neubrandenburg . [ Series of publications by the Historisches Bezirksmuseum Neubrandenburg ; H. 20]. Neubrandenburg 1989.
• Drense. A main castle of the Ukrane . [ Contributions to the prehistory and early history of the districts of Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg ; 22]. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1989. ISBN 3-326-00485-0 .
• Late medieval pottery products from Neubrandenburg . [ Material booklets on the prehistory and early history of Mecklenburg ; Vol. 5]. Schwerin, 1990.
• Lieps. The Slavic burial grounds and cult buildings at the southern end of Lake Tollensee . [ Contributions to the prehistory and early history of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ; 26]. Schwerin 1992.
• Neubrandenburg. A historical guide . Rostock 1997. ISBN 3-356-00726-2 .
• Neubrandenburg . [The archive images series]. Erfurt 1999. ISBN 3-89702-119-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Volker Schmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Volker Schmidt in the state bibliography MV
• Works by Volker Schmidt in the state bibliography MV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CINARCHEA Symposium ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from the University of Kiel on the subject: "Archeology and Film", 1996 
2. ^ Christiane Baumann: The Literature Center Neubrandenburg 1971-2005. Literary politics between promotion, control and a new lack of history. [Series of publications from the Robert Havemann Archive; 11]. Berlin, 2006. p. 222 ff.
3. ^ Christiane Baumann: The Literature Center Neubrandenburg 1971-2005. Literary politics between promotion, control and a new lack of history. [Series of publications from the Robert Havemann Archive; 11]. Berlin, 2006. p. 225.