Walter Goetz

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Walter Goetz

Walter Wilhelm Goetz (born November 11, 1867 in Lindenau near Leipzig , † October 30, 1958 in Adelholzen in Upper Bavaria and buried in Graefelfing near Munich ) was a German historian , publicist and politician ( DDP ).

Life

The son of the doctor and leader of the German gymnastics movement Ferdinand Goetz studied at the humanistic Thomas School in Leipzig until 1886 . He then studied law at the University of Freiburg , art history at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and economics with Lujo Brentano at the University of Leipzig . In Munich he joined the Munichia gymnastics club in the Coburg Convent . Together with Konrad Bahr, he wrote the "Munichengeschichte", which describes the development of the Munichia gymnastics club from its founding until the 1920s. In 1890 he was in history at Wilhelm Maurenbrecher Dr. phil. doctorate with the dissertation The election of Maximilian II as German king in 1562 . In 1895 he completed his habilitation in general history with Karl Lamprecht . After he temporarily continued his studies in Leipzig for his habilitation for Duke Albrecht V in the first decade of his government , he completed his habilitation in Munich in 1901. From 1895 to 1901 he worked as a private lecturer in history at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig.

He married the daughter of the Munich history professor Moriz Ritter . Also important for Goetz were acquaintances like the one with the historian Karl Brandi or with Luise von Druffel , in whose house he lived (see August von Druffel ). In 1905 he became a full professor at the University of Tübingen (successor to Georg von Below ), in 1913 at the University of Strasbourg (successor to Harry Bresslau ) and in 1915 for cultural and universal history in Leipzig, where he succeeded Karl Lamprecht at the institute founded by him for cultural and universal history until he left the academic faculty. He was also dean of the Philosophical Faculty in 1929/30 .

Goetz was politically involved in the National Social Association around Friedrich Naumann . He worked for the magazine Die Hilfe and was friends with Theodor Heuss and Ludwig Curtius . From 1920 to 1928 he was a member of the German Democratic Party in the Reichstag . His advocacy for the republic was resented by those in power during the Nazi era . Goetz broke his contacts with Jewish colleagues - u. a. his students Alfred von Martin and Hans Baron - and instead campaigned for them in accordance with his humanistic outlook. In 1933, after he had already applied for retirement for reasons of age , he was forced to retire due to the law for the restoration of the civil service, combined with a reduction in his pension, against which he appealed. Half a year later the decision was reversed and Goetz was put into regular retirement with full pay. After the war he became an adjunct professor and from 1952 honorary professor in Munich. From 1946 to 1951 he was also President of the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (member since 1904). In the last years of his life, Goetz was concerned with the conception of the New German Biography , the first volumes of which were published shortly before his death.

Goetz contributed to the processing of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica . From 1927 to 1949 he was chairman of the German Dante Society . Since 1947 he was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. He was also a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences from 1930 . Here he was able to continue and publish his studies on the Italian Renaissance. His son Helmut Goetz , born in 1920 , also became a historian and worked for many years at the German Historical Institute in Rome.

In addition to his academic career, Goetz was also a reserve officer in the Bavarian Army . He initially served as a one-year volunteer in the 1st Infantry Regiment "König" and made it major in 1910 . In the First World War he became a battalion commander and served on the Western Front. Nonetheless, in 1917 he worked with State Secretary Richard von Kühlmann for a mutual agreement .

research

Goetz achieved his most important research results in the history of the Counter Reformation , Modern History and the Italian Renaissance . The study of Italian cities in the Middle Ages as well as Dante Alighieris and Francis of Assisi were of particular importance to him . His conception of the age is essentially determined by his cultural-historical inclinations and by Jacob Burckhardt . Goetz has also worked on the art history of the Italian Renaissance. In addition to Burckhardt, there is also an influence here from studying with Anton Springer in Leipzig. The aftermath of Georg Voigt is less pronounced at Goetz , although he was well aware of its importance. Lamprecht also influenced him, although Goetz's position differs significantly from his view of cultural history . There were arguments here in a scientific and institutional context, not least with the cultural historian Georg Steinhausen about his view of history.

With Goetz's retirement, a long-term preoccupation with Italian Renaissance humanism came to an end in Leipzig , which began with Voigt and to which Alfred Doren had also contributed with his contributions to the economic history of the time. The area never again gained a comparable importance in Leipzig.

In his studies about Franz von Assisi and Dante, Goetz's motifs were groundbreaking, clearly distinguishing the Renaissance epoch from that of the Middle Ages. But it was clear to him that many of the things that appeared in the 14th century with the return to antiquity were already laid out in the Middle Ages. Francis of Assisi was also an essential part of his collaboration with the theologian and historian Paul Sabatier , with whom he had extensive correspondence over many years.

Herbert Grundmann is one of Goetz's most important students in the field of medieval studies .

But Goetz also remained involved in researching the history of the Reformation, particularly in Bavaria. He continued to publish on Albrecht V of Bavaria .

In his capacity as director of the Leipzig Institute for Cultural and Universal History, Goetz has published the journal Archiv für Kulturgeschichte founded by Georg Steinhausen since 1912 . In the course of coming to terms with the prehistory of the First World War, Walter Goetz also published the letters from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Tsar Nicholas II found in Russia in 1920 .

With Karl Brandi, Goetz continued to publish the contributions to the history of the empire and the Landsberger Bund that had begun under August von Druffel . Goetz was able to access the copies and excerpts from Maurenbrecher, which he made or had made in Simancas and which were handed over by his widow Mary Maurenbrecher to Goetz and to Julius Benno Hilliger , the director of the Leipzig University Library at the time . A large part of the transcripts of the documents is preserved in the Leipzig University Library , so that it is possible to gain insight into Goetzsche's selection criteria for his volume. Hilliger incorporated this estate into the holdings of the manuscript department of the university library in 1928 or 1929.

Works

  • Contributions to the history of Duke Albrecht V and the Landsberger Bund 1556–1598 (= letters and files on the history of the sixteenth century , part 5), Munich 1898.
  • Contributions to the history of Duke Albrecht V and the so-called aristocratic conspiracy of 1563 (= letters and files on the history of the sixteenth century , part 6), edited together with Leonhard Theobald , Munich 1913.
  • Sources on the intellectual history of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , 4 vols., Leipzig 1928–1936.
  • Italy in the Middle Ages , 2 vols., Leipzig 1942.
  • Historian in my day. Collected Essays. The essays from the years 1912 to 1955 on the 90th birthday of Walter Goetz , ed. by Herbert Grundmann, Cologne-Graz 1957.
  • (Ed.) Letters from Wilhelm II to the Tsar 1894–1914 , Ullstein, Berlin 1920.
  • (Ed.) Propylaea world history . The career of mankind in society and the state , economy and intellectual life, 10 vols., Berlin 1929–33.

literature

  • Herbert Grundmann / Fritz Wagner: Walter Goetz † . In: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 40 (1958), pp. 271–274.
  • Herbert Grundmann: Walter Goetz † . In: Historische Zeitschrift 187 (1959), pp. 731-732.
  • Herbert Grundmann:  Goetz, Walter Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , pp. 582-584 ( digitized version ).
  • Helmut Goetz: Il carteggio Paul Sabatier e Walter Goetz (1900-1913) . In: QFIAB 58 (1978), pp. 566-614.
  • Wolf Volker Weigand: Walter Wilhelm Goetz 1867–1958. A biographical study of the historian, politician, and publicist , Boppard 1992.
  • Goetz, Walter . In: Walther Killy / Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Vol. 4, Munich 1996, p. 71.
  • Helmut Goetz: Walter Goetz . In: Sächsische Lebensbilder , Vol. 5 (= sources and research on Saxon history , Vol. 22), Leipzig 2003.
  • Kürschner 1935, column 421.
  • DBA II, Fiche 460, pp. 429-435.
  • Ronald Lambrecht: Political dismissals in the Nazi era. Forty-four biographical sketches by professors at the University of Leipzig. Evangelische Verlags-Anstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-374-02397-4 , pp. 83-85.
  • Max Mechow: Well-known CCers. Short biographies of deceased compatriots and gymnasts , o. O. o. J. (Stuttgart 1969) (= Historia Academica of the Coburg Convent of the academic country teams and gymnastics associations at German universities. Series of publications of the CC / AHCC in connection with the Student History Association of the CC , vol. 8–9), p. 73.
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation. 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Goetz u. Konrad Bahr: The Munichenchronik. History of the Turnerschaft Munichia in Munich 1883–1923 , Verlag Turnerschaft Munichia, Munich 1963.
  2. ↑ Perdita Ladwig: The Renaissance Picture of German Historians 1898–1933 (= Campus Research. Volume 859). Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2004, pp. 115–188, ISBN 3-593-37467-6 .
  3. ↑ Leipzig University Library: Ms 01086-01094. Copies from Simancas by KPW Maurenbrecher , in: Catalog of the manuscripts of the Leipzig University Library, New Series, Vol. I, Part 3 (Ms 0601-01220), described by Detlef Döring, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 155.
personal data
SURNAME Goetz, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goetz, Walter Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian, publicist and politician (DDP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Lindenau
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1958
Place of death Adelholzen