Walter Gottschalk (librarian)

Walter Gottschalk (born January 29, 1891 in Aachen , † October 1, 1974 in Frankfurt a. M. ) was a German librarian and orientalist.

Life

Gottschalk was the son of Benjamin Carl Gottschalk and Rosa Kahn. He studied oriental studies, philosophy, history and art history in Würzburg and Berlin , interrupted by serving as a soldier in World War I in Turkey, Syria and Palestine. In 1919 he received his doctorate in Berlin. In the same year he began working at the Berlin State Library , in 1921 he switched to the Berlin University Library at short notice , but returned to the State Library in the same year. He worked there in particular in the oriental department. Persecuted by the National Socialist state because of his Jewish faith, he was dismissed from civil service in 1935. In 1938, his wife Wanda, who was increasingly inclined to Zionism, turned to Albert Einstein and asked for an intervention on behalf of her husband in order to get him a job at a university library in Palestine or the USA. The couple emigrated to Turkey in 1939 via the Netherlands and Belgium. There Walter Gottschalk became Professor of Library Science at the University of Istanbul . In 1954 he returned to the Federal Republic of Germany. Two of his siblings were murdered in the Holocaust.

Fonts

• The vow according to an older Arab view , Berlin: Mayer & Müller 1919 (online).
• Prussian State Library. Catalog of the reference library of the oriental department , Leipzig 1929.
• [Employees]: Franz Böhm, Walter Dirks (ed.): Judentum: Schicksal, Wesen und Gegenwar t, 2 vols., Wiesbaden: Steiner 1965.

literature

• Alexandra Habermann et al: Lexicon of German Scientific Librarians 1925–1980 , Frankfurt a. M .: Klostermann 1985, ISBN 3-465-01664-5 , p. 98.
• Arnold Reisman: Refugees and reforms: Turkey's journey, [Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publ.] 2009.

Web links

• Jewish Museum Hohenems: Hohenems Genealogy : http://www.hohenemsgenealogie.at/gen/getperson.php?personID=I29923