Walter Matthes

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Walt (h) er Matthes (born September 3, 1901 in Halberstadt , † January 20, 1997 in Bosau ) was a German prehistorian . According to his birth certificate, he was born Walter Matthes, but changed the spelling of his first name more often from 1934/35, mainly to Walther.

Live and act

Walter Matthes was born as the second son of the teacher Paul Matthes (* 1871) and Elisabeth. Stegemann born in Halberstadt in 1901. Due to the work of the father, the family moved several times and so he attended school in Belgard and Neuruppin .

Matthes studied from 1920 to 1925 at the universities of Berlin , Marburg and Budapest the subjects of prehistory and early history , history , historical geography and philosophy . In 1925 he received his doctorate from Hubert Schmidt in Berlin . From October 1, 1924 to March 31, 1925, he took over the management of a traveling exhibition on prehistoric antiquities at the Märkisches Museum. From 1925 to 1928 he was entrusted with carrying out the archaeological survey of the Ostprignitz district . He then worked from 1928 to 1934 as director of the Upper Silesian State Museum in Bytom .

Since 1932, he has worked in for German history Reichsbund of Hans Reinerth with. In 1933 he became a member of the SA and in 1937, after the ban on membership , became a member of the NSDAP . April 1, 1934, he was without Habilitation Associate Professor of "History and Germanic Early History" at the University of Hamburg and at the same time head of the prehistoric department at the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology . From 1941 until the end of the war he worked for the prehistory department of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg . In 1941 and 1942 he was deployed to Brittany for six weeks each , from autumn 1942 to autumn 1943 in the occupied Soviet Union, from March to December 1944 he went on a research trip through Italy.

In January 1946 he was released as a suspect and interned until January 1947. In 1948 he was classified as exonerated , but the competent authority still refused him to return to his professorship. Only after several lawsuits could he take up his professorship again in 1951. He retired on September 30, 1969.

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After that, he and Rolf Speckner focused on researching the Externsteine . Walter Mathes was an anthroposophist , which is particularly evident in his later works.

His writings (selection)

  • Prehistory of the Ostprignitz district. C. Kabitzsch, Leipzig 1929.
  • Basics of the Upper Silesian settlement history in prehistoric times. Upper Silesian Provincial Monument Preservation for Cultural and Historical Soil Antiquities, Ratibor 1931.
  • The northern Elbe Germans in late Roman times. Kabitzsch, Leipzig 1931.
  • The Teutons in the Prignitz at the time of the Great Migration. Kabitzsch, Leipzig 1931.
  • The discovery of the Campignia culture in Upper Silesia. Upper Silesian Provincial Monument Preservation for Cultural and Historical Soil Antiquities, Ratibor 1932.
  • Ice Age art in the North Sea region. Niederelbe-Verlag, Otterndorf 1969.
  • Corvey and the Externsteine. Fate of a pre-Christian shrine in Carolingian times. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-87838-369-X .
  • with Rolf Speckner : The relief on the external stones. A Carolingian work of art and its spiritual background. Ed. Tertium, Ostfildern 1997, ISBN 3-930717-32-8 .

literature

  • Arne Homann: "Established in 1934 against the loss of the Ord. Chair for Romance Languages ​​and Cultures": On the beginnings of the subject Prehistory and Early History at Hamburg University . In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. Vol. 94, 2008, pp. 89-116 ( full text ).
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: Prof. Dr. phil. Walt (h) er Matthes (3.9.1901 - 20.1.1997), archaeologist in Brandenburg and Upper Silesia, museum director in Beuthen O / S, Prof., director and professor for prehistory at the University of Hamburg . 123 p., 16 ills. Glinde (Hamburg) 2013.
  • Hans Joachim Bodenbach: The archaeologist Walter Matthes as explorer of the Ostprignitz . In: Mitteilungen des Verein für Geschichte der Prignitz , [former district of Ostprignitz], vol. 15 (2015), pp. 71–85, 3 figs.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. personal forms for teachers of secondary schools in Prussia: Matthes, Paul ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2015 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. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bbf.dipf.de
personal data
SURNAME Matthes, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Matthes, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prehistorian
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Halberstadt
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1997
Place of death Bosau