Walter Steinhauser

Walter Steinhauser (born February 7, 1885 in Vienna ; † August 3, 1980 ibid) was an Austrian Germanist and university professor .

Life

Walter Steinhauser was born the son of a lawyer and landowner . After private lessons from 1891–1895 and a subsequent year at the municipal elementary school for boys, he attended the Schottengymnasium in Vienna from 1896–1904 . After graduating from high school in 1904, he was a volunteer field cannon regiment 4 in Vienna for one year .

From 1905 he studied German at the University of Vienna with Joseph Seemüller and Rudolf Much , Indo-European linguistics with Paul Kretschmer and philosophy . In 1906 he was a reserve lieutenant , in 1911 he received his doctorate with a study on his native dialect at Seemüller to Dr. phil. He then went on study trips to Switzerland with his fellow student Anton Pfalz on behalf of the dictionary commission , where they also visited the offices of the Swiss Idiotikon . Steinhauser also devoted himself to musical studies in Munich in 1911/1912 . From 1912–1935 he was an assistant at the dictionary office (today the Institute for Austrian Dialect and Name Lexicons of the Austrian Academy of Sciences ), by the way, together with his fellow student Anton Pfalz. 1914–1918 Steinhauser took part in the First World War, at the end of which he was a captain . In 1919 he joined the German National Socialist Workers' Party in Austria , belonged to the Greater German People's Party until 1932 and joined the NSDAP on April 1, 1932 (membership number 903.187), and he retained this membership through the period of prohibition. In 1933 he joined the National Socialist teachers' association . But neither before nor after 1938 had he taken on a position in a National Socialist organization. Steinhauser may have been convinced of National Socialism, but evidently he by no means propagated it. Steinhauser was also a member of the German School Association Südmark .

Steinhauser completed his habilitation with an investigation into place names in 1927 at the University of Vienna under Rudolf Much for Germanic language history and antiquity and then taught as a private lecturer at the University of Vienna until 1935. During the Austrofascism he joined the Patriotic Front in 1934 . In 1935 he succeeded his teacher Rudolf Much on his chair at the University of Vienna. In 1940 he became a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 1942, Adolf Hitler awarded him the Silver Loyalty Service Sign for 25 years of loyal service to the country or the Reich, at the same time as Anton Pfalz. However, this is by no means special, as this honorary badge was given to everyone in the public service . In April 1945 Steinhauser was drafted into a Volkssturm battalion in Trenčín .

Due to his membership in the NSDAP, Steinhauser was dismissed after the end of the Second World War in 1945. In 1947 he was classified as a minor, and at the same time his dismissal was lifted and he was given retirement . As a minor, Steinhauser was actually not allowed to enter the university, but he was granted access to the collections and libraries. Steinhauser was granted a long research until he was 93 years old. He was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Relationship to National Socialism

Some researchers are of the opinion that Steinhauser was far too civic to allow the National Socialist ideologies to flow into his scientific work. Others believe that Steinhauser was politically uninterested and, seeing National Socialism, so to speak, as a game form of the zeitgeist, took the path of least resistance.

It can be stated, however, that Steinhauser was described as reliable, loyal and willing to make sacrifices in an assessment by Nazi lecturer association leader Arthur Marchet and his close acquaintance Anton Pfalz, but he was not ascribed a fighting nature. It is also certain that Steinhauser has been spreading folk ideas about the 'German being' in his work at least since 1929 . In Steinhauser's writings from 1929 to the Nazi era, there is continuity in the assumption of certain characteristics of individual nations, with the difference that initially only the positive traits of the Germans were emphasized and twelve years later criticism was also made of other peoples. The rapprochement with Nazi ideologems is extraordinarily clear here.

In summary, it can be said that, especially for Steinhauser's publications from 1938 onwards, a tendency in the National Socialist direction cannot be overlooked, which can also be seen to some extent in earlier publications. But the basics of the scientific methodology at Steinhauser must be separated from any connection with 'Nazi science'. His work could therefore continue to be carried out and published in this form after the war without being objected to.

Publications

• Contributions to the knowledge of Bavarian-Austrian dialects 1. Text samples: 2. Verbal . Contributions to the customer of the Bavarian-Austrian dialects. Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1922.
• The development of the ahd. Uo in Bavarian and A. Dachler's Franconian hypothesis . Holzhausen, Vienna 1926.
• The genetic place names in Austria . Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Vienna 1927.
• Place name research and sound analysis with reference to Pirchegger's book “The Slavic Place Names in the Mürzgebiet” . Weidmann, Berlin 1928.
• The Illyrianism of the Narists . Vienna 1932.
• On the origin, method of education and significance of the Lower Austrian place and field names in terms of settlement history . Vienna 1932.
• River names and ethnicity in the German Ostmark . Paris 1938.
• Old Germanic in Irish . Holzhausen, Vienna 1940.
• The meaning of the place names in Niederdonau. 1. Altgau . St. Pöltner Zeitungs-Verlags-Gesellschaft, St. Pölten 1941.
• The meaning of the place names in Niederdonau. 2. Northern Burgenland . St. Pöltner Zeitungs-Verlags-Gesellschaft, St. Pölten 1941.
• Northern Burgenland . St. Pöltner Zeitungs-Verlags-Gesellschaft, St. Pölten 1941.
• Cultic tribal names in East Germany . Holzhausen, Vienna 1950.
• Slavic in Viennese (= series of publications by the Association for Mother Language. Volume 7). Notring Verlag of the Austrian Scientific Associations, Vienna 1962.
• Otto Gschwantler, Edith Marold, Walter Steinhauser (eds.): List of publications by Walter Steinhauser. Brought to you by colleagues, friends and students for their 85th birthday . Berger, Vienna 1970.
• Peter Wiesinger, Walter Steinhauser (ed.): Language and name in Austria. Festschrift for Walter Steinhauser on his 95th birthday. Braumüller, Vienna 1980.

literature

• Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Volume 9, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, p. 659 f.
• Christoph König: Steinhauser, Walter. In: Derselbe (Ed.), With the collaboration of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 3: R-Z. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1804-1805.
• Irene Ranzmeier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources. Volume 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005.
• Peter Wiesinger, Daniel Steinbach: 150 years of German studies in Vienna. Non-university early German studies and university German studies . Praesens, Vienna 2001.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Irene Ranzmeier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources. Volume 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005, p. 45.
2. ↑ Christoph König: Steinhauser, Walter. In: Derselbe (Ed.), With the collaboration of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950. Volume 3: R-Z. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , p. 1804.
3. ^ ^{A b} Peter Wiesinger, Daniel Steinbach: 150 Years of German Studies in Vienna. Non-university early German studies and university German studies . Praesens, Vienna 2001, p. 93.
4. ^ Walter Steinhauser grave site , Vienna, Zentralfriedhof, Group 48, Group Extension B, Row 1, No. 1.
5. ^ Helmut Birkhan : Old German Studies and German Linguistics . In: Karl Acham (Hrsg.): History of the Austrian human sciences. Volume 5: Language, Literature and Art. Passagen-Verlag, Vienna 2003, p. 169.
6. ↑ Irene Ranzmeier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources. Volume 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005, p. 141 f.
7. ↑ Irene Ranzmeier: German studies at the University of Vienna at the time of National Socialism. Careers, conflicts and science (= literary history in studies and sources. Volume 10). Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2005, p. 144.