Walther Holtzmann

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Walther Holtzmann (born December 31, 1891 in Ebersbach an der Fils , † November 25, 1963 in Bonn ) was a German diplomat and historian .

The son of a high school professor attended school in Bruchsal and Karlsruhe . After military service, he went to the University of Strasbourg in 1911 . In the second semester he moved to Heidelberg University , but was called up again for military service. After returning from the First World War, he received his doctorate in 1920 from Karl Hampe in Heidelberg on the relations between Pope Urban II and France. Holtzmann became an employee of Harry Bresslau , but soon met Paul Fridolin Kehr , who recruited him in 1921. In 1922 Holtzmann became assistant at the Roman Institute in Berlin for two years and then went directly to Rome to the Prussian Historical Institute there , where he worked as a diplomat for the Italia Pontificia . In 1926 Holtzmann completed his habilitation in Berlin with Albert Brackmann , left Rome and after a few years as a private lecturer he took over the chair of his cousin Robert Holtzmann at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in 1930 .

Holtzmann is counted among the "politically not committed historians". Holtzmann was not a member of the NSDAP . In his publications, Holtzmann had paid no greater reverence to the Nazi regime. However, on November 1, 1933, he joined the anti-democratic Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten . In 1934 Holtzmann had joined the SA reserve . There he was in the rank of Rottenführer .

In 1936, Holtzmann was appointed to the University of Bonn as the successor to Wilhelm Levison , who had been prematurely retired due to anti-Semitic regulations . From 1946 until his death he was a full member of the central management of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica , in whose library his handwritten catalog of the manuscripts of the cathedral monastery library in Merseburg is kept. In 1946 he became a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . For his English research, Holtzmann was named D. Litt in 1954. hc awarded by the University of Manchester .

From 1953 to the end of 1961, Holtzmann was director of what was now the German Historical Institute, which was able to resume its work after lengthy negotiations with the Italian government. Behind the walls of the Vatican, the library had survived the war and attempts at appropriation undamaged. Here, too, as with the papal document company of the Pius Foundation, he assumed the difficult legacy of his master Kehr and successfully and sustainably got the work going again. Holtzmann was co-editor of the mediaeval journal German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages .

Holtzmann's grave was in the Kessenicher Bergfriedhof in Bonn.

Fonts (selection)

  • Papal documents in England. 3 (in 5) volumes. 1930-1952;
    • Volume 1: Libraries and Archives in London. Part 1: Reports and manuscript descriptions (= treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-Historical Class. New Series Vol. 25, 1, ISSN  0931-2013 ). Weidmann, Berlin 1930;
    • Volume 1: Libraries and Archives in London. Part 2: Texts (= treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-Historical Class. New Series Vol. 25, 2). Weidmann, Berlin 1931;
    • Volume 2: The Church Archives and Libraries. Part 1: Reports and manuscript descriptions (= treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-Historical Class. 3rd Part Vol. 14). Weidmann, Berlin 1935;
    • Volume 2: The Church Archives and Libraries. Part 2: Texts (= treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-Historical Class. 3rd Part Vol. 15). Weidmann, Berlin 1936;
    • Volume 3: Oxford, Cambridge, smaller libraries and archives and supplements from London (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class. 3rd part, Volume 33, ISSN  0930-4304 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1952.
  • Canonical additions to the Italia pontificia I – IV. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries . Vol. 37, 1957, pp. 55-102.
  • Canonical additions to the Italia pontificia V – X. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries. Vol. 38, 1958, pp. 67-175.
  • as editor: Samnium - Apulia - Lucania (= Italia pontificia. Sive repertorium privilegiorum et litterarum a romanis pontificibus ante annum MCLXXXXVIII Italiae ecclesiis, monasteriis, civitatibus singulisque personis concessorum. Vol. 9). Weidmann, Berlin 1962.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ursula Wolf : Litteris et patriae. The Janus face of history (= Frankfurt historical treatises. Vol. 37). Steiner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-515-06875-9 , p. 95 (at the same time: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 1995).
  2. ^ Anne Chr. Nagel : In the shadow of the Third Reich. Medieval research in the Federal Republic of Germany 1945-1970 (= forms of memory. Vol. 24). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-35583-1 , p. 27 (At the same time: Gießen, Universität, habilitation paper, 2003).
personal data
SURNAME Holtzmann, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Ebersbach an der Fils
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1963
Place of death Bonn