Walther Kienast

Walther Kienast (born December 31, 1896 in Berlin ; † May 17, 1985 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German historian . He dealt primarily with the medieval history of Central and Western Europe as well as with the comparative constitutional history .

Walther Kienast, the son of a Protestant businessman, went to the Realgymnasium in Berlin from 1905, before he began studying history and classical philology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin in 1918 . He achieved his doctorate, supervised by his most important academic teacher Dietrich Schäfer , in 1923 with the work The German Princes in the Service of the Western Powers until the death of Philip the Fair . From 1925 he worked in the archives service and prepared his habilitation under the title The Beginnings of the European State System in the Middle Ages , which he completed in 1933 with Robert Holtzmann .

Since then, Kienast, who had joined the NSDAP in 1933 , was initially a private lecturer , later a research assistant at the Berlin University, and from 1935 to 1943 also co-editor of the historical journal (HZ). From 1939 to 1945 he was a full professor of Middle History at the University of Graz . There he was dismissed in 1945 as a non-Austrian and as “politically charged” because he had not yet been denazified .

Successfully denazified, Kienast was able to work again from 1947 for the historical magazine , which appeared again for the first time in 1949 . Until 1968, Kienast, who was initially not a full professor, was co-editor of the HZ and responsible for the review section, as well as the editor of the HZ special issues 1 to 6 (1962 to 1978).

In addition, Kienast received a teaching position at the University of Frankfurt am Main in 1948 . In 1953 he became a lecturer at the Technical University of Darmstadt . In the same year he was appointed associate professor in Frankfurt. In 1954 he was appointed personal professor there, and from 1960 until his retirement in 1962 he held a Frankfurt chair for Medieval and Modern History as well as auxiliary historical sciences .

Since 1956 Kienast was a member of the International Commission for the History of Representation and Parliamentarial Institutions . In 1976 he was elected a corresponding member of the British Academy . He was married and had one child.

Fonts

• The German princes in the service of the Western Powers until the death of Philip the Fair of France . 2 volumes, Leipzig 1924; Munich 1931.
• Germany and France in the imperial period 900–1270 . Leipzig 1943; 2nd edition, 3 volumes, Stuttgart 1974–1975, ISBN 3-7772-7427-5 .
• Oath of subjects and reservation of allegiance in France and England. Studies on the comparative constitutional history of the Middle Ages . Weimar 1952.
• The title of duke in France and Germany (9th to 12th centuries); with lists of the oldest German duke deeds . Munich et al. 1968.
• The Franconian vassal from the house chests to Ludwig the child and Karl the simple-minded . Edited by Peter Herde . Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-465-01847-8 .

literature

• Jörg-Peter Jatho, Gerd Simon: Giessen historian in the Third Reich. Focus Verlag, Giessen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88349-522-4 , pp. 51-53.

Web links

• Literature by and about Walther Kienast in the catalog of the German National Library

Remarks

1. ^ Winfried Schulze: German History after 1945. Munich 1989, p. 34; Peter Herde : Walther Kienast (1896–1985). In the S. (Ed.): Walther Kienast, The Franconian Vasallity. From the house fights to Ludwig the child and Karl the simple-minded. Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. XI-XLIII, here pp. XIVff.
2. ^ Winfried Schulze: German History after 1945. Munich 1989, p. 126.
3. ^ Winfried Schulze: German History after 1945. Munich 1989, p. 96.
4. ^ Winfried Schulze: German History after 1945. Munich 1989, p. 323.
5. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed June 18, 2020 .