Walther Peter Fuchs

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Walther Peter Fuchs (born March 13, 1905 in Lüttringhausen (today in Remscheid ), † November 4, 1997 ) was a German historian and university professor .

Life

Fuchs studied history , German , philosophy and theology at the universities of Tübingen , Marburg and Göttingen . He wrote his dissertation in 1930 with the Marburg historian Wilhelm Mommsen . In April 1931 he married Marianne Fuchs (1908-2010), teacher and known as the founder of functional relaxation therapy , with whom he had several children. In September 1935, he followed Günther Franz , who had qualified as a professor in Marburg, the University of Heidelberg to him in 1936 with a thesis on Philip the Magnanimous to Bayern and habilitation ; the habilitation thesis, however, remained unprinted. His teacher Franz also moved to the University of Jena a short time later . The historian Laurenz Müller (* 1935) writes about Fuchs' stance, which was in conformity with the Nazi regime at the time: “Walther Peter Fuchs can even be described as a committed National Socialist .” When the Second World War broke out, Fuchs volunteered for military service.

After the Second World War he was best known for his work on the history of the Reformation as well as Leopold von Ranke and Grand Duke Friedrich I. von Baden . In 1953 he switched to a professorship for history at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , and from 1957 he was also an honorary professor in Heidelberg. His best-known doctoral student at that time was the future German Chancellor Helmut Kohl . Furthermore, u. a. Josef Becker and Gerhard Hümmelchen among his academic students.

In 1962, Fuchs followed a call to the full professorship for Medieval, Modern and Modern History at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg . In the 1950s, Fuchs developed new ideas for a more up-to-date history didactics based on experience with the pure frontal teaching that had been common up until then and the observation of a student body that has since changed in terms of social structure and mentality . As the first dean of studies at the Philosophical Faculty, he initiated the first teaching assignments for didactics of history and, together with Karl-Heinz Ruffmann, founded an annual advanced training event for high school history teachers, which continues to this day. In 1973 he retired .

Fuchs was a member of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg and the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Works (selection)

as an author
as editor
  • with Günther Franz: files on the history of the Peasant War in Central Germany . 2 volumes. Teubner Verlag, Leipzig 1923/42.
  • Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden and Imperial Policy 1871–1907 . 4 volumes. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1968–1980.
  • Leopold von Ranke: The letter work . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1949.
  • State and church through the centuries (= past and present ). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1966.
  • with Erwin Hölzle , Hans Joachim Beyer (ed.): The becoming of our people. A picture hall of German history. Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft , Stuttgart 1938.

literature

  • Helmut Kohl : The long breath of history. For the ninetieth birthday of the historian Walther Peter Fuchs . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Feuilleton, March 13, 1995.
  • Leonhard Müller: The life's work of Walther Peter Fuchs. On his death on November 4, 1998 (obituary). In: Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine (ZGORh) 148, NF 109 (2000), p. 385.
  • 100th birthday of Walther Peter Fuchs (* 13.3.1905) . Conference on March 18, 2005. Karlsruhe symposium on the aftermath and significance of this historian on March 18, 2005, organized by the Institute for History of the University of Karlsruhe and the General State Archives in Karlsruhe.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Laurenz Müller: Dictatorship and Revolution: Reformation and Peasants' War in the historiography of the 'Third Reich' and the GDR (= sources and research on agricultural history , vol. 50). Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8282-0289-6 (also Diss. University of Bern, 2003), p. 131.
  2. ^ Obituary of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg . In: Mediendienst Aktuell , No. 1567, November 7, 1997.
personal data
SURNAME Fuchs, Walther Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Lüttringhausen (now part of Remscheid )
DATE OF DEATH November 4th 1997