Walther Recke

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Walther Recke , occasionally Walter Recke (born October 4, 1887 in Essen , † November 21, 1962 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German archivist and historian . His research focus was the history of the German Eastern Territories and Eastern Europe.

Life

After studying German and history at the University of Berlin and obtaining his doctorate in 1910, he worked in the Prussian archive administration from 1911, at the Danzig State Archive from 1913 , and as its director from 1929 to 1939. After his habilitation in 1922, he became a full professor of history at the Technical University of Danzig in 1937 . From 1927 to 1939 he headed the Ostland Institute in Danzig and developed a lively journalistic and lecturing activity, the aim of which was to revise the boundaries laid down in the Versailles Treaty and to join the Free City of Danzig and Pomerellens to the German Reich . The Ostland Institute was affiliated with the scientific-political, ethnic-oriented Leipzig Foundation for Folk and Cultural Soil Research . From 1931 to 1940 he was chairman of the West Prussian History Association . In 1935 he was involved in founding the North and East German Research Association.

The Nazi Party , he joined the 1937th In addition, he was head of the district headquarters in the district training office.

After the end of National Socialism, Recke went to West Germany. Initially he was the authorized representative for refugee issues in Schleswig-Holstein. In 1950 he became a founding member of the Herder Research Council . In 1954 he was given a teaching position at the University of Freiburg and was retired in 1959.

Politically, Recke, like his predecessor at the State Archives, Karl-Josef Kaufmann , advocated the revision of the Versailles Treaty and the anti-Slav politicization of historical studies, Ostforschung . Recke called for it to be more difficult for Polish visitors to use German archives, and spoke out in favor of collecting data on Polish historians "in order to push the scientific defense against Poland".

In the "Poland question" he denied "the Polish nation both the right and the ability to maintain a state on its own."

Fonts

  • West Prussia, the fate of the German East. From the history of the Reichsgau Gdansk-West Prussia. Gdansk 1940
  • The birthday of the Polish state. Published by the NSDAP Gauleitung Danzig-West Prussia. Gdansk 1939
  • The Polish question as a problem of European politics. Berlin 1927
  • The constitutional plans of the Russian oligarchs in 1730 and the accession of Empress Anna Ivanovna to the throne. Diss. Berlin 1911

literature

  • Elisabeth Klosse: Walther Recke †. In: Prussia. Vol. 1, 1963, p. 33 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 483
  2. ↑ Bernhart Jähnig : Germans and Balts in the historical-geographical work of the interwar period by Hans and Gertrud Mortensen . In: Michael Garleff (ed.): Between confrontation and compromise. Oldenburg Symposium “Interethnic Relations in East Central Europe as a Historiographical Problem of the 1930s / 1940s”. Munich 1995, p. 128, note 72. - Short obituary also in: Eastern Europe. Issue 2/3, 1963, p. 207
  3. ^ Ingo Haar : Historians in National Socialism. German history and the “national struggle” in the east. Göttingen 2000, p. 67, p. 142.
  4. ^ Ingo Haar: "Revisionist" historians and youth movement. The Königsberg example . In: Peter Schöttler (Ed.): Historiography as a science of legitimation 1918-1945 , Frankfurt a. M. 1997, pp. 52-103, here: p. 65.
personal data
SURNAME Recke, Walther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Recke, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archivist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1962
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau