Werner Simon (Germanist)

Werner Simon (born April 7, 1900 in Berlin ; † September 13, 1973 in Hamburg ) was a German specialist in German .

Live and act

Werner Simon was the son of a Reichsbankrat. He graduated from high school in 1917 and studied German, comparative linguistics and classical philology in Berlin from 1919. In particular, Gustav Roethe , Wilhelm Schulze and Arthur Hübner influenced him during this time. From 1931 to 1946 he worked full-time for the Berlin Academy of Sciences in the area of ​​the German Commission, where he dealt with the German dictionary of the Brothers Grimm . In 1943, Simon received his doctorate from Julius Schwietering . In his doctoral thesis, as suggested by Wilhelm Schulze, he dealt with the language mix in Heliand . In 1944 he taught for the first time at the University of Berlin.

Simon was not a member of the NSDAP or one of its sub-organizations during the Nazi era . The Soviet military government therefore classified him after the end of the Second World War as one of the few teachers at the Germanic seminar at Berlin University as "unencumbered". In 1946 he received a teaching position at the university without a habilitation and a short time later a professorship. In 1949 it became a chair. From 1952 he also headed the “Middle High German” and “Goethe” departments of the Institute for German Language and Literature, which at that time had been established at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . Here he edited the German texts of the Middle Ages and headed the department that worked on the Middle High German dictionary .

Since the economic policy of the GDR increasingly assumed an "unideological conception" of East German Old German Studies, Simon went to the University of Hamburg . He followed a call as an associate professor who was equal to a full professor . He worked here with Ulrich Pretzel and Hans Pyritz , with whom he had studied in Berlin. In 1962, Simon's position was converted from an extraordinary professorship to a regular chair.

During the lectures in Hamburg, Simon dealt with a wide range of topics: he taught Gothic, Old and Middle High German grammar and dealt with the history of languages. In addition to interpretations of works by Wolfram von Eschenbach , Gottfried von Strasbourg and Walther von der Vogelweide , he spoke on the Nibelungenlied as well as on the history of German folk songs and fairy tales. He also dealt with the history of the language from Martin Luther to the 20th century. Simon retired in 1968.

In addition to teaching, Simon published extensively and devoted most of his working time to lexicographical and editorial work. He preferred to participate in collective projects and did little research on his own. He had come to know and appreciate this way of working during his time at Berlin University. From 1958 he headed the Hamburg office for the Goethe dictionary , which had its seat at the literary studies seminar. He took over this position from Hans Pyritz, who died in 1958. In addition, he held several lectures in which he taught Goethe's language and style through exercises. He continued working on this dictionary even after his retirement.

Simon wrote about 100 articles for the German dictionary, which can be found in volumes X, XI and XIV. He described the lemmas like “strophe”, “structur”, “trust” or “carried” extensively. The work on the dictionary can be seen as Simon's main work. In addition, he wrote essays that dealt with the Titurel Wolfram von Eschenbach and the punch seal. In addition, together with colleagues from Hamburg, he expanded Heinrich Niewöhner's Middle High German Kleinepik to include a text review and published the work in the second edition.

Werner Simon, who had to limit his work due to health problems in the last years of his life, died on September 13, 1973 in Hamburg.

literature

• Mirko Nottscheid: Simon, Werner . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 325-326 .