Wilhelm Engel

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Wilhelm Engel (born March 19, 1905 in Meiningen , † April 23, 1964 in Würzburg ) was a Thuringian and Franconian regional historian .

Life

In his youth, Engel was a member of the Wandervogel movement and, after 1921, of the völkisch youth association Adler und Falken . In 1921 he joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund .

On March 15, 1923, Engel obtained his secondary school leaving certificate and began studying history and German at the Philipps University of Marburg in the summer semester of the same year , which he interrupted by studying for a semester in Tübingen and Vienna . As a student in Marburg, he became a member of the Freikorps Oberland and in 1923/24 worked as a volunteer with the Black Reichswehr . On December 15, 1926 he received his doctorate as Dr. phil. with the dissertation Economic and Social Struggles in Thuringia (especially in the Duchy of Meiningen) before 1848 . The following year he passed his state examination for teaching at secondary schools (major in history, minor in civics).

On June 1, 1927, Engel, who had previously worked for three months at the Thuringian State Archives in Meiningen and at the Prussian State Archives in Marburg for his dissertation , took up a position at the Thuringian State Archives in Weimar under Armin Tille on the recommendation of Rudolf Häpke and Edmund E. Stengel . In February 1929 Engel passed the exams to become an archive assessor and study assessor with good or very good grades. On April 1st he was accepted into the Thuringian archive service. Initially working in Weimar , he was also responsible for managing the archives in Altenburg and Rudolstadt . On September 1, 1932, he was appointed State Archives Councilor. In February 1933 he handed over the management of the Rudolstadt archive to Willy Flach , and kept that of the Altenburg archive until March 16, 1935.

On May 1, 1933, Engel joined the NSDAP and the SS in Weimar . As a result, he gave lectures at the Thuringian State School for Leadership and Politics in Egendorf near Blankenhain , became an advisory board member in the State Office for Racial Affairs in the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior and was active in the history of the Nazi teachers' association.

On March 19, 1935, Engel became an unskilled worker in the Office of Science in the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and National Education and, from October 1 of the same year, succeeded his superior Karl August Eckhardt as the person responsible for personnel issues at the historical institutions in the German Reich. In the same year Engel completed his habilitation in Marburg with a thesis on Johann Friedrich Schannat (1683–1739). As early as March 24, 1936, Engel became a private lecturer for medieval history and historical auxiliary sciences at the University of Berlin , followed by a scheduled professorship on May 20 and an extraordinary professorship on June 9, 1936, which meant that he was a Prussian civil servant and his civil service relationship with the Thuringian state was terminated.

On March 25, 1936, Engel also took over the provisional management of the Reich Institute for Older German History ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica ) and became provisional director of the German Historical Institute in Rome on August 8, 1936 . In February 1937 Walter Frank appointed him to the expert advisory board of the Reichsinstitut, but Engel was released from his ministerial work on April 6, 1937 at Heinrich Himmler's instigation by his former superior Eckhardt . His successor at the German Historical Institute in Rome was his former teacher Stengel in October 1937. From November 1, 1937, Engel taught medieval history, historical auxiliary sciences and Franconian regional studies at the University of Würzburg until he was called up for military service when the war broke out .

Shortly before the end of the war , Engel became an American prisoner of war , which he left in September 1945. He lost his chair in Würzburg because of his National Socialist activities. However, on June 17, 1947, he was classified as a mere “fellow traveler” in a court proceedings . Engel was one of the few historians who did not return to a professorship after 1945.

In 1950, Engel received his doctorate from the University of Erlangen with a legal history thesis entitled Studies on the History of Vogtei and Oblei in the Diocese of Würzburg . Although he could not return to academic teaching until the end of his life, he remained active in many academic organizations and through extensive publications in the post-war years. In 1958 and 1959, however, he was expelled from the Commission for Bavarian State History and from the position of scientific director of the Society for Franconian History . About Würzburg in the picture by Willy Schmitt-Lieb, published in Würzburg in 1956, he wrote the accompanying text. Separated from his family and estranged from his friends, Engel died lonely and sick.

His scientific legacy is in the Würzburg City Archives and in the Würzburg University Library .

Publications

  • (Ed.): Deeds for the history of ecclesiastical administration in the county of Wertheim 1276–1499. Historical Association V., Wertheim 1959; Hart, Volkach before Würzburg 1959.
  • (Ed.): Würzburger Urkundenregesten before 1400. Friends of Mainfränkischer Kunst und Geschichte eV, Würzburg 1958.
  • (Ed.): Deeds to the history of the cities of the Hochstift Würzburg (1172-1413). (Regesta Herbipolensia III.). Schöningh, Würzburg 1956.
  • (Ed.): Deeds on the history of ecclesiastical administration of the Würzburg diocese in the high and late Middle Ages (1136–1488). Schöningh, Würzburg 1954.

literature

  • Enno Bünz : A historian between science and worldview: Wilhelm Engel (1905–1964). In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): The University of Würzburg in the crises of the first half of the 20th century. Biographical-systematic studies on their history between the First World War and the new beginning in 1945. Schöningh, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-87717-064-1 , pp. 252-318.
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 44.
  • Volker Wahl : Wilhelm Engel (1905–1964). A researcher's fate in the 20th century. In: Yearbook of the Hennebergisch-Franconian History Association. Vol. 17 (2002), pp. 9-36; previously in: Thuringian Archivists . 2001 online .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Enno Bünz : A historian between science and worldview: Wilhelm Engel (1905–1964). In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): The University of Würzburg in the crises of the first half of the 20th century. Biographical-systematic studies of their history between the First World War and the new beginning in 1945. Würzburg 2002, pp. 252–318, here: pp. 257 ff .; Peter Herde : Medieval Research in the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1970. In: Maria Stuiber, Michele Spadaccini (ed.): Building blocks for German and Italian history. Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Horst Enzensberger. Bamberg 2014, pp. 175-218, here: p. 191. ( online ).
  2. ↑ Willy Schmitt-Lieb, Wilhelm Engel: Würzburg in the picture. With a foreword by Mayor Franz Stadelmayer . Wisli folder, Würzburg 1956.
personal data
SURNAME Engel, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Thuringian regional historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Meiningen
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1964
Place of death Wurzburg