Wilhelm Enßlin

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Wilhelm Enßlin (born December 9, 1885 in Aalen , † January 8, 1965 in Kirchheim am Neckar ) was a German ancient historian . In his time he was one of the leading researchers of late antiquity .

Live and act

Wilhelm Enßlin studied history and classical philology in Tübingen, Berlin, Munich and Strasbourg. His most important academic teachers were Ernst Kornemann , Eduard Meyer , Robert von Pöhlmann and Karl Johannes Neumann . In Strasbourg he received his doctorate in 1911 under Neumann on the subject of Kaiser Julian's legislative work and imperial administration . The dissertation was not published until 1923. After completing his doctorate, Enßlin completed the preparatory service for higher education. From 1913 he worked as a senior teacher in Poznan. During the First World War he served as a soldier and was only able to return from French captivity in 1920. From 1922 he was a teacher at the Philippinum grammar school in Marburg. At the same time, he completed his habilitation in 1923 at the University of Marburg with the thesis on the historiography and worldview of Ammianus Marcellinus . He was appointed adjunct professor at the University of Marburg in 1927. Enßlin left school in 1930 when, at the age of 44, he was appointed professor of ancient history at the University of Graz , where he began his work on April 1, 1930. After Erlangen he was appointed to Würzburg in 1936 and 1943 as the successor to Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg . The NSDAP had no objections to Enßlin in terms of "character and political insight". From 1940 to 1943 he was Dean of the Philosophical Faculty at the University of Erlangen. He was not released from university service in 1945. In 1952 he was retired . Enßlin had been a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences since 1940 and a corresponding member of the British Academy since 1964 . He was also a member of the Accademia Spoletina in Spoleto . He received the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1959 .

His main research interests were the Roman-Germanic and Roman-Persian disputes . In addition, he wrote numerous articles for Pauly's Realencyclopadie of classical antiquity on ancient people such as Diocletian , Galla Placidia or Thrasamund and on central offices in administration and the army. For the 12th volume of the first edition of The Cambridge Ancient History (1939) he wrote the imperial history from Severus Alexander to Philip Arabs (chapter 2), the end of the principate (chapter 10) and the reforms of Diocletian (chapter 11). He also published a widely acclaimed Theodoric biography. Enßlin's Theodoric research mainly clarified the structure of Theodoric's relationship with the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church.

During National Socialism he wrote a contribution to each of the two prestigious National Socialist projects in the field of classical studies. In the 1942 contribution to the two-volume compilation published by Helmut Berve , The New Image of Antiquity , he examined the role of leading Germanic peoples from Stilicho to the Ostrogoth king Theodoric in the Roman Empire. According to Hartmut Leppin , Enßlin refused to use racist explanations. According to Karl Christ , it was Enßlin's goal to “detach the Teutons from the old barbarian template and show their constructive and conservative work for the empire of late antiquity”. For the volume Rome and Carthage published by Joseph Vogt in 1943 , he dealt with the influence of Carthage on the state administration and economy of Rome. For Helmuth Schneider , Enßlin was not a representative of the Nazi ideology. But in connection with the racist issues raised in the anthology, his statements show “a clear closeness to National Socialism”. Schneider thus comes to a different judgment than Karl Christ (1982) and Ralf Urban (2000) before . According to Christ, Enßlin described "in a very sober and thoroughly critical form [...] the 'influence of Carthage on state administration and the economy of the Romans'". According to Urban, Enßlin “did not fall on his knees” in his scientific work before the political zeitgeist.

Fonts (selection)

  • On the historiography and worldview of Ammianus Marcellinus (= Klio supplement 16 = new episode 3). Dieterich, Leipzig 1923 (at the same time: Marburg, university, philosophical habilitation paper).
  • Theodoric the Great. 2nd Edition. Bruckmann, Munich 1959.
  • On the wars of the Sassanid Shapur I: Presented on July 4, 1947 (= session reports of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Department. 1947.5). Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1949.
  • God-Kaiser and Kaiser by God's grace (= session reports of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Department. 1943.6). Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1943.
  • On the Ostpolitik of Emperor Diocletian (= meeting reports of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Department. 1942.1). Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1942.

literature

  • Helmut Berve : Wilhelm Ensslin. In: Yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences 1966, pp. 170–175 ( online ).
  • Karl Christ : Klio's changes. The German ancient history from neo-humanism to the present. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54181-X , p. 54.
  • Karl Christ: Roman history and German history. Beck, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-406-08887-2 , pp. 148-150.
  • Hartmut Leppin : Ensslin, Wilhelm. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 358 f.
  • Adolf Lippold : Wilhelm Ensslin. In: Gnomon . Volume 37, 1965, pp. 637-639.
  • Helmuth Schneider : "... beyond a tenacious will to defend against an abysmal hatred". Wilhelm Enßlin zu: The influence of Carthage on state administration and economy of the Romans. In: Michael Sommer , Tassilo Schmitt (Ed.): From Hannibal to Hitler. "Rome and Carthage" 1943 and German Classical Studies under National Socialism. wbg Academic, Darmstadt 2019, pp. 198–229.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Helmuth Schneider: "... beyond a tenacious will to defend against an abysmal hatred". Wilhelm Enßlin zu: The influence of Carthage on state administration and economy of the Romans. In: Michael Sommer, Tassilo Schmitt (Ed.): From Hannibal to Hitler. "Rome and Carthage" 1943 and German Classical Studies under National Socialism. Darmstadt 2019, pp. 198–229, here: p. 209; Friedrich Lenger : The Erlangen Historians in the National Socialist Dictatorship. In: Helmut Neuhaus (ed.): History in Erlangen. Erlangen et al. 2000, pp. 268–287, here: p. 276.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Enßlin: The Roman Empire under Germanic rule, from Stilicho to Theodoric. In: Helmut Berve (ed.): The new image of antiquity. Vol. II, Rome, Leipzig 1942, pp. 412-432.
  3. ↑ Hartmut Leppin : Ensslin, Wilhelm. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 358 f.
  4. ^ Karl Christ: Roman history and history of science. Darmstadt 1982, p. 216. Approving: Helmuth Schneider: "... beyond a tenacious will to defend against an abysmal hatred". Wilhelm Enßlin zu: The influence of Carthage on state administration and economy of the Romans. In: Michael Sommer, Tassilo Schmitt (Ed.): From Hannibal to Hitler. "Rome and Carthage" 1943 and German Classical Studies under National Socialism. Darmstadt 2019, pp. 198–229, here: p. 216.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Enßlin: The influence of Carthage on state administration and the economy of the Romans, in Rome and Carthage. Leipzig 1943, pp. 262-296.
  6. ↑ Helmuth Schneider: "... beyond a tenacious will to defend against an abysmal hatred". Wilhelm Enßlin zu: The influence of Carthage on state administration and economy of the Romans. In: Michael Sommer, Tassilo Schmitt (Ed.): From Hannibal to Hitler. "Rome and Carthage" 1943 and German Classical Studies under National Socialism. Darmstadt 2019, pp. 198–229, here: p. 229.
  7. ^ Karl Christ: Roman history and history of science. Darmstadt 1982, p. 209.
  8. ^ Ralf Urban: Old history in Erlangen from Robert (von) Pöhlmann to Helmut Berve. In: Helmut Neuhaus (ed.): History in Erlangen. Erlangen 2000, pp. 45–70, here: p. 61.
personal data
SURNAME Enßlin, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ancient historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Bask
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1965
Place of death Kirchheim am Neckar