Wilhelm Havemann

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Wilhelm Valentin Havemann (born September 27, 1800 in Lüneburg , † August 23, 1869 in Göttingen ) was a German historian .

youth

The professor's son lost his father at an early age and was raised by his mother in Bevensen and Mecklenburg. Then he attended the Johanneum Lüneburg and the local knight academy .

legal studies

In 1819 he began to study law at the Georg-August University in Göttingen. There he became a member of the Old Göttingen Burschenschaft / Pideritia in 1820 .

Youth League

In 1820 he went to the University of Erlangen for a semester, where he was accepted into the so-called Youth League, which campaigned for a "larger, freer, unified and better fatherland". This membership would have far-reaching consequences for him and would linger on him for the rest of his life.
In Erlangen he became a member of the Arminia Erlangen fraternity in 1821 , the later fraternity of the Bubenreuther . Back in Göttingen, Havemann also campaigned for the youth union here . When his own fraternity was dissolved in 1822 by order of the state government, the Aktivas founded a secret, closer association based on fraternity principles. Havemann, in whose room he was founded, took on various offices for this association. In 1822 Havemann had to finish his studies because of his membership in this association without passing the state examination. He left Göttingen and started an apprenticeship in Darmstadt.

Arrest and Detention

After the Youth League was discovered in 1823, Havemann was arrested on March 21, 1824 in Darmstadt and transferred to the Prussian state government in Köpenick. There he remained in severe solitary confinement until he was sentenced in Osnabrück in autumn 1825. Havemann was sentenced to six years imprisonment, which he began in Hildesheim at the beginning of January 1826. He used his prison time to study history privately. After almost three years, he was pardoned in December 1828.

Activity as a teacher

In the following years he gave historical lectures in several cities, as a result of which he was even hired by the Hanover State Academy to give further lectures.

In 1831 he went to Ilfeld as an assistant teacher . Through scientific diligence and thoroughness he regained a foothold in society, but without ever being regarded as completely rehabilitated.
In Ilfeld in 1833 Havemann also published his lectures from previous years ( History of the Italo-French Wars from 1494 to 1515 ). This was followed by a biography of Magnus II, Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneburg and finally the history of the Lands of Braunschweig and Lüneburg for school and home, dedicated to the viceroy .

The professorship in Göttingen

Above all, the history of the states of Braunschweig and Lüneburg contributed to the fact that Havemann, who was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1837 on the occasion of the university anniversary, was appointed to the Georgia Augusta zu Göttingen - but only as an associate professor in view of his political past .

The financially desolate Havemann, with many children, accepted the call and took up a new teaching position in Göttingen in the winter semester of 1838/39 as the first scholar after the expulsion of the Göttingen Seven . As a result, the formerly severely punished for his overly liberal convictions now came under the suspicion of having acted in the interests of the king and illegally by the liberals ( Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann , Jacob Grimm ). So Jacob Grimm accused him in a letter of having taken over Dahlmann's chair, even before Dahlmann himself had found another job. Havemann tried to free himself from these allegations throughout his life. He saw in his appointment not Dahlmann's old, but a newly established chair for regional history. Therefore, he did not tie in with Dahlmann with any of his lectures.

His numerous publications during his time in Göttingen include: a. Elisabeth, Duchess of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, born Margravine of Brandenburg. A contribution to the Reformation and moral history of the XVI. Century (1839) and The Church Reformation of the City of Göttingen (1842).

In 1841 Havemann was appointed assessor of the Societät der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen . A year later, the historian, valued by his colleagues as sincere and hard-working, was appointed editor of the Göttingisch Scholar Ads - without, however, being looked after with the cash management "in view of his dire financial situation".

From the winter semester of 1842 he was a member of the scientific examination committee for teaching at secondary schools, which he chaired several times in the following period.

On December 5, 1843, Havemann was finally appointed full professor. However, with the addition that professors appointed from abroad will be assigned the place in front of Havemann. This humiliation also went back to his political past. Nevertheless, Havemann tried to bring respected scholars to Göttingen and thus to revalue the reputation of the university. But it was not successful until 1848, when Georg Waitz took over Dahlmann's chair.

In 1850 Havemann was elected a full member of the Societät der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. However, he never reached higher offices in the university hierarchy or higher awards. Here, too, the reason may be sought in its political past.

In the following years Havemann mainly worked on his three-volume History of the Lands of Braunschweig and Lüneburg , published between 1853 and 1858 . For this work he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Guelph Order of the Royal House of Hanover in 1858 .

family

In 1831 Havemann married Johanne Caroline Scheel in Ilfeld . By the time the wife died in 1847, this connection resulted in eight children, two of whom died in infancy. Havemann married a second time in 1849. The marriage with the Hamburg merchant's daughter Charlotte Emilie Kleinschmidt had two children. Despite his numerous publications and his professional commitment, Havemann was always financially on the verge of subsistence level. So he could not even provide an education for his children.

Havemann, who had been ailing for a long time, died of bone cancer on August 23, 1869 in Göttingen . He was buried three days later in the Albani cemetery in Göttingen.

After his death, the widow even had to sell the house and move with the children to a sister, because the financial means - including the low widow's pension - were not sufficient to lead a life.

Nowadays, neither a tombstone (the grave is considered untraceable) nor a plaque in Göttingen remind of the productive regional historian.

plant

Havemann saw the historian's task primarily in writing history , not in historical research . With his work, he wanted to present a broad regional history for school and home, backed up by extensive source material (documents, annals, chronicles).

In Havemann's local history, the Guelph dynasty holds the central position. Economic, social and spiritual influences are only considered to a small extent. Havemann is a child of his (historical) time. Nevertheless, this detailed Braunschweig-Lüneburg regional history has not yet been replaced as a standard work by any more precise work (written according to today's criteria of historical research).

literature

  • Gustav Gilbert:  Havemann, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 114 f.
  • Waldemar Röhrbein: Wilhelm Havemann , in: Edgar Kalthoff (Hrsg.): Niedersächsische Lebensbilder , Vol. 6, 1969.
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , pp. 263-264.

Individual evidence

  1. Ernst Höhne: The Bubenreuther. History of a German fraternity. II., Erlangen 1936, p. 65.
  2. a b Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematisch-Physikalische Class. Volume 3, Vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 106.

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Havemann  - Sources and full texts