Wilhelm Undaunted

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Unverzagt (born May 21, 1892 in Wiesbaden , † March 17, 1971 in East Berlin ) was a German prehistoric scientist.

Training and First World War

Unverzagt, who comes from Rheinhessen , studied classical philology, archeology and geography at the universities of Bonn , Munich and Berlin between 1911 and 1914 . As a student he became a member of the Christian student associations Bonner Wingolf and Munich Wingolf . From 1914 to 1916 he was used as a soldier in the First World War in Flanders, Łódź (Poland) and the Carpathians (winter campaign), where he was seriously wounded. He then worked for a short time as a research assistant in the Museum of Nassau Antiquities in Wiesbaden and from December 1916 to summer 1917 in the Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute in Frankfurt am Main. He was then employed by the military in Brussels as an assistant in the staff of the head of administration for Flanders, where he recorded Roman and late ancient monuments in Belgium and northern France. After the end of this period of service on November 12, 1918, he worked again in the Wiesbaden Museum. From 1919 to autumn 1924 he worked in the diplomatic service. Due to his efforts to rescue Belgian and northern French art possessions, he was initially appointed to the German Armistice Commission in Spa , then became a consultant from January 1, 1920 and was then most recently active in the Reich Commissariat for reparations deliveries in Berlin. In Spa he got to know the French prehistorian Raymond Lantier and in Berlin he made contact with Carl Schuchhardt , the then director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum , whose prehistoric department contained the largest treasury in Germany. In 1924 he became a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

After many years of war-related interruptions, Unverzagt resumed his studies and received his doctorate on March 3, 1925 at the University of Tübingen under the classical archaeologist Carl Watzinger . During his studies he also gained excavation experience: in 1911 in the late Roman fort Alzey and on the Limes near Sayn , during his time in Munich in Cambodunum ( Kempten (Allgäu) ) under the direction of Paul Reinecke and finally during his assignment in Belgium in 1918 together with Gerhard Bersu in the late Roman fort at Famars near Valenciennes .

Work as a prehistorian until the end of World War II

In 1925 he became a research assistant and in 1926 director at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin , which was then the largest German museum for prehistoric archeology. He became director on October 1, 1926, a young archaeologist who was largely unknown at the time. After Carl Schuchhardt was retired in 1925 and Gustaf Kossinna in 1926 , the time came for Undaunted. First he became a full member of the German Archaeological Institute in 1927 and of the Roman-Germanic Commission in 1929 . From 1928 he received a teaching position at the Berlin University, in 1932 he became an honorary professor there . Undaunted became a member of the NSDAP in 1937 with the end of the admission ban (membership number 3917672). The election as a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences took place in 1939, but it was not confirmed by the Rosenberg office . He also took part in courses of the SS and the Reich Labor Service .

Wilhelm Unverzagt carried out numerous excavations on ramparts in Germany , such as in Lossow near Frankfurt (Oder) from 1926 to 1926, on the Reitweiner Wallberg mountains near Reitwein im Oderbruch in 1930, in Macedonia from 1931 to 1932, in Zantoch an der Warthe from 1932 until 1934, in Kliestow near Frankfurt (Oder) 1936 to 1938 and finally in Lebus from 1939 to 1944. Unverzagt was chairman from 1942 to 1944 and deputy chairman from 1951 to 1954 of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory . It was only relatively late, in 1942, that he became a member of the Reich Association for German Prehistory .

From February 13, 1945 until the end of World War II, Unverzagt stayed in the Berlin bunker at the zoo in rooms 10 and 11. He also brought some archaeological exhibits into the huge overcrowded building, which he saved from destruction or theft. The most famous pieces were the jewelery of the Trojan " Treasure of Priam " packed in several boxes and the "Gold of the Merovingians ". After the capture of the bunker by the Red Army, this was handed over to the Soviet command without hesitation, thus protecting the gold treasure from looting and division. The city commander promised to guarantee the safety of the art treasures. The treasures were taken away by the Soviet army and are now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Work in the GDR

After the Second World War, Unverzagt founded the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory in the German Academy of Sciences , where he had been a researcher since 1947 and chairman of the Commission for Prehistory until 1953 . After the commission was transformed into the Institute for Prehistory and Early History , he headed the institute until 1964. Since 1949 he was also a full member of the German Academy of Sciences . There he was primarily involved in researching Slavic castle walls, which, however, goes back to older interests that had nothing to do with an ideological orientation within the GDR. As early as 1927 he was instrumental in founding the “ Working Group for Research into Prehistoric and Early Historical Wall and Weir Systems in Central and Eastern Germany ”. During the time of the division of Germany into the Federal Republic and the GDR, he was one of the outstanding scientists who worked intensively in their field to maintain contact between East and West.

Understanding had been the publisher of the Prehistoric Journal since 1927 , of the publications of the Section for Prehistory and Early History since 1953, of the journal Excavations and Finds since 1956 and of the journal Values ​​of the German Homeland since 1957 . In 1959 Unverzagt received the National Prize of the GDR , 2nd class.

His academic legacy of institutional provenance was initially at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . From there it was transferred in part to various institutions from 1990, including the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and the State Archaeological Museum , the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History (Berlin) . In 2004, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History also acquired from private ownership those scientific documents and materials that had been in his apartment in Berlin-Charlottenburg after Unverzagt's death and combined them into a partial scientific estate.

Fonts (selection)

  • The Alzei fort . In: Bonner Jahrbücher . No. 122 (1912), pp. 137-169.
  • The ceramics of Fort Alzey (= materials for Roman-Germanic ceramics. Vol. 2). Baer, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1916.
  • Terra sigillata with wheel decoration (= materials for Roman-Germanic ceramics. Vol. 3). Baer, ​​Baer, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1919.
  • (Ed. with Albert Brackmann ) Zantoch. A castle in the German East (= Germany and the East. Vol. 1). Hirzel, Leipzig 1936.
  • (with Ewald Schuldt ) Teterow . A Slavic castle wall in Mecklenburg (= writings of the section for prehistory and early history. Vol. 13). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1963.

literature

  • Paul Grimm (Ed.): Varia archaeologica. Wilhelm Unverzagt on his 70th birthday (= German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Writings of the Section for Prehistory and Early History. Vol. 16). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1964 (with portrait, appreciation and list of publications).
  • Mechthilde Unverzagt: Wilhelm Unverzagt and the plans to found an institute for the prehistory of East Germany (= The German Archaeological Institute. Vol. 8). Zabern, Mainz 1985, ISBN 3-8053-0807-8 .
  • Werner Coblenz : In memoriam Wilhelm Unverzagt, May 21, 1892– March 17, 1971. In: Prehistoric Journal . Vol. 67 (1992), ISSN  0079-4848 , pp. 1-14.
  • Reimer Hansen, Wolfgang Ribbe (ed.): History in Berlin in the 19th and 20th centuries. Personalities and institutions (= publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin. Vol. 82). De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1992, ISBN 3-11-012841-1 , p. 123.
  • Sebastian Brather : Wilhelm Unverzagt and the image of the Slavs. In: Heiko Steuer (Ed.): An outstanding national science. German prehistorians between 1900 and 1995 (= supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 29). De Gruyter, Berlin 2001, pp. 173-198.
  • Marion Bertram: Wilhelm Unverzagt and the dispute over the reorganization of the Brandenburg monument preservation. In: Achim Leube (Ed.): Prehistory and National Socialism. Central and Eastern European Prehistory and Early History Research in the years 1933–1945. Heidelberg 2002, pp. 255-276.
  • Marion Bertram: Wilhelm Unverzagt and the State Museum for Pre- and Early History. In: The Berlin Museum of Prehistory and Early History. Festschrift for the 175th anniversary (= Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica. Vol. 36/37). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 2005, pp. 162–192.
  • Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X , pp. 612-613.
  • Timo Saalmann: Wilhelm Unverzagt and the State Museum for Pre- and Early History Berlin in the Nazi era. In: The ancient world. Vol. 55 (2010), ISSN  0002-6646 , pp. 89-104.
  • Achim Leube: Prehistory between the Empire and the reunified Germany. 100 years of prehistory and early history at the Berlin University Unter den Linden. Habelt, Bonn 2010. ISBN 978-3-7749-3629-4 , p. 59. 123-126.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ August Winkler: Vademekum WIngolfitikum , Wingolfsverlag, Wolfratshausen 1925, p. 65.
  2. ↑ Werner Coblenz, Prehistoric Journal 67, 1992, pp. 1-2.
  3. ^ Märkische Oderzeitung : Von Bülow brought shine to the diocese from March 1, 2006.
  4. ^ W. Coblenz, Prehistoric Journal 67, 1992, p. 1.
  5. ^ National Museums in Berlin: Museum of Prehistory and Early History acquired the partial estate of the prehistorian Wilhelm Unverzagt in October 2004
personal data
SURNAME Undaunted, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prehistorian
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH 17th March 1971
Place of death Berlin