Willy Schwabacher

Willy Schwabacher (between 1927 and 1931)

Wilhelm Heinrich "Willy" Schwabacher (born July 22, 1897 in Frankfurt am Main , † August 30, 1972 in Stockholm ) was a numismatist from Germany who had lived in Sweden since 1943. His specialty was ancient Greek coins.

Life

Willy Schwabacher came from a family of coin dealers and numismatists, his grandfather was the coin dealer Adolph E. Cahn (1839-1918), his mother was his daughter Anna, his father Heinrich Wilhelm Schwabacher (1852-1908) was a merchant and coin dealer. Both his uncles Julius Cahn (1872–1935) and Ludwig Cahn (1877–1924) and his cousins Erich B. Cahn (1913–1993) and Herbert A. Cahn (1915–2002) worked as numismatists. Willy Schwabacher's sister was the graphic artist Cornelia Bertha Schwabacher (Nelly Rossmann) (1899–1957), who had worked for the Frankfurter Zeitung until her dismissal in 1935 due to her Jewish religious affiliation and later in exile in London for the émigré magazine Die Zeitung . Their son, the biologist Michael Rossmann , is Schwabacher's nephew.

After graduating from high school, Willy Schwabacher was a soldier in the First World War from 1916 to 1918 . In 1918 he began to study architecture in Darmstadt , but from 1921 he studied classical archeology, ancient history and art history in Munich . In 1922 he spent a semester at the University of Berlin and studied with Kurt Regling . On July 31, 1924 he received his doctorate from Paul Wolters with a thesis The Tetradrachm Embossing of Selinunt . From 1927 to 1930 he worked as an assistant at the museum in Augsburg. In 1931/31 he worked on the coin collection of the University Library Erlangen . From 1932 to 1933 Schwabacher traveled to Italy, Greece and Turkey with the travel grant of the German Archaeological Institute . He then worked for two years on the excavation of the German Archaeological Institute in Kerameikos in Athens. He was excluded from the excavation and from the institute in 1935 for racial reasons, Schwabacher was a Jew.

At first Schwabacher, like other German archaeologists in exile, found refuge at the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Athens ; in March 1938 he went to London , in spring 1939 to Denmark . Here he worked at the Royal Coin Cabinet in the National Museum in Copenhagen. When the Gestapo was preparing the deportation of all Jewish residents of the city in October 1943, Schwabacher was one of the Jews who had been rescued to Sweden by the Danish resistance . He joined the Free German Cultural Association and initially worked briefly as an archive worker. In Stockholm he worked as a curator at the Royal Coin Cabinet from 1954 until his retirement in 1963 . In 1952 Schwabacher became a lecturer at Stockholm University , and a visiting professorship led him to Princeton University in 1965/66 . Schwabacher stayed in Sweden, became a Swedish citizen in 1954 and did not return to Germany for professional reasons. He also translated Swedish specialist literature into German.

Fonts (selection)

A complete list of publications by Willy Schwabacher can be found in Schweizerische Numismati Rundschau 46, 1967, pp. 5–24 and 52, 1973, pp. 162–166 .

• The tetradrachm coinage of Selinunte . In: Communications of the Bavarian Numismatic Society 43, 1925, pp. 1–89.
• with Friederike Gutmann: The tetradrachm and didrachm embossing from Himera . In: Communications of the Bavarian Numismatic Society 47, 1929, pp. 101–144.
• The Voit von Salzburg coin and medal collection of the University Library Erlangen. Kress & Hornung, Munich 1933.
• Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum. The Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Danish National Museum
  • Part I-III (ltaly), part VI (Thrace I) . Copenhagen 1942.
  • Part VII (Thrace II), part XI (Thessaly, etc.), part XII (Epirus-Acarnania) . Copenhagen 1943.
  • Part XIII (Aetolia-Euboea), part XIV (Attica-Aegina), part XV (Corinth), part XVI (Phliasia-Laconia) . Copenhagen 1944.
• The Demareteion (= Opus nobile issue 7). Dorn, Bremen 1958.
• Grekiska mynt ur Konung Gustaf VI Adolfs samling. Allhem, Malmö 1962.
  • German Greek coin art. Brief art history using examples from the SM Gustav VI collection. Adolf, King of Sweden. von Zabern, Mainz 1974.

literature

• Nils Ludvig Rasmusson: Willy Schwabacher 1897 - July 22, 1967 . In: Nordisk Numismatisk Unions Medlemsblad August 1967, pp. 145–147.
• Christof Boehringer : Willy Schwabacher July 22, 1897 - August 30, 1972 . In: Swiss Numismatic Rundschau 52, 1973, pp. 155–161 ( digitized version ).
• Peter Berghaus : Willy Schwabacher, July 22, 1897 - August 30, 1972 . In: Hamburg Contributions to Numismatics 24–26, 1970–1972 (1977), pp. 7–8.
• Wolfgang Schiering : Appendix. In: Reinhard Lullies , Wolfgang Schiering (Ed.) Archaeologists' portraits . Portraits and short biographies of classical archaeologists in the German language. Zabern, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-8053-0971-6 , p. 333.
• Morte Esken Mortensen: Willy Schwabacher, numismatist . In: Exile in Denmark. German-speaking scientists, artists and writers in exile in Denmark after 1933 , Heide 1993, pp. 219–222.
• Peter Berghaus: a portrait of the numismatist. 41.Willy Schwabacher, July 22, 1897 Frankfurt - August 30, 1972 Stockholm . In: Geldgeschichtliche Nachrichten 32, 179, 1997, pp. 117-120.
• Kay Ehling : Schwabacher, Willy. 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. 1153 f.
• Christof Boehringer: Willy Schwabacher 1897–1972. Attempt a portrait . In: Yearbook for Numismatics and Monetary History 64, 2014, pp. 301–322.
• Alexandra Kankeleit: Athens, Greece. "As always, Copenhagen is enjoying itself on the edge of the abyss." Two German archaeologists in exile: Berta Segall and Willy Schwabacher in May 1939 . In: e-research reports of the DAI Fasc. 2, 2019, pp. 84-96 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Willy Schwabacher in the catalog of the German National Library
• Digitized publications by Willy Schwabacher in the Digital Library Numis
• List of fonts at coingallery.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nelly Rossmann Family Papers in the holdings of the USHMM , accessed on July 31, 2017.