Wolfgang Heß (numismatist)

Wolfgang Heß (born April 13, 1926 in Offenbach am Main ; † July 3, 1999 ) was a German regional historian and numismatist .

Life

Wolfgang Heß attended the Hindenburg high school in his hometown Offenbach and was drafted as an air force helper in 1942. In the spring of 1945 he was taken prisoner by the French and served in France until 1948. From the winter semester 1948/49 he studied art history , history , historical auxiliary sciences and folklore in Marburg an der Lahn and Frankfurt am Main ; his academic teachers included Harald Keller and Paul Kirn . In the summer semester 1955, he was charged with an assisted by Keller work on the Hessian cities founded by the Landgrave of Thuringia in the 12th century doctorate .

After volunteering at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt (1955–1956), the Museum for Hamburg History (1956–1957) and the Hessisches Landesmuseum Kassel , Heß was a DFG scholarship holder from 1958 to 1960 at the Hessian State Office for Historical Regional Studies in Marburg, before joining in 1960 moved to the municipal cultural institutes of Worms as a research assistant . In 1964 Walter Schlesinger brought him back to the Marburg State Office for Historical Regional Studies, where Hess initially worked as an Academic Councilor , from 1973 as an Academic Senior Councilor, and also worked as a lecturer in numismatics at Philipps University.

In 1980, Heß succeeded Dirk Steinhilber as chief curator and later chief curator of the Medieval and Modern Age department at the State Coin Collection in Munich , where he took over the position of executive director of the collection from Harald Küthmann in 1984 . In 1991 he retired, but held a teaching position for historical auxiliary sciences at the LMU Munich until the winter semester 1998/99 .

In the 1993 summer semester, Heß was visiting professor at the Institute for Numismatics and Monetary History at the University of Vienna . Large parts of his academic legacy have been in the archive of this institute since 2006; a full development is still pending.

Heß was a member of the Numismatic Commission of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1973 to 1991 and was temporarily its second chairman. In 1998 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon .

Hess is the father of the lawyer Burkhard Hess .

Researches

The focus of Wolfgang Heß's research is on numismatics , the history of coins and money in the Middle Ages and the early modern period with their artistic, regional, social and economic dimensions. He published numerous individual studies on various market and mints in Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and the Rhineland, in particular on bracteates . After moving to Munich, he was the curator of numerous exhibitions on coinage and wrote an art guide for the local state coin collection.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

Founding of Hessian towns by the Landgraves of Thuringia (= contributions to Hessian history. Volume 4, ISSN 0522-6740 ). Trautvetter & Fischer et al., Marburg ad Lahn et al. 1966.

State Coin Collection Munich (= Small Art Guide No. 1543, ZDB -ID 51387-8 ). Schnell & Steiner, Munich a. a. 1985.

Essays

The Hersfeld market square. Origin and importance of flatness for the development of the city. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Volume 4, 1954, ISSN 0073-2001 , pp. 81-116.
The Marburg Pfennig. A numismatic contribution to the history of Hessen. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Volume 8, 1958, pp. 71-105.
Money economy on the Middle Rhine in Carolingian times. In: sheets for German national history . Volume 98, 1962, pp. 26-63. ( Digitized version ).
The Rhenish coinage in the 14th century and the formation of the Kurheinische Münzverein. In: Hans Patze (Hrsg.): The German Territorial State in the 14th Century (= lectures and research. Volume 13, ISSN 0452-490X ). Volume 1. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1970, pp. 257-323, ( digitized version ).

Beginnings of the urban system. Markets, mints and cities until approx. 1330/40. In: Hans Patze , Walter Schlesinger (Hrsg.): History of Thuringia. Volume 2: High and late Middle Ages (= Central German research. Volume 48, 2, 1). Part 1. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1974, ISBN 3-412-02974-2 , pp. 310-330.

Coin finds from Hessen as a mirror of the circulation of money. A work report. In: Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte. Volume 25, 1975, pp. 148-222.

Penny currencies and money in circulation in the Reich at the time of the Ottonians and Salians. In: Bernd Kluge (Ed.): Fernhandel und Geldwirtschaft. Contributions to the German coinage in Saxon and Salian times. Results of the Dannenberg Colloquium 1990 (= Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum. Monographien. Volume 31 = Berlin Numismatic Research. New Series, Volume 1). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1993, ISBN 3-7995-4144-6 , pp. 17-35.

Imperial iconography on coins of the modern age. In: Rainer A. Müller (Ed.): Pictures of the Reich (= Irseer Schriften. Volume 6). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1997, ISBN 3-7995-4174-8 , pp. 169-187.

literature

Inge Auerbach (arrangement): Catalogus professorum academiae Marburgensis. = The academic teachers at the Philipps University of Marburg. Volume 2: From 1911 to 1971 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Volume 15, 2). Elwert, Marburg 1979, ISBN 3-7708-0662-X , p. 690 f.
Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies . Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251-262

Web links

Literature by and about Wolfgang Heß in the catalog of the German National Library
List of publications by Wolfgang Heß on coingallery.de

Publications by Wolfgang Heß in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii

Remarks

↑ Hess died "at home in his study"; see. Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies , Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251–262, here p. 262.
↑ See Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies , Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251–262, here p. 261.
↑ See the notes in: Institute for Numismatics and Monetary History, Mitteilungsblatt 34 / Summer Semester 2007 , Vienna 2007, p. 45 ( online as PDF) ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ); ibid. Mitteilungsblatt 36 / summer semester 2008 , Vienna 2008, p. 40 ( online as PDF) ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ); ibid. Mitteilungsblatt 38 / summer semester 2009 , Vienna 2009, p. 11 ( online as PDF) ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
↑ An overview by Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies , Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251–262, here p. 259 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Hess, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German historian and numismatist
DATE OF BIRTH	April 13, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH	Offenbach am Main
DATE OF DEATH	July 3, 1999

[1] Hess died "at home in his study"; see. Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies , Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251–262, here p. 262.

[2] See Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies , Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251–262, here p. 261.

[3] See the notes in: Institute for Numismatics and Monetary History, Mitteilungsblatt 34 / Summer Semester 2007 , Vienna 2007, p. 45 ( online as PDF) ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ); ibid. Mitteilungsblatt 36 / summer semester 2008 , Vienna 2008, p. 40 ( online as PDF) ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ); ibid. Mitteilungsblatt 38 / summer semester 2009 , Vienna 2009, p. 11 ( online as PDF) ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).

[4] An overview by Reiner Cunz : In memoriam Wolfgang Heß (1926–1999). In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies , Volume 105, 2000, pp. 251–262, here p. 259 f.