Wolfgang Liepe

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Wolfgang Liepe (born August 27, 1888 in Schulzendorf , Ruppin district , † July 10, 1962 in Kiel ) was a German specialist in German . Liepe worked at the universities of Halle , Kiel and Frankfurt am Main . During the Nazi era , he taught at various American universities. Liepe is best known for his research on the poet and playwright Friedrich Hebbel .

Moltkestrasse in Kiel. Liepe lived in house no.5 until he was transferred to Frankfurt (white house on the left)

Life

Education and early career

Wolfgang Liepe was born on August 27, 1888 in Schulzendorf / Ruppin district as the son of the Protestant pastor Carl Liepe and his wife Emma (née Rauth) in the local rectory. The family moved to Herzberg / Ruppin district because the father was given the pastoral position there. After the death of the father, who died in Herzberg, the mother and her son Wolfgang moved to Potsdam. Wolfgang attended grammar school in Potsdam and, after successfully completing his Abitur , started his academic career in 1906 by studying German , Romance studies , philosophy and art history in Berlin, Paris and Halle . In 1913 he received his doctorate under Kurt Jahn with a thesis on "The problem of religion in the newer drama from Lessing to Romanticism ". A year later, Liepe also passed the state examination for teaching.

In 1915 Liepe married Gertrud Neustadt. Since he was unable to take part in the fighting as a soldier for health reasons, he was obliged to work as a teacher for the Francke Foundations in Halle for the last two years of the First World War .

After the end of the war he rejected his plans to turn to the theater in favor of continuing his academic career. Liepe returned to the University of Halle, where he completed his habilitation in 1919. His work, entitled " Elizabeth von Nassau Saarbrücken , Origin and Beginnings of the Prosar novel in Germany", was characterized by Eberhart Schulz as groundbreaking, as it represented a "source-critically well-founded rejection of any kind of speculation in literary studies".

Liepe stayed in Halle for the following years, teaching first as a private lecturer , and from 1925 as an associate professor . During this time he also worked as a dramaturge at the Stadttheater Halle. Among other things, he was involved in the production of works by Barlach , Büchner , Goethe , Hauptmann , Holderin and Kaiser. As a dramaturge, Liepe was also a supporter of the Volksbühne movement .

In 1928 he followed a call to Kiel and, as the successor to Eugen Wolff, became the holder of the chair there for “Modern German Language and Literature”. During his time in Kiel, he continued the work of his predecessor and built the Theater and Hebbelmuseum u. a. by adding a record collection . In 1929/30 Liepe accepted an invitation from the USA and taught as a visiting professor at Harvard University . It was the first such commitment by a German scientist since the beginning of the First World War.

Emigration during National Socialism

Liepe was one of a group of professors in Kiel who recognized the political system of the Weimar Republic and who met regularly. This is evidenced by a letter that Liepe wrote on October 6, 1931 to his colleague, the Kiel sociology professor Ferdinand Tönnies. In March 1933 a conflict broke out between Liepe and his colleague Fritz Brüggemann , who also taught at the Germanic seminar in Kiel. Liepe was accused of being a "racial molester" because he was married to a Jewish woman. Sources suggest that Brüggemann was spreading rumors against Liepe at the seminar that students would avoid his lectures because of his political views. Brüggemann did this because he had ambitions for Liepe's chair. Liepe was openly accused of 'racial offenses' from student circles.

In 1933 Liepe was transferred to Frankfurt am Main. On the one hand, he had meanwhile been classified in Kiel as 'politically unreliable' because of his Jewish wife and his friendliness towards the Republic, and on the other - and this was the official reason - Liepe himself was classified as a Jew because he had not served in the front during the First World War. Shortly afterwards, he was no longer classified as a Jew, but because of his Jewish wife he was considered to be ' Jewish misfits '. In 1935 he was transferred back to Kiel for a year, where he no longer worked as an apprentice. Liepe himself applied for retirement , which was granted on March 1, 1936. A short time later, Liepe emigrated to the United States, as he no longer saw a future for his work in Germany.

From 1939 Liepe first taught German cultural and literary history at the theological faculty of Yankton College in South Dakota . Later, from 1947, he held a position as an associate professor for German literature at the University of Chicago .

Return to Kiel

After the end of the war - initiated by Liepe - a correspondence developed between Liepe and the new university management in Kiel, which initially offered him a visiting professorship. After his old chair in Kiel became vacant, Liepe returned to Kiel in 1954. He retired two years later. As a professor emeritus and internationally respected literary and theater scholar, he embarked on a journey into the past in the late 1950s and followed in the footsteps of his childhood and youth by visiting Schulzendorf and Herzberg as well as the cities of Potsdam and Berlin. In 1960 he received the culture award of the city of Kiel . Wolfgang Liepe died on July 10, 1962 at the age of 73 in Kiel.

Friedrich Hebbel (* 1813; † 1863), German playwright and poet.

Act

Wolfgang Liepe dealt intensively with the German literature of the 18th century. His main research focus was the Dithmarsch writer Friedrich Hebbel , whose works he published in 1925 in four volumes.

Works

  • The problem of religion in the more recent drama from Lessing to Romanticism. Halle / Saale 1914 (dissertation)
  • Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken: Origin and beginnings of the prose novel in Germany. Halle / Saale 1920 (habilitation thesis)
  • Contributions to literary and intellectual history. With a foreword by Benno von Wiese. (Kiel studies on German literary history. Volume 2.) Edited by Schulz, Eberhart. Neumünster 1963
  • Friedrich Hebbel: Works. 4 volumes. Edited by Liepe, Wolfgang. Berlin 1925

literature

  • Karl Jordan (Hrsg.): History of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel - 1665-1965. General development of the university. Volume 1, part 2. Neumünster 1965.
  • Mechthild Kirsch: Wolfgang Liepe . In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 2: H-Q. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1092-1094.
  • Eberhard Wilhelm Schulz:  Liepe, Wolfgang. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 532 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ralph Uhlig (Hrsg.): Expelled scientists from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) after 1933. On the history of the CAU under National Socialism. (Hoffmann, Erich (Hrsg.): Kieler Werkstücke series A: Contributions to Schleswig-Holstein and Scandinavian history; Volume 2) Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-631-44232-7 , pp. 29–32 (Uhlig's various information for further archive research.)
  • Carsten Dräger: Ortschronik von Schulzendorf.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.akens.org/akens/texte/ak_ap/1998stadtfuehrungen.pdf p. 4.
  2. ^ Mechthild Kirsch: Wolfgang Liepe. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950. Volume 2: H-Q. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , p. 1094.
  3. ^ A b c d Eberhard Wilhelm Schulz:  Liepe, Wolfgang. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 532 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ↑ Kiel State Library, Tönnies estate
  5. ↑ Uhlig, Ralph (Ed.): Expelled scientists from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) after 1933. On the history of the CAU under National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 1991, pp. 29-30.
  6. ↑ Uhlig, Ralph (Ed.): Expelled scientists from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) after 1933. On the history of the CAU under National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 1991 pp. 30-31.
  7. ^ Mechthild Kirsch: Wolfgang Liepe. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950. Volume 2: H-Q. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , p. 1093.
  8. ↑ Uhlig, Ralph (Ed.): Expelled scientists from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) after 1933. On the history of the CAU under National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 32
personal data
SURNAME Liepe, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Unknown
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Germanist
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Schulzendorf , Ruppin district
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1962
Place of death Kiel