Leonhard Ennen

Leonard Ennen ( born March 5, 1820 Schleiden in the Eifel, † June 14, 1880 in Cologne ) was a Cologne archivist, historian, theologian and employees of the General German Biography.

Life

Ennen came from a modest living in poor conditions to smallholder family in the Nordeinfel ( He was not related to the derived from Merzig Bonner country historian Edith Ennen ). Despite his low social origin it was from 1841 to 1844 allow a study of theology in Münster and Bonn his parents. After visiting the seminary in Cologne, he was ordained as a Catholic priest.

From 1845-1857 Ennen was as Curate Vicar active (Kaplan ) in King Winter. When it became clear to him that a full-time pastorate einkömmlichere partly due to the high number of applicants was unattainable, he alienated himself from the Catholic Church. In the course of his since the 1840s both writing criticism mixed in the ultra-conservative official leadership of the Archbishops of Cologne Clemens August Droste zu Vischering ( 1835-1845 ) and John of Scourge ( 1845-1864 ) recognized with frustration over their own situation. It should be emphasized that Ennen the Roman Catholic Church and thus the Pope and the other official church authorities should remain connected until his death. Although he presented himself in his younger years in the circle of Hermesianer to the theologian Georg Hermes, the church politically favored a settlement with the Prussian state. Unlike many other clergy in Bonn and the surrounding area but he did not rule in the 1870s, the Old Catholic Church.

Ennen died in 1880 while his long-time duties as a city archivist in Cologne with only 60 years, probably due to a stroke. Previously, he had suffered through several prolonged illness phases.

Work as a historian

Ennen had certainly facing due to its time witnessing the revolution of 1848 early church-political and historical themes. In 1854 he initiated, including the formation of the Historical Society of the Lower Rhine, in the magazine ( " Annals " ), he published extensively. Here he was elected in the function as "Vice - Sekretair " to the Board. During this time he was able to conduct research in Paris with the support of the Prussian state. A little later he was charged with a no longer detectable work of Dr. phil. doctorate.

After he was in 1856 elected to the so-called Catholic faction in the Prussian House of Representatives, he took advantage of his stay in Berlin for scientific archival research. Even before he took office as city archivist to Ennen had dealt with the recent history of Cologne and the Rhineland. At the end of his work in addition to a variety of newspaper articles were about 350 publications. His promise to submit a city's history, he has made ​​true at least for the medieval Cologne. From 1859 onwards a total of five volumes of the "scientific" published history of the city of Cologne. Other important works were the six volumes of the sources for the history of the city of Cologne, 1860-1879 published in cooperation with the philologist Gottfried Eckertz, and published only after his death band for cathedral building. These publications embodied regardless of their substantive and methodological shortcomings long the standard. This was especially true for his five-volume history of the city, which is only after 150 years, replaced by a revised edition.

Work as an archivist

Ennen was appointed on 1 August 1857 some controversial discussions in the Cologne municipal politics because of his coinage as a minister for the first full-time Director of the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne. Only a few months after taking over the archivist post Ennen issued on 17 October 1857, the first of Use for the city archives and the city library, another followed on August 17, 1878.

Ennen archive order and organization was heavily contested even in his lifetime, especially by his successors Constantine Höhlbaum (1880-1890) and Hermann Keussen ( 1900-1927 ). Höhlbaum had Ennen relentlessly criticized as follows in the first semi-annual report on the state of the City Archives on December 12, 1880: " The optimistic view of my predecessor on the state of archival order [ ... ], I may well not share, because it is contrary to the facts. [ ... ] An archive that parchments and papers piling only, not worthy of its name and is not worthy of conservation. "

At the core criticism made ​​to Ennen firmly that he in the stocks blended are not sufficiently distinct from him documents and files with each other and contrary to the principle of provenance thematic maps (ie after the pertinence producers) ( "Letters ," " Cologne and the Hanse ", " Cologne Cologne contra ", etc. ). This by itself with obvious pride so called " new systematic order " was most likely to meet its own needs as inquiring " historian archivist ". However, they destroyed the original order of the Cologne City Archive, which (subject to the situation after the collapse of the House on March 3, 2009) is clearly visible today in the collections of the house. However, the criticism of Ennen meets only limited to: Apart from the fact that even Keussen and Höhlbaum not consistently held to the principle of provenance, the modern archive client should specify with respect to the order structures of archives shortly after his death, binding methodological standards.

Memory

As a publicist, but mainly as an archivist and historian, he was undoubtedly remained within the meaning of the term dilettante. However, his work must be seen under the conditions of the far part not yet professionalized scientific culture of his time. His life's work has been ignored long especially as a historian of Cologne and the Rhineland, where political and religious resentment against his person nor nachwirkten from the later 19th century. In the district of Cologne Neuehrenfeld remembered today after all the Ennen road at the first full-time city archivist.

Works

In addition to numerous papers in national historical journals he wrote, among others, the following monographs:

• History of the Reformation in the area of ​​the old diocese of Cologne, Cologne 1847;
• France and the Low Rhine, 2 vols, Cologne 1856;
• Time images of the modern history of the city of Cologne, with special reference to Ferdinand Franz Wallraf, Cologne 1857;
• Sources for the history of the city of Cologne (Cologne 1860-1879, Vol 1-6); Reproduction, Cologne, Bachem Verlag 1970;
• History of the City of Cologne, 5 vols, Cologne 1863-1875;
• Pictures of the old Cologne: cityscapes d 15th to 18th century CE description d states from the Middle Ages until after d French period, reprint, ed. and introduced by Willy Leson, Cologne: Bachem Verlag 1977.