Walter Schlesinger

Walter Friedrich Schlesinger ( born April 28, 1908 in Glauchau, † June 10, 1984 in Wolfenhausen, community Weimar ( Lahn) ) was a German historian of state and constitutional history.

Life

The son of a top teacher's born and raised in Glauchau, put Schlesinger 1927 at the local secondary school leaving examination from. He then began studying the subjects of history, German literature, folklore and philosophy at the University of Tübingen, but moved to four semesters at the University of Leipzig, where Rudolf Kötzschke his formative academic teacher. Schlesinger in 1934 received his doctorate in Leipzig with a thesis on the history of Nice Freiburgische country and laid a year later the state exam. His plans to habilitation specialist in the country's history, Schlesinger had to give up for now, because he. Differences with Kötzschkes successor, the Austrian Nazi historian Adolf Helbok, had regard to the Nazi national and racial doctrine Schlesinger was indeed since 1929, member of the NSDAP, however, there were soon after takeover his doubts about this decision. Starting in 1936, Schlesinger was assistant to the medieval historian Hermann Heimpel in Leipzig, where in 1940 he presented his habilitation thesis on fundamental issues of medieval constitutional history. After the departure from Leipzig Helboks Schlesinger was former Professor of German country and folk history appointed in November 1942 to Kötzschkes, but could his teaching only after a long hospital stay in the summer of 1944 to record. During the Second World War, he also worked at the Nazi war project using the humanities. Because of his membership Schlesinger was released in November 1945 from the university service.

As in the aftermath opened up for Schlesinger also at any other university in the Soviet occupation zone a professional perspective, he finally made the decision in November 1951 to move to West Germany. He settled first in Marburg, where he worked at the Research Centre for Urban History since 1952. After he had perceived calls to the Free University of Berlin ( 1954) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main ( 1959), Schlesinger occupied from 1964 until his retirement in 1973 Professor of Medieval History at the University of Marburg. Here he worked closely with the medieval historian Helmut Beumann and was also instrumental in the establishment of the Research Center for Historical Geography of Central Germany, which in 1962 incorporated into the Hessian State Office for Historical Regional Studies. A serious illness prevented since 1976 Schlesinger other scholarly activity. He died in 1984 in Wolfenhausen and was buried in the main cemetery in Marburg.

Research

Schlesinger was known primarily for his many fundamental contributions to medieval Constitutional and national history. Although he is considered one of the most important and influential teacher of medieval history because of his work, he is not without controversy because of his activities in National Socialism and its theories of supremacy of Germanic culture in the Middle Ages. Of special importance was the edited tape of him The German eastern settlement of the Middle Ages as a problem of European History ( 1975), with a paradigm shift in the view of the German eastern settlement was initiated.

He was a member of the Constance Working Group for medieval history. In addition, Schlesinger in 1963 appointed a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, since 1971, he was also member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen.

Writings

  • The Beautifully Freiburgische country until the end of the Middle Ages. ( nd, 1935, Fonts for home research, 2) Dresden, Limpert
  • The emergence of the country's sovereignty. Investigations mainly by central German sources. (1941, Saxon research on the history, 1 ) Dresden, too, ND 1964 Darmstadt University Press.
  • The country's rule of the Lords of Schoenburg. A study of the history of the state in Germany. (1954, Sources and Studies for the History of the Constitution of the German Empire in the Middle Ages and modern times, IX / 1). Münster, Cologne, Böhlau 1954.
  • Contributions to the German constitutional history of the Middle Ages, 2 vols, Göttingen 1963.
  • The emergence of the country's sovereignty. Investigations mainly by central German sources, 5th ed Darmstadt 1964 ( ND 1976, for the first time in 1941 ).
  • Church Saxon history in the Middle Ages, 1962.
  • Manual of historic sites in Germany, Volume 8, Saxony, Stuttgart 1965.
  • Central German contributions to the German constitutional history of the Middle Ages, 1961.
  • The German eastern settlement of the Middle Ages as a problem of European history, Sigmaringen 1975.
  • ( BOD ) About Central European cities landscapes of the early period, 1957
  • ( BOD ) For the hundredth birthday of Rudolf Kötzschkes, 1967
  • ( BOD ) Flink, Klaus; Peter, Franz; Schlesinger, Walter: The complex of historical local lexicon. Report on the Colloquium for editing Historical Ortslexiken, 1966
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