Edward Schröder (18 May 1858 – 9 February 1942) was a

Germanist German studies is an academic field that researches, documents and disseminates German language, German literature, literature, and culture in its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies therefore often focus on Culture ...

and

mediaevalist Medievalism is a system of belief and practice inspired by the Middle Ages of Europe, or by devotion to elements of that period, which have been expressed in areas such as architecture, literature, music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and variou ...

who was a professor at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

and published editions of numerous texts.

Life and career

Born in

Witzenhausen Witzenhausen () is a small town in the Werra-Meißner-Kreis in northeastern Hesse, Germany. It was granted town rights in 1225, and until 1974 was a district seat. The University of Kassel maintains a satellite campus in Witzenhausen, which offer ...

and educated in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

, Schröder studied

German studies German studies is an academic field that researches, documents and disseminates German language, literature, and culture in its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies therefore often focus on German culture, German h ...

at the Universities of

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and was a

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

at the University of Göttingen and then at Berlin. In 1889 he was appointed professor at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Prote ...

and in 1902 at Göttingen, where he spent the rest of his career and died in 1942.Friedrich Neumann, ''Studien zur Geschichte der deutschen Philologie: Aus der Sicht eines alten Germanisten'', Berlin: Schmidt, 1971, , p. 112 His PhD thesis was on the early Middle High German '' Anegenge''; his main work for his ''

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

'', which was granted on 20 January 1883, was an unprinted edition of the Legend of

Crescentia ''Crescentia'' (calabash tree, huingo, krabasi, or kalebas) is a genus of six species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America. The species are moderate-size tre ...

from the ''

Kaiserchronik The ''Kaiserchronik'' (''Imperial Chronicle'') is a 12th-century chronicle written in 17,283 lines of Middle High German verse. It runs from Julius Caesar to Conrad III, and seeks to give a complete account of the history of Roman and German em ...

'';Ulrich Hunger, "Deutsche Philologie in Göttingen um 1896: Moriz Heyne und Gustav Roethe zwischen 'Deutschem Wörterbuch' und deutscher Literaturwissenschaft", in ''Zur Geschichte und Problematik der Nationalphilologien in Europa: 150 Jahre Erste Germanistenversammlung in Frankfurt am Main (1846–1996)'', ed. Frank Fürbeth, Pierre Krügel, Ernst Erich Metzner and Olaf Müller, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999, , pp. 295–312
p. 297
he had been commissioned to edit the entire work for the ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The (Latin for "Historical Monuments of Germany"), frequently abbreviated MGH, is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of parts of Northwestern, Central and Souther ...

''.Dorothea Ruprecht
"Schröder, Edward Karl W."
''

Neue Deutsche Biographie (''NDB''; Literal translation, literally ''New German Biography'') is a Biography, biographical reference work. It is the successor to the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, Universal German Biography). The 27 volumes published thus far co ...

'', Volume 23 ''Schinzel – Schwarz'', 3rd ed. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007, , pp. 559–60 In 1896, he became a member of the ''Akademischer Verein für Studierende der neueren Philologie zu Marburg'' (academic association for students of modern philology at Marburg), a student association later renamed the Marburger Burschenschaft Rheinfranken. From 1891 to 1937, he was either editor or co-editor of the ''

Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur The ''Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur'' (commonly abbreviated ''ZfdA'') is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of German studies with emphasis on the older periods. It was established in 1841 and is th ...

''. From 1908 on, he headed the central collection office for the ''

Deutsches Wörterbuch The ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (; "German Dictionary"), abbreviated ''DWB'', is the largest and most comprehensive dictionary of the German language in existence.Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and the National Socialist State. In the conflict between the 'Berlin' and 'Leipzig' schools of Germanic

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

, Schröder was an adherent of the Berlin school of

Karl Lachmann Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann (; 4 March 1793 – 13 March 1851) was a German philologist and critic. He is particularly noted for his foundational contributions to the field of textual criticism. Biography Lachmann was born in Brunsw ...

and of his teacher,

Wilhelm Scherer Wilhelm Scherer (26 April 18416 August 1886) was a German philologist and historian of literature. He was known as a positivist because he based much of his work on "hypotheses on detailed historical research, and rooted every literary phenomeno ...

, and against, for example,

Friedrich Kluge Friedrich Kluge (21 June 1856 – 21 May 1926) was a German philologist and educator. He is known for the ''Etymological Dictionary of the German Language'' (), which was first published in 1883. Biography Kluge was born in Cologne. He studied ...

. He and his lifelong friend

Gustav Roethe Gustav Roethe (5 May 1859, Graudenz – 17 September 1926, Bad Gastein) was a German philologist. Life Roethe studied classical and Germanic philology in Göttingen, Leipzig and Berlin, obtaining his PhD in 1881 (doctoral advisor, Fried ...

both appear to have chosen to begin their careers at Göttingen because of its potential as a centre of rigorous Germanic studies scholarship. In 1887 Schröder married Gertrud Röthe, Roethe's sister; she died in 1935.

Publications

Schröder edited a number of mediaeval German texts, including in addition to the ''Kaiserchronik'' (1892) a collection of verse tales by

Konrad von Würzburg Konrad von Würzburg (c.1220-1230 – 31 August 1287) was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century. As his name suggests, Konrad hailed from the Franconian town of Würzburg. By the standards of medieval poets, his l ...

, ''Zwei altdeutsche Schwänke'' (1919) and ''Zwei altdeutsche Rittermaeren'' (1894), containing '' Moriz von Craûn'' and '' Peter von Staufenberg''. He worked throughout his life on a book about

Till Eulenspiegel Till Eulenspiegel (; ) is the protagonist of a European narrative tradition. A German chapbook published around 1510 is the oldest known extant publication about the folk hero (a first edition of is preserved fragmentarily), but a background i ...

, ''Untersuchungen zum Volksbuch von Eulenspiegel'', finally published in 1988. He had extremely broad professional interests—from

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

and

Old Saxon Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...

to Klopstock and

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

— but loved the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history between and ; it was preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended according to historiographical convention ...

best.J. S. ( Julius Schwietering)
"Edward Schröder †"
''Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur'' 79 (1942) 1–2, p. 1 He also assisted Roethe in completing the revised edition of

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

's ''Deutsche Grammatik'', and after Scherer's death produced the revised edition of his ''Geschichte der deutschen Literatur''. His studies of

onomastics Onomastics (or onomatology in older texts) is the study of proper names, including their etymology, history, and use. An ''alethonym'' ('true name') or an ''orthonym'' ('real name') is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onom ...

helped establish the field in Germany. His focus in etymologies was on the inventors of the words, and he sought whenever possible to relate a placename to an event in the life of a person who had originated it.J. S., p. 2.

Honours

Schröder was a member of the Academies of Sciences of

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

and of the Strasburg Scientific Society in Heidelberg, an honorary member of the Modern Language Association of America and the Historical Association of Lower Saxony, was appointed a '' Geheimer Regierungsrat'' in 1907, and was awarded the Prussian Order of the Crown 3rd class in 1913 and the

Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art The Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art () was first established on 28 November 1853 by King Maximilian II von Bayern. It is awarded to acknowledge and reward excellent and outstanding achievements in the field of science and art. From ...

in 1927. He received an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Göttingen in 1931 and was an honorary citizen of Witzenhausen (1925) and Göttingen (1937).

References

External links

*
Books by and about Edward Schröder
in the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; ) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to collect, permanently archive, comprehens ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schroder, Edward 1858 births 1942 deaths Academic staff of the University of Göttingen Germanists German medievalists German male non-fiction writers

Life and career

Publications

Honours

References

Further reading

External links