Gustav Neckel

Gustav Neckel (born 17 January 1878 in Wismar, died 24 November 1940 in Dresden) was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies.

Life and career

His parents were Gustav Neckel (1844–1923), an industrialist and businessman, and Amanda, ''née'' Paetow (1854–1914).

After completing his Abitur in Wismar in 1896, Neckel studied German philology at Munich (1896–1897), Leipzig (1897–1898) and Berlin (1898–1902), where he earned his doctorate in 1900 under Andreas Heusler. He then worked as a teacher until completing his Habilitation and becoming a lecturer at the University of Breslau in 1909.

Beginning in 1911, he was Professor of Old Norse at Heidelberg University, then in 1919–1920 at Berlin. From summer semester 1920 until 1935 he succeeded Heusler as Professor of Germanic Studies, with emphasis on the Scandinavian languages. From 1935 to 1937 he was founding Head of the Old Norse Division of the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Göttingen, then from 1937 to 1940 Professor of Germanic Philology at Berlin, where he was, however, unable to work due to illness; he had a "nervous condition" from which he had barely recovered when he died suddenly of a pulmonary infection.Bernard Mees, ''The Science of the Swastika'', Budapest/New York: Central European University Press, 2008, 978-963-9776-18-0
p. 178

Neckel's career was disturbed by conflict with Bernhard Kummer and an accusation that he had seduced a student, which led to his being forced to leave Berlin and move to Göttingen; the chair, the most prominent in the field, came with him and a new division was created for him within the Göttingen Department of Germanic Studies.Fritz Paul
Zur Geschichte der Skandinavistik an der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen: Eine vorläufige Skizze
Skandinavisches Seminar, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 1985, retrieved 12 October 2010

Neckel resisted the politicisation of his department at Berlin and was open-minded on race and its relevance to his discipline; nevertheless, the increasingly ''völkisch'' point of view in his writings, his initial support for Kummer and Herman Wirth, and his advocacy of the autochthonous theory of the origin of the runes have led some to see a marked decline in the calibre of his scholarly work beginning in the mid-1920s. His former teacher Heusler wrote repeatedly to his friend Wilhelm Ranisch that he seemed "no longer entirely sane" and that he seemed to have developed "an unhealthy ambition, not to say megalomania".

Neckel's research focused on early Germanic studies and Old Norse. He published the standard German edition of the Elder Edda. Continuing the approach of Jacob Grimm and of Heusler, he saw all Germanic sources, regardless of period or geographic location, as contributing to the picture of a unified Germanic culture.''Reallexikon'
pp. 47-48
quoting: ''Die germanische Gesellschaft von Fürsten, Bauern und Sklaven, die wir aus den Sagas so genau kennenlernen .. sie ist die germanische Gesellschaft der Zeit Attilas, der Zeit des Arminius und schon früherer Zeiten, die überall wesentlich dasselbe Gesicht zeigte.'' - "The Germanic society of lords, farmers and slaves which we come to know so well from the sagas . . . , that is the Germanic society of the time of Attila, the time of Arminius and even earlier times, which everywhere evinced essentially the same features". This culture he believed ethically superior to the medieval Christianity which overtook it, particularly in its respect for women. Heusler and others have considered conflict between ideologues within the Nazi regime, specifically between the Amt Rosenberg, the Ministry and the Ahnenerbe, at least partly to blame for his banishment to Göttingen.Zernack, "'Wenn es sein muß, mit Härte'"
p. 178

See also

* Otto Höfler
* Friedrich Ranke
* Eugen Mogk
* Jan de Vries (philologist)

Selected publications

* ''Über die altgermanischen Relativsätze'', 1900
* (Editor) ''Sieben Geschichten von den Ostland-Familien'', 1913
* ''Walhall. Studien über germanischen Jenseitsglauben''. Dortmund: Ruhfus, 1913.
* ''Die Überlieferungen vom Gotte Balder''. Dortmund: Ruhfus, 1920.
* (Editor) Die jüngere Edda: mit dem sogenannten ersten grammatischen Traktat'', 1925
* ''Altgermanische Kultur'', 1925
* (Editor) ''Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern''. Volume 1: Text. Heidelberg: Winter, 1914. Volume 2: Kommentierendes Glossar. 1927. (Revised editions ed. Hans Kuhn)
* ''Liebe und Ehe bei den vorchristlichen Germanen''. Leipzig: Teubner, 1932.
* ''Vom Altertum zum Mittelalter'', 1935

References

External links

Books by and about Gustav Neckel
in the catalogue of the German National Library

Sources

* Julia Zernack, "Gustav Karl Paul Christoph Neckel". In ''Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950'', ed. Christoph König. 3 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003. . Volume 2, pp. 1311–12.
* ''Germanistik und Politik in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Zwei Fallstudien: Hermann Schneider und Gustav Neckel''. Ed. Klaus von See and Julia Zernack. Frankfurter Beiträge zur Germanistik 42. Heidelberg: Winter, 2004. .

External links

Gustav Neckel
in the OPAC of Regesta Imperii

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neckel, Gustav
1878 births
1940 deaths
German medievalists
Germanic studies scholars
Old Norse studies scholars
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Leipzig University alumni
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin
Academic staff of the University of Breslau
Academic staff of Heidelberg University
Academic staff of the University of Göttingen
Deaths from lung disease
German male non-fiction writers
Translators of the Poetic Edda
Writers on Germanic paganism