Wolfgang Krause
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Krause was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 linguist. He specialised initially in Celtic studies
Celtic Studies
Celtic studies is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to a Celtic people. This ranges from linguistics, literature and art history archaeology and history, the focus lying on the study of the various Celtic languages, living and extinct...

 and the Tokharians, later in Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 and especially runology
Runology
Runology is the study of the Runic alphabets, Runic inscriptions and their history. Runology forms a specialized branch of Germanic linguistics.-History:...

.

Education and career

Krause studied Classical Philology and Indo-Germanic Studies at the Universities of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

 and Göttingen, from 1914 to 1920. In 1929 he took over the chair in Linguistics at the University of Königsberg
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....

, where his research focussed on mediaeval Scandinavian culture, particularly the runes. In 1937, he moved to the University of Göttingen and in 1938 set up an institute for runological research there. In 1940, troubled by the dwindling resources for independent academic institutions in wartime, he placed it under the sponsorship of the SS cultural and educational organisation, the Ahnenerbe
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...

, and it became the Zentralstelle des Ahnenerbes für Runenforschung (Central Location of the Ahnenerbe for Runic Research), which distinguished it from a similar institute directed by Krause's rival Helmut Arntz. In 1943, he was made Director of the Runic Division of the Ahnenerbe; however, his institute was renamed the Lehr- und Forschungsstätte für Runen- und Sinnbildkunde (Teaching and Research Institute for Runic and Symbological Studies) and he was forced to accept as assistant director for Symbology Karl Theodor Weigel, whom he had long criticised as a dilettante, and who outranked him in the Ahnenerbe despite having never completed his doctorate.

Krause never became a member of the Nazi party, and remained in his position after the Second World War ended. In 1950, the Norse Study Section which he headed was combined with his Institute for Runic Studies to form a Scandinavian Department and he was named its director. He simultaneously remained head of the Linguistics Department. In 1963 he became professor emeritus, after which the directorship of the two departments was again divided. On his 70th birthday, students at the University of Göttingen honoured him with a torchlight procession.

Personal life

Krause had an eye ailment from early childhood. During the 1930s, his sight deteriorated considerably, and in the postwar years he became completely blind. He used Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...

 texts and in deciphering runic inscriptions, was assisted by his wife, Agnes. Students of his such as Hertha Marquardt also received stipends to assist him.

Selected publications

  • Die Wortstellung in den zweigliedrigen Wortverbindungen. Dissertation, Göttingen 1920
  • Die Frau in der Sprache der altisländischen Familiengeschichte. Habilitation
    Habilitation
    Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...

     thesis, 1923
  • Die Kelten. Tübingen 1929
  • Was man in Runen ritzte. Halle 1935
  • Runeninschriften im älteren Futhark. Halle 1937, rev. ed. Göttingen 1966
  • Das irische Volk: Seine rassischen und kulturellen Grundlagen. Göttingen 1940
  • Westtocharische Grammatik. Heidelberg 1952
  • Handbuch des Gotischen. Munich 1953, 3rd ed. 1968
  • Tocharisches Elementarbuch volume 1, Grammatik. Heidelberg 1960
  • "Zum Namen des Lachses". In Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philologisch-historische Klasse, Göttingen 1961, pp. 83–89
  • Die Sprache der urnordischen Runeninschriften. Heidelberg 1971

Sources

  • Indogermanica: Festschrift für Wolfgang Krause: Zum 65. Geburtstage am 18. September 1960 von Fachgenossen und Freunden dargebracht. Heidelberg: Winter, 1960. OCLC 5664269
  • Ulrich Hunger. Die Runenkunde im Dritten Reich: Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschafts- und Ideologiegeschichte des Nationalsozialismus. Frankfurt: Lang, 1984. ISBN 3820480722

External links

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