Professor Walter Schmidt
Photo: private
November 8, 1943 changed the life of Walter Schmidt, who was born on May 11, 1930 and grew up in and at Breslau,: On this day, his communist father Josef Schmidt was executed by the Nazi terrorist justice. Unlike the majority of his German peers, at the latest, the future historian saved from falling victim to the fascist ideology in any way.
The anti -fascist family also had no revenue by the painfully felt, accompanied by dangerous moments from Silesia after the liberation from fascism in 1945. On the contrary: the solidarity of the emerging German labor movement with the Polish people, struggling for his freedom, became one of the research topics of the extremely productive historian.
The life path of Walter Schmidt led to Berlin from attending the high school in Greiz in Vogtland via the University of Jena, where Karl Griewank became the most important teacher. At the institute (later: the academy) for social sciences, Walter Schmidt received a job about Wilhelm Wolff, one of the closest friends of Marx and Engels, in 1961. Before the habilitation, he was appointed professor at the same institute in 1965 and Vice President of the GDR historian society. From 1984 to 1990 he held the directors’ office at the Central Institute for History of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR.
Admission to early retirement saved him – in many cases in many of his students and employees – in the Federal Republic to search for short -term work orders – which could be approved or not, but relatively rarely continued the previous working issues; Many of the results developed was lost forever.
Not so for Walter Schmidt: he was able to continue his research almost unbroken, albeit with material restrictions. The “heart topic” was the 1848 revolution. Based on the proletarian component in it, Schmidt expanded the spectrum of his work. He increasingly turned to the politics and ideology of the bourgeoisie of this time, based on the ideology -critical approach through social -historical studies, discovered the fraternities of the time as important drive forces revolutionary struggles and felt the European history of the revolution.
In addition to countless contributions, he became the initiator of important, partly international research projects, among which the seven -volume book series about »players of a change. Men and women of the revolution of 1848/49 “should be emphasized. After 1990, he was instrumental in rescue the project of a Marx Engels-Virgin edition, which finally found her home at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam.
Since 1981 corresponding member of the GDR Academy of Sciences since 1985, Walter Schmidt was committed to the Leibniz Society, which was based in 1993, was involved. There he initiated and directed the working group “Vormärz and 1848 revolutionary research”. It is less well known that he was already active before 1989, also publicist, to the German-Jewish history of the German-Jewish history, and also tried and tried to remedy failures by GDR historians.
Walter Schmidt is wide awake and tirelessly active until old age. Only in recent years the tall, lively man, which some calls the Silesian warriors, has to step into a little shorter. However, he still refuses to renounce the Vita Activa and to modest himself with the Vita Contemplativa; He still comments on questions that are close to his heart. His phone calls inspire the younger ones.
We wish Walter Schmidt that he will use his 95th birthday, which he will celebrate with family and friends, to start preparing for the very big anniversary in five years – which we would then like to celebrate with him!