Lectures and Audio Documents of the History of the MGH
Lectures on the History of Mediaeval Research
©Musikstück im Intro: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0/Volcán von Cartas a Felice /https://freemusicarchive.org
Ottokar Menzel (1912-1945) and Hildegund Menzel-Rogner (1910-1945). Married Life and Scholarly Work in Hitler's Germany
Lecture by Prof. Dr Martina Hartmann, presented online on 18.03.2021
Ottokar Menzel held a scholarship 1937-1938 at the „Reichsinstitut für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde“, as the MGH was renamed in the years 1935 to 1945. He edited the Vita of Saint Liutbirg and took on the task of editing the political writings (Staatsschriften) of Engelbert of Admont. Thanks to his post in the department for military history under the high command of the armed forces, where he worked as military administration officer, he avoided being sent to the front. His wife, Hildegund Menzel-Rogner, held a PhD in philosophy and mathematics. She translated works of Nicolaus of Cues and worked at the Preußische Akademie on editing the mathematical writings of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz.
In her presentation, Martina Hartmann draws on letters, diaries and accounts by contemporaries, such as Felix Hartlaub, to reconstruct the life circumstances of this highly gifted married couple during the years of Nazi dictatorship.
Audio Documents
„Glückwünsche zur Volljährigkeit“ (Best wishes on your coming of age)
A radio interview by the Bayerischer Rundfunk with MGH president Herbert Grundmann in 1963 on the occasion of the MGH becoming a corporation of public law (in German)