All Scholars

HEISENBERG, Kaspar Ernst August

  • Date of Birth: November 13, 1869
  • Born City: Osnabruck
  • Born State/Country: Germany
  • Parents: Wilhelm August, a locksmith, & Anna Maria Unnewehr H.
  • Date of Death: November 22, 1930
  • Death City: Munich
  • Death State/Country: Germany
  • Married: Annie Wecklein, 1899.
  • Education:

    Ratsgymnasium, Osnabrück; study at Marburg,1888-9, Munich 1889; Leipzig, 1890-1; licence, 1893; Ph.D., Munich, 1894; phil. habil., Würzburg, 1901.
  • Dissertation:

    “Studien zu Textgeschichte der Georgios Akropolites,” (Ph.D., Munich, 1894; publ. as Studien zu Georgios Akropolites(Munich: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1900); “Analecta: Mitteilungen aus italienischen Handschriften byzantinischer Chronographen” (habil., Würzburg, 1901; publ. Munich: J.B. Lindl, 1901).
  • Professional Experience:

    Asst. teacher, Landau in der Pfalz Gymnasium, 1893; Maximilians Gymnasium, Munich, 1893-5; military service 1895-6; teacher, Lindau Gymnasium, 1897-8; travel in Italy and Greece on Bavarian state grant, 1898-9; teacher, Luitpold gymnasium, 1899-1901; teacher, Würzburg, 1901-8; honorary prof., Würzburg, 1908-10; ordinarius Byzantine Studies, 1910-30; dir. Munich Seminar for Medieval and Modern Greek Philology in Munich; ed. Byzantinische Zeitschrift and Byzantinisches Archiv, 1906-27; Supervisor, Corpus of Greek Documents of the Middle Ages and the Modern Period, Bavarian Academy of Sciences; corr. memb Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1927. 
  • Publications:

    Nicephori Blemmydae curriculum vitae et carmina (Leipzig: Teubner, 1896); Georgii Acropolitae Opera, 2 Bde.(Stuttgart: Teubner, 1903); Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, Zwei Basiliken Konstantins, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908); Der Philhellenismus einst und jetzt (Munich: Beck, 1913; repr. Leipzig: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, 2021); Dialekte und Umgangssprache im Neugriechischen, Festrede gehalten in d. off. Sitzung d. K. Bayer. Ak. d. Wiss. am 29.5.1918, (Munich: K.B. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1918); Neugriechenland (Leipzig: Teubner, 1919); Aus der Geschichte und Literatur der Palaiologenzeit (Munich: Akademie der Wissenschaten, 1920); Ikonographische studien… (Munich: Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1922); Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des lateinischen Kaisertums und der Kirchenunion (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1923); “Staat und Geschichte der byzantinisches Reiches,” in Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen und Römer bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, with U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf & J. Kromayer (Leipzig & Berlin: Teubner, 1923) 364-437; Das Kreuzreliquiar der Berlin (Berlin: Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften…, 1926); Zu den Armenisch-Byzantinischen Beziehungen am anfang des 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1929; repr. De Gruyter, 2019); “Das Byzantinisch Reich,” Propyläen-Weltgesch. 3 (1932) 153-210.
  • Notes:

    August Heisenberg listed among his teachers the Goethe and Shakespeare expert Michael Bernays (1834-97), the Latinist Friedrich Schöll (1850-1919), and especially the Byzantinist Karl Krumbacher (1856-1909)a who supervised his dissertation and whom he would succeed in the Byzantine chair, the first and only one in Germany at the time. Owing to the lack of positions in Byzantine studies in Germany, Heisenberg spent over a decade teaching in various Gymnasia as he competed his doctoral and habilitation studies. A Bavarian State Archaeological grant allowed him to do research in Greece and Italy. After a decade of publications and school teaching and in the year of his magisterial two-volume study of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the 13th-century Apostles’ Church in Gütersloh, Germany, and the basilicas of Constantine in Trier and in Rome, he was essentially chosen by the aging Krumbacher as his replacement. He was given an honorary position that allowed him to lecture on Byzantine history and literature, then two years later he succeeded Krumbacher. From this influential post he was able to promote Byzantine history, literature, language, and art among German and international scholars, particularly working with Russian colleagues. He is best remembered for studying not only the history, but the language and wider culture of the Byzantine era. 

    Festschrift: Festgabe A. Heisenberg zum 60. Geburtstage gewidmet (Leipzig: Teubner, 1929-30).

    Autobiography: Geistiges und künstlerisches München in Selbstbiographien (Munich: Max Kellerer, 1913) 156-61; 

    F. Doelger, BBJ 51 (1931) 15-55; H. Grégoire, RBA 9 (1930) 1251-3; H. Grégoire, Byzantion 6 (1931) 519-20; N. Bănescu, Revue histoire du sudest européan 8 (1931); F. Dvornik, Byzantinoslavica 3 (1931) 181-3; V. Grecu, Codrul Cosminului 7 (1931-2) 551-65; L. Polites, Nea Hestia 5 (1931) 26-39; Werner Ohnsorge, NDB 8 (1969) 455-6.
  • Sources:

    Autobiography: Geistiges und künstlerisches München in Selbstbiographien (Munich: Max Kellerer, 1913) 156-61; 

    F. Doelger, BBJ 51 (1931) 15-55; H. Grégoire, RBA 9 (1930) 1251-3; H. Grégoire, Byzantion 6 (1931) 519-20; N. Bănescu, Revue histoire du sudest européan 8 (1931); F. Dvornik, Byzantinoslavica 3 (1931) 181-3; V. Grecu, Codrul Cosminului 7 (1931-2) 551-65; L. Polites, Nea Hestia 5 (1931) 26-39; Werner Ohnsorge, NDB 8 (1969) 455-6.
  • Author: Ward Briggs