21 Facts About Friedrich Klingner

Friedrich Klingner was a German Classical Philologist.

Friedrich Klingner worked at increasingly senior levels as a university professor, successively at the universities of Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich.

Friedrich Klingner was born into a Protestant family in Dresden, where he attended school.

Friedrich Klingner's mother, born Martha Ponitz, was the child of a teacher.

Friedrich Klingner began his university studies in Classical Philology at Tubingen in 1914 but was obliged to abandon this course after one term because of the outbreak of the First World War.

Friedrich Klingner was involved in the fighting, but was able to resume his studies at Berlin where his teachers included Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Eduard Norden and Paul Friedlander.

When Friedlander took a promotion which involved a switch to the University of Marburg, Klingner followed him there.

Friedrich Klingner became part of the circle around Werner Jaeger, and came to know, among others, Otto Regenbogen, who became a friend.

Friedrich Klingner taught at Leipzig till 1947, which means he was there throughout the twelve Hitler years.

In November 1933 Friedrich Klingner was one of approximately 900 university professors who were persuaded to sign the "Declaration of the German Professors in support of Adolf Hitler".

In 1947 with the drift of future political developments becoming increasingly clear, Friedrich Klingner received and accepted an invitation to move again, this time to the University of Munich.

Friedrich Klingner continued to undertake teaching and research at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich until his retirement in 1962 or 1963, after which his involvement with the university continued.

Friedrich Klingner was a full member of the "Philosophical Historical Class" at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities between 1935 and 1947, and retained his connection as a corresponding member between 1947 and 1968 despite the political and physical division of Germany which became increasingly stark between 1945 and 1961.

Friedrich Klingner was a corresponding member of the Vienna-based Austrian Academy of Sciences and Humanities between 1956 and 1968.

Friedrich Klingner belonged to the Swedish Academy between 1957 and 1968 and, closer to home, was a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities between 1947 and 1968.

Friedrich Klingner was one of the leading latinists of his generation, and must, with Eduard Fraenkel, share much of the credit for the growing attention paid to Latinistics during the twentieth century.

Friedrich Klingner did not hesitate to draw on earlier Greek and Latin texts where a piece of work required it.

Friedrich Klingner was "making waves" even with his habilitation dissertation on Boethius in which he highlighted numerous problems with the then widely respected opening thesis of Hermann Usener that the Boethius work was in large part derivative from the Protreptikos of Aristotle.

Friedrich Klingner separated out and spelled out the distinctive influences of cynic, stoic, neoplatonic and christian views of the world.

Friedrich Klingner demonstrated that Sallust had his own historical perspective and was not simply some latter-day version of Posidonius.

Friedrich Klingner published works by the lyric poet Horace after painstaking analysis of the manuscripts, contributing insights and clarifications in a new critical edition which, half a century after his death, continues to command wide respect.