Felix Dahn | |
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| Born | Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn (1834-02-09)9 February 1834 Hamburg, Germany |
| Died | 3 January 1912(1912-01-03) (aged 77) Breslau, Germany |
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Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn (9 February 1834 – 3 January 1912) was a German law professor andnationalist author, poet and historian.
Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn was born inHamburg as the oldest son of Friedrich (1811–1889) and Constanze Dahn who were notable actors at the city's theatre. The family had both German and French roots. Dahn began his studies in law and philosophy inMunich (he had moved there with his parents in 1834), and graduated asDoctor of Laws inBerlin. After hishabilitation treatise, Dahn became a lecturer of German Law in Munich in 1857. In 1863 he becamesenior lecturer/associate professor inWürzburg, received a professorship inKönigsberg (in 1872).
Dahn was married to the artist Sophie Fries (1835–1898), with whom he had a son. He tutored baroness Therese von Droste-Hülshoff, a relative of the poetAnnette von Droste-Hülshoff, in poetry from 1867 and entered an illicit love affair with her, which he gave a literary treatment in hisSind Götter? (1874). He divorced his wife and married Therese, against opposition from both families, in 1873.
Dahn relocated toUniversity of Breslau in 1888, again as a full professor, and was electedrector of the university in 1895. As rector, he enforced a ban on Polish student associations.[1]
Dahn's writings were influential in the conception of the EuropeanMigration Period (Völkerwanderung ) in German historiography of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His multi-volumePrehistory of the Germanic and Roman Peoples, a chronology of the Migration Period that first appeared in print in 1883, was so definitive that abbreviated versions were reprinted until the late 1970s.
From the 1860s, Dahn regularly wrote forDie Gartenlaube, Germany's most popular family magazine. His nationalist historical novels were widely received, and according to Houdsen (1997) were influential in the formation of thevölkisch ideology that formed the "Germany's pre-Hitlerian intellectual background for National Socialism".[2] His 1876Ein Kampf um Rom according to Kipper (2002) contributed to theethnic essentialism and opposition toethnic miscegenation of the "völkisch avant-garde".[3]
Dahn published numerous poems, many with a nationalist bent. HisMette von Marienburg portrays bands of "Masures and Poles" hiding in the "Podolian forest".[4]
Besides his historical and literary production, Dahn also published a large amount of specialist legal literature, on topics such astrade law andinternational law.
The philosophies of Fichte, Hegel, or Nietzsche did not contribute as much to Germany's pre-Hitlerian intellectual background for National Socialism as commemorations of the victory at Sedan (in the Franco-Prussian War), Bismarckian blood and iron quotations, the historical novels of Felix Dahn
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