Franz Rolf Schröder

Franz Rolf Schröder (8 September 1893 – 24 March 1979), often referred to as F. R. Schröder, was a German philologist who was Professor and Chair of German Philology at the University of Würzburg. He specialized in the study of Germanic paganism and its relationship with Indo-European religion.

Franz Rolf Schröder
Born	8 September 1893 Kiel, Germany
Died	24 March 1979 (aged 85) Würzburg, Germany
Nationality	German
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Kiel Heidelberg University
Doctoral advisor	Hugo Gering
Academic work
Discipline	Philology
Sub-discipline	Germanic philology
Institutions	University of Würzburg
Doctoral students	Norbert Wagner
Main interests	Germanic paganism Indo-European religion

Biography

Franz Rolf Schröder was born in Kiel, Germany on 8 September 1893. He was the son of Johannes Franz Heinrich Schröder and Minna Amanda Rolfs. His father was a prominent linguist and educator, and editor of the Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift.[1]

Schröder graduated from high school in 1911, and subsequently studied Germanistics and comparative linguistics at the University of Kiel. He served as a volunteer in the German Army during the early months of World War I, and gained a PhD at Kiel in 1916 under the supervision of Hugo Gering. His thesis was on the Hálfdanar saga Eysteinssonar. He completed his habilitation in German and Nordic philology at Heidelberg University in 1920 with a thesis on the Nibelungen. Schröder subsequently lectured at Heidelberg.[1]

In 1925, Schröder was made Professor and Chair of German Philology at the University of Würzburg. He retired in 1959, and was made a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1965.[1]

Schröder specialized in the study of Germanic paganism from a comparative perspective, and was particularly interested in its relationship with Indo-European religion.[1]

Selected works

• Germanentum und Hellenismus. Untersuchungen zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte, 1924
• Die Parzivalfrage, 1928
• Altgermanische Kulturprobleme, 1929
• Die Germanen – Religionsgeschichtliches Lesebuch, 1929
• Quellenbuch zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte, 1933
• Germanische Heldendichtung, 1935
• Untersuchungen zur germanischen und vergleichenden Religionsgeschichte, 1941

See also

• Jan de Vries (philologist)
• Hermann Güntert
• Edgar C. Polomé
• Otto Höfler
• Gabriel Turville-Petre
• Rudolf Much

References

1. Wagner 2004, pp. 334-336.

Sources

• Wagner, Norbert (2004). "Ranke". In Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.). Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (in German). 27. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 334–336. ISBN 3110181169.

Further reading

• Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie, München u. a. 1996. ISBN 3-598-23160-1
• Jan de Vries: Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie. Orbis Verlag, Freiburg/München 1961.
• Rudolf Simek: Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X.
• Ernst Klee: „Franz Rolf Schröder“ Eintrag in ders.: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5