CURTIUS, ERNST ROBERT

Curtius, Ernst Robert: translation

(1886-1956)

historian and cultural critic; best known for his 1932 publicationDeutscher Geist in Gefahr(German spirit in danger). Born in the Alsatian city of Thann, he was grandson to a famous historian and archeologist. He profited from a youth wherein French and German cultures were comfortably intermingled. The climate encouraged an open-minded intellect, and after initiating studies in Sanskrit and comparative languages, he took a doctorate in 1910 in modern languages under Strassburg's Gustav Grober. Grober, a professor of Romance languages, awoke Curtius's long-term interest in both the European Middle Ages and modern France. In 1913 Curtius wrote hisHabilitationat Bonn.Following frontline service in World War I, he taught at Bonn, Marburg, and Heidelberg; he returned to a professorship at Bonn in 1929 and remained there until his retirement in 1951.

Curtius's outlook was animated by an appreciation of a medieval Europe in which peoples were divided by neither religion nor nationalism. His passion for international understanding brought friendships with many who shared his vi-sion—for example, Stefan George,* Charles Du Bos, Andre Gide, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Max Scheler,* and Albert Schweitzer—and he devoted his scholarship to reshaping Europe's cultural community. Works on French culture and liter-ature, published during 1919-1930, championed a more enlightened understand-ing of France. A compendium of his thought appeared in his 1930 volumeFrankreich(France).

Moved by a burgeoning nationalism, Curtius publishedDeutscher Geist in Gefahr. The pamphlet denounced a growing hostility toward culture, a mindless emphasis on academic specialization, and the spread at German universities of a mentality that disparaged established truths and values. Despite personal dan-ger, he remained in Nazi Germany and was critical in both writings and instruc-tion of the rule of barbarism.