Curtius, Ernst Robert

(1886-1956)

   historian and cultural critic; best known for his 1932 publication Deutscher 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 his Habilitation at 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 volume Frankreich (France).

   Moved by a burgeoning nationalism, Curtius published Deutscher 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.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Arthur Evans, "Ernst Robert Curtius"; NDB, vol. 3; Fritz Ringer, Decline of the German Mandarins.