The Correspondence between Adolf Harnack and Friedrich Althoff (1886-1908). Edition, Introduction, Commentary and Index
Protestant Theology
Modern and Contemporary History
Final Report Abstract
The edition offers a printed and digital version of the correspondence between Friedrich Althoff and Adolf Harnack (1886– 1908) and of additional documents that the correspondents sent to each other. The transcripts have been annotated to elucidate their historical context. All persons mentioned have been identified and linked to short biographies written by the project’s editor Dr Kampmann. Additionally, the edition contains indices of subject and place. The correspondence between Althoff and Harnack offers unique insights into the influence both had on science, university, school, and church politics during the Wilhelmian Empire. Althoff, ministerial official responsible for the university staff in the Prussian ministry of education, later promoted to ministerial director, not only worked on projects that belonged to his own area of responsibility but also on those that were subordinated to other departments of the ministry. To this end, he used a widespread network of advisers whom he recruited from all academic disciplines, a network which Bernhard vom Brocke and Stefan Rebenich have described as the “system Althoff” (Brocke 1980 and Rebenich 1997). Adolf Harnack, church historian at the Berlin Faculty of (Protestant) Theology since 1888, played a special role in Althoff’s network of theological advisors. Unlike his other theological advisors, Althoff involved him also in projects outside theology and the church. The two correspondents discussed controversies concerning both Protestant and Catholic Church politics, the reforms of higher schools, reorganised national and international research institutes, and founded international research cooperations. To this end, they profited from their relations with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste Viktoria, with Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow and with the Minister of Education Konrad von Studt, who held office from 1899 to 1907.
Publications
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Der Patristiker als Idealtypus des Kirchenhistorikers. Adolf Harnacks Konzeption der Kirchengeschichte im Kontext theologischer Lehrstuhlbesetzungen, in: Dies./Ulrich Volp/Martin Wallraff/Julia Winnebeck (Hg.), Kirchengeschichte. Historisches Spezialgebiet und/oder theologische Disziplin (Theologie – Kultur – Hermeneutik 28), Leipzig 2020, 243–263.
Claudia Kampmann
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Friedrich Althoffs Berufungspraxis in der evangelischen Theologie. Hermann Cremer und Adolf Harnack als Protagonisten des „Systems Althoff“. Journal for the History of Modern Theology / Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte, 28(1), 49-81.
Kampmann, Claudia
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Die Korrespondenz zwischen Friedrich Althoff und Adolf Harnack (1886-1908). Kommentierte Edition mit Einleitung und Registern, in: Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Jahresbericht 2022, 51–67
Claudia Kampmann
