Brenner, Eduard

Natural scientist, philologist, museum director

Born: 29.01.1877 in Wiesbaden

died: 03.04.1915 in Carpathia

Brenner studied modern philology and chemistry in Freiburg, Marburg and Heidelberg. After several stays in England, he completed his doctorate in 1907 and took up a position as a research assistant at the Historical Museum in Frankfurt am Main. From summer 1908 to fall 1909, he worked at the Museum Nassauischer Altertümer in Wiesbaden and then at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz until summer 1911.

On September 1, 1911, he took up the post of director of the Museum of Nassau Antiquities, which was still located in the Erbprinzenpalais at the time. His main task was to plan the imminent move of the Nassau Antiquities Collection (SNA) to the new building, which was begun in 1913. Brenner's aim was to make the collection a center for historical and regional soil research and a repository of preserved documents from the past, from prehistoric times to the recent past.

Despite limited resources and a shortage of staff, he succeeded in expanding the SNA considerably by making new acquisitions and carrying out archaeological soil research and arousing interest in the antiquities museum and its collection in wide circles.

Brenner's fruitful work was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. He did not live to see the opening of the SNA in the new Museum Wiesbaden on July 15, 1920. As a lieutenant in the army, he was drafted at the beginning of the war and fell as a company commander at the start of the Easter Battle in the Carpathians, south of the Dukla Pass. He was also buried here.