Gensicke, Hellmuth

Historian, Archive Director

Born: 29.06.1917 in Alpenrod (Westerwald)

died: 17.03.2006 in Wiesbaden

The son of a pastor, he began studying history, German studies, historical auxiliary sciences and Protestant theology in Marburg, Königsberg, Bonn and Berlin, but was unable to complete his studies due to the outbreak of war. Gensicke was drafted and was so badly wounded in February 1944 that his right leg had to be amputated. He lived through the end of the war in a military hospital in Darmstadt and resumed his studies in Marburg in the winter semester of 1945/46. His study "Landesgeschichte des Westerwaldes" was accepted as a dissertation in 1947 and is one of the standard works of Nassau regional history.

After passing the state examination for the higher teaching profession, he attended the first archive course after the war as an external student at the Marburg Archive School in 1949/50, found temporary employment at the State Church Archive in Speyer and was given a permanent position as an archive assistant at the Hessian State Archive in Darmstadt in 1953. His actual destination, however, was the Hessian Main State Archive in Wiesbaden, where the sources on Nassau's history were located. In 1965 he succeeded in being transferred.

In Wiesbaden, Gensicke systematically processed and indexed the older holdings relating to his former homeland, the Westerwald and the central Lahn region. Gensicke was also responsible for training younger colleagues. Gensicke is also responsible for securing important trial files from the post-war period. In 1978, he was appointed deputy director of the Main State Archives.

He had been a member of the Association for Nassau Antiquities and Historical Research since 1949, at times as second chairman. He was elected to the Historical Commission for Nassau in 1951, to the Historical Commission for Darmstadt in 1955 and to the Historical Commission for Hesse in 1969. From 1978-87 he was chairman of the genealogical society for Nassau and Frankfurt. His list of publications comprises around 500 titles. He did extensive preparatory work for two major projects, a Nassau pastor's book and a historical encyclopedia of Nassau.

Among his numerous honors is the award of the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1986.