Unverzagt, Wilhelm Hermann

Classical archaeologist

Born: 21.05.1892 in Wiesbaden

Died: 17.03.1971 in Berlin (East)

Unverzagt studied classical philology, archaeology and geography in Bonn, Munich and Berlin. He was drafted at the beginning of the First World War. After being seriously wounded, he returned to Wiesbaden and worked for a short time at the State Museum in the Nassau Antiquities Department, then at the Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute in Frankfurt am Main.

Despite his war damage, he was called up again and assigned to the staff of the Chief of Administration for Flanders in Brussels, where he compiled the Roman and pre-medieval monuments and wrote a memorandum. From December 1918, he began setting up the display collection in the Wiesbaden Museum. In 1919 he was appointed to the German Armistice Commission. In the same year he received his doctorate in Tübingen, and on April 1 he was appointed to a position at the State Museum of Ethnology in Berlin, where he became director on October 1, 1926 (independent since 1931 as the State Museum of Prehistory and Early History). Unverzagt also devoted himself to numerous research excavations.

From 1931, he was also responsible for the preservation of archaeological monuments in Brandenburg, until a state office for the preservation of archaeological monuments was founded in 1938 and Unverzagt had to relinquish this area for political reasons.

He had been teaching since 1928, initially as a lecturer and from 1932 as an honorary professor. His work was hindered from 1934 onwards by politically very active National Socialist colleagues. This may have led to him joining the NSDAP himself in 1937, but this did not lead to ideological activities in his work as a prehistorian. In 1928, Unverzagt founded a Central and an East German Association for Archaeological Research. From 1937-45 he was entrusted with the recording, cataloging and finally, during the war, the removal of the museum's holdings. After being handed over to the Soviet troops, the finds were transported to the Soviet Union and Unverzagt was released on July 18, 1945.

In February 1946, he was commissioned to set up an institute to research the material culture of the Old Slavs, which was developed into an Institute for Pre- and Early History at the German Academy of Sciences in 1953. His election as a full member of the Academy, which was not confirmed in 1939, was repeated in 1949. Despite the GDR's demand to distance itself from the Federal Republic of Germany, he managed to maintain close ties with the Romano-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute in Frankfurt am Main and organized scientific congresses with the participation of scientists from both German states until 1970.