Die Germanistik in Wrocław von ihren Anfängen bis zum Tod von Marian Szyrocki (1945-1992)

Abstract

The article presents the history of scholarly studies of Wrocław German Language Faculty (since 1945). Right after World War II, the Polish German language studies struggled not only with material and staff problems; the faculty was confronted with a growing ideological pressure whose climax constituted the socialist reform of the institutions of higher learning. As a result of this reform, the newly created, in 1945, German Language Departments in Warsaw, Cracow, Toruń and Lublin were closed. The fact that the departments in Poznań and Wrocław were preserved, did not mean, in any sense, that the Polish state looked favourably to them, which is confirmed by the appointment of the first director of the department in Wrocław as late as in 1962. Jan Piprek, Zdzisław Żygulski, Marian Szyrocki, Mieczysław Urbanowicz, Norbert Morciniec, Gerard Koziełek, Konrad Gajek, Norbert Honsza and others are the scholars who in a significant way contributed to the development of Wrocław German Language Faculty. The article also discusses the beginnings of co-operation started in the late 1950s between German and Polish Germanists and also the main scholarly interests of Wrocław German Language Faculty discernible in the publications of the last sixty years.