Franz Rolf Schröder

Franz Rolf Schröder was born in Kiel, Germany on 8 September 1893. He was the son of Johannes Franz Heinrich Schröder and Minna Amanda Rolfs. His father was a prominent linguist and educator, and editor of the Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift.[1]

Schröder graduated from high school in 1911, and subsequently studied Germanistics and comparative linguistics at the University of Kiel. He served as a volunteer in the German Army during the early months of World War I, and gained a PhD at Kiel in 1916 under the supervision of Hugo Gering. His thesis was on the Hálfdanar saga Eysteinssonar. He completed his habilitation in German and Nordic philology at Heidelberg University in 1920 with a thesis on the Nibelungen. Schröder subsequently lectured at Heidelberg.[1]

In 1925, Schröder was made Professor and Chair of German Philology at the University of Würzburg. He retired in 1959, and was made a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1965.[1]

Schröder specialized in the study of Germanic paganism from a comparative perspective, and was particularly interested in its relationship with Indo-European religion.[1]

• Germanentum und Hellenismus. Untersuchungen zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte, 1924
• Die Parzivalfrage, 1928
• Altgermanische Kulturprobleme, 1929
• Die Germanen – Religionsgeschichtliches Lesebuch, 1929
• Quellenbuch zur germanischen Religionsgeschichte, 1933
• Germanische Heldendichtung, 1935
• Untersuchungen zur germanischen und vergleichenden Religionsgeschichte, 1941

• Jan de Vries (philologist)
• Hermann Güntert
• Edgar C. Polomé
• Otto Höfler
• Gabriel Turville-Petre
• Rudolf Much