Otto Höfler

Otto Höfler was born in Vienna on 10 May 1901 to a highly educated upper middle class family. His father, Alois Höfler, was Professor of Philosophy and Pedagogy at the University of Vienna. Alois was a passionate admirer of Richard Wagner, and the author of a book on the Germanic god Odin. Otto's mother, Auguste Dornhöffer, was from Bayreuth and also a Wagner admirer.[1]

Höfler studied German and Nordic philology at the University of Vienna from 1920 to 1921 under Rudolf Much. He subsequently continued his studies in Nordic philology at the universities of Lund, Kiel (under Andreas Heusler), Marburg and Basel. He completed his PhD at the University of Vienna in 1926 with the dissertion Altnordische Lehnwortstudien, which examined loanwords in Old Norse.[1]

From 1928 to 1934, Höfler was a lecturer in German at Uppsala University.[1] At Uppsala, Höfler befriended the fellow philologists Stig Wikander and Georges Dumézil, who would remain lifelong friends and intellectual collaborators.[2] He completed his habilitation at the University of Vienna in 1931 with the dissertion Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen, which examined secret societies of the early Germanic peoples.[1] It has been described a work of brilliance.[3] It had a major influence on the future research of Wikander and Dumézil, who would later examine similar societies among Indo-Iranians and Indo-Europeans.[2]

From 1935 he lectured at the University of Kiel. From 1938, Höfler was Professor and Chair of Germanic Philology and Ethnology at the University of Munich.[1] His research centered on early Germanic culture, particularly early Germanic religion and literature. Höflers Deutsche Heldensage (1941), which examined Medieval German literature, was highly influential, and republished in 1961. Höfler argued in favor of cultural continuity between modern Germans and early Germanic peoples.[1]

A sympathizer of the Völkisch movement, Höfler was fired from the University of Munich in 1945, and was subsequently prohibited from teaching. In 1950, he received a license to teach Scandinavian studies. In 1954, Höfler was appointed Associate Professor of Nordic Philology and Germanic Antiquity at the University of Munich. Although nominally Associate Professor, Höfler was for all practical purposes a full Professor during this time. Among his notable students at Munich were Heinrich Beck and Otto Gschwantler.[4]

In 1957, Höfler was appointed Professor and Chair of German Language and Old German Literature at the University of Vienna.[1] Gschwantler accompanied him as an assistant, and would eventually become a full professor. A talented and highly popular teacher, Höfler taught and supervised a generation of very influential scholars at Vienna, including Helmut Birkhan, Hermann Reichert, Peter Wiesinger, Erika Kartschoke, Edith Marold, Klaus Düwel, Waltraud Hunke and Wolfgang Lange. A group of Höfler's most dedicated students, which included Gschwantler, Birkhan, Wiesinger and Kartschoke, were affectionately known as the Drachenrunde. Highly sociable, Höfler played an important role at the university as a host of seminaries and parties at his vineyard, and arranged memorable excursions to Ravenna and other places, which were attended by his students and fellow professors and friends, such as Richard Wolfram and Eberhard Kranzmayer.[4][5][6]

Höfler retired from teaching 1971, but continued to teach and research.[1] After his retirement, Höfler worked on refining his earlier theories, and authored extensive studies on Dietrich von Bern and Siegfried, the two most important characters in Medieval German literature. He argued that Siegfried was derived from the Germanic chieftain Arminius, who defeated the Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.[1]

Höfler died in Vienna on 25 August 1987.[1] Höfler had a major influence on Georges Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis of Indo-European society. He worked closely with Dumézil and scholars such as Stig Wikander, Émile Benveniste and Jan de Vries on developing study on Indo-European mythology, and has been credited with having significantly contributed to reviving the field of comparative mythology.[2] Though Höfler's early career was shaped by the political changes of the times, the actual content of his works were of high quality and not tainted by political bias.[3] Though criticized by some, Höfler's key theories has never been refuted.[7] Höfler's research has continued to be of great relevance up to the present day.[3]

Otto Höfler lecturing his predecessor Dietrich Kralik and students during an excursion to the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna, Italy

Otto Höfler congratulating the family of his student Otto Gschwantler as Gscwhantler is awarded the Sub auspiciis Praesidentis by President Adolf Schärf for outstanding scholarship

• Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen, 1934
• Das germanische Kontinuitätsproblem, 1937
• Die politische Leistung der Völkerwanderungszeit, 1937
• Friedrich Gundolf und das Judentum in der Literaturwissenschaft, 1940
• Deutsche Heldensage, 1941
• Germanisches Sakralkönigtum, 1952
• Balders Bestattung und die nordischen Felszeichnungen, 1952
• Zur Diskussion über den Rökstein, 1954
• Das Opfer im Semnonenhain und die Edda, 1952
• Goethes Homunculus, 1963
• Verwandlungskulte, Volkssagen und Mythen, 1973
• Theoderich der Große und sein Bild in der Sage, 1975
• Siegfried, Arminius und der Nibelungenhort, 1978
• Kleine Schriften, 1992

Sketch of Otto Höfler playing the flute like Orpheus

• Helmut Birkhan
• Robert Nedoma
• Rudolf Simek
• Herwig Wolfram
• Walter Steinhauser
• Franz Rolf Schröder
• Hans Kuhn (philologist)
• Werner Betz
• Kurt Schier
• Dietrich Kralik
• Blanka Horacek
• Friedrich Ranke
• Dennis Howard Green

• Birkhan, Helmut (1988). "Nachruf Otto Höfler". Almanach der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (in German). 138. Austrian Academy of Sciences. pp. 385–406.

• Otto Höfler at the website of the University of Vienna

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