MGH President Martina Hartmann Dr Dr h.c. Celebrates Her 65th Birthday
In the context of a small celebration in the MGH institute, Munich, Martina Hartmann was surprised by her former students and colleagues with the presentation of a festschift in honour of her 65th birthday. The ca. 500-page volume comprises 25 contributions by an international community of scholars covering a range of subjects that have been and still are important stations in Martina Hartmann’s scientific career: Merovingian and Carolingian history, women in the Middle Ages, chanceries and scriptoria, the organisation of knowledge, the reception of the Middle Ages, and the history of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
In a congratulatory speech spiced with personal anecdotes, professor Dr Claudia Zey and Prof. Dr Martina Giese traced the course of Martina Hartmann’s scholarly career. A chronological overview of her publications provided impressive testimony to her productivity, from which the MGH also has profited with several editions. Anna C. Nierhoff and Philipp T. Wollmann then presented the commemorative festschrift and reported how the project „Festschrift“ was enthusiastically supported by all those involved, while at the same time keeping the jubilee in the dark about it.
Martina Hartmann was, however, not completely unprepared for the surprise action. In a speech of thanks, she gave her own rendition of her career at the MGH, starting with her beginnings under Horst Fuhrmann in 1989, then her deputy position under the first female MGH president, Claudia Märtl, her collaboration with the acting president, Marc-Aeiko Aris, and finally her own unexpected presidency since 2018. Concluding her speech, she quoted the wise words of Wilhelm von Humboldt that were also a motto of Horst Fuhrmann: „In the end, it is always the connections to people that give life its value.“ („Im Grunde sind es immer die Verbindungen mit Menschen, die dem Leben seinen Wert geben.“)
