Der Briefwechsel Werner Jaegers: Mit Carl Heinrich Becker (1918-1932)

This is the first edition of the correspondence between the Prussian minister of education Carl Heinrich Becker (1876-1933) and the Classicist Werner Jaeger (1888-1961). The 31 letters cover most of the Weimar Republic (between the First World War and the Nazi regime) and can be regarded as the parallel to the Wilamowitz - Althoff correspondence one generation earlier. Jaeger is Becker's counsellor and person of trust in questions of university matters in the Classics so that much information about academic colleagues as well as about the writers of the letters themselves is revealed. We learn about the difficult situation and the annoyance for the universities in the time after the war. Then, in 1921 the politician convinces the young professor to come to Berlin as the successor of Wilamowitz for one of the most prestigious chairs of Classics in the world. During later years, Jaeger and Becker exchange confidential information on politics and current research projects. Thus, the present correspondence allows us to look behind the curtain of the Weimar university system and the scholarly and educational policy at that time.