Germanistik Doctor on the 90th Birthday.

70 years ago gave Franz Schrage Nazism in his studies on theology, was the architect. Although he is nearly blind, made the now Schrage Doctorate in Dusseldorf - with exactly 90 years, an energy performance in old age.

 

For the test were then small but special arrangements because of the doctoral candidate Franz H. Schrage, 90, hard to hear and see almost nothing more, he allowed his examiners at the Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf two keywords donor Interior - during his 20-minute lecture to replace them his PowerPoint presentation.

University of Dusseldorf
Dr. Franz H. Schrage, 90: fresh Ph.D. in Germanic

"The speech was surprisingly fluid," said Dieter Birnbacher, philosophy professor and expert in the examination. Even with the written work, "Edith Stein, philosopher and saint in the tension between Jews and Christians" had Schrage "as a great stylist shown.

Birnbacher suggested even before the candidate, his text as a monograph to be published. He was just as "not by the professional culture burdened", praised Birnbacher. The work authored the aged specimen in the tray Germanistik.

"I wanted to be cultural philosopher"

Birnbacher describes the gray chin beard doctoral student with a devout Catholic and Schrage thesis as a reappraisal of its own history. Schrage had in the autumn of 1937 in Bonn began studying theology, but abandoned in the summer of 1939, the same year he was for his study from the Hitler Youth had been excluded, Schrage writes in his biography. "Actually, I wanted to be cultural philosopher," he said of the "Rheinische Post".

Schrage is not wanted "could be crystallized with the National Humanities common," says his auditors. That's why he chose architecture as a "bread job" and worked in this field for the city administration in Cologne and Dusseldorf.

Until 1995 he moved back after a severe illness at the university in December 1998, Schrage his master's exams in German literature and philosophy. An eye disease since he was four years "in the legal sense blind", is in his CV. 2006, his dissertation - and went on Tuesday, exactly on his 90th Birthday, with the oral defense of his work came to an end.

At Edith Stein Schrage fascinated that they are informed by the Catholics as a saint and martyr venerated, although as a Jew by the Nazis and was murdered, a victim of a "latent Christian anti-Semitism" was, writes the 90-year-old in the abstract of his doctoral thesis.

As an "orthodox Catholic God seekers" who wrestles with his church, describes him Birnbacher examiner. An internal donor keyword Schrager is his partner, to him also in the literature search and helps him aloud sources. Also, the woman is "very Schrage - and academically handicapped: You doctorate in 1998 in the age of at least 70 years.