Joachim Werner (archaeologist)

Joachim Werner (23 December 1909 – 9 January 1994) was a German archaeologist who was especially concerned with the archaeology of the Early Middle Ages in Germany. The majority of German professorships with particular focus on the field of the Early Middle Ages were in the second half of the 20th century (and also partly in the generation following that) occupied by his academic pupils. Werner was born in Berlin, where he took his school finishing examinations at the French High-School, and in 1928 he began his specialist study of Prehistory and Early History, Classical Archaeology and both ancient and middle History. Among his teachers were (amongst others) Max Ebert and Wilhelm Unverzagt in Berlin, Oswald Menghin in Vienna and Gero von Merhart in Marburg. In Marburg he obtained his doctorate on 7 December 1932 with the dissertation Münzdatierte austrasische Grabfunde (Coin-Dated Grave Goods from Austrasia), which under the guidance of Hans Zeiss undertook the project to develop an absolute chronology of the Merovingian period based upon graves which contained (datable) coins. Although it has often had to be revised since then, this work was nevertheless a milestone in the knowledge of the Early Middle Ages. After the Machtergreifung (Takeover of Power) of the National Socialists in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party and the Sturmabteilung, to deflect attention from the fact that his father and grandparents were members of the Romani people. His appointments and occupations included: 1933/34 Travelling Scholarship with the German Archaeological Institute. 1935–1942 Roman-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute (Participant in the Sadovec excavations). 1938 Inauguration as an academic lecturer at the University of Frankfurt, with The Ornamented Discs from the Thorsberg Peat-bog Discovery. A Contribution to the History of Early Germanic Art and Religion, under Hans Zeiss. 1939–45 various calls-up to the Wehrmacht. 1942 Professor for Prehistory and Early History at the Straßburg Reichs-University.