Gotthelf Bergsträsser

Who was Gotthelf Bergsträsser?

Gotthelf Bergsträsser was a German linguist specializing in Semitic studies, usually considered to be one of the greatest of the twentieth century. Bergsträsser was first a teacher of Classical languages and then decided to learn the Semitic languages.

He was a professor at the University of Constantinople during World War I, when he was an officer in the German army stationed in Turkey. When he was there, he studied the spoken dialects of Arabic and Aramaic in Syria and Palestine. One of his most well known works is the 29th edition of Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, which remained incomplete, containing only phonology and morphology of the verb. Also widely admired was his Introduction to the Semitic Languages. These brought him international fame as a scholar. His last position was professor of the Semitic languages at the University of Munich.

Bergsträsser mostly engaged in the study of Arabic, focusing on the history of the text of the Qur'an. Bergsträsser left many of his planned works unfinished, when he disappeared while mountaineering in 1933. Bergsträsser was an outspoken anti-Nazi, and helped to save German Jewish scholars.