Heinz Dopsch
Heinz Dopsch (1 November 1942 – 31 July 2014) was an Austrian historian.
Biography
Heinz Dopsch was born in Vienna. He was the paternal grandson of the historian Alfons Dopsch and, through his wife, the great-grandson of the historian Julius von Ficker. After graduating from high school in 1960, Dopsch did his military service as a one-year volunteer. From 1961 he studied history and classical philology. He received his doctorate under Karl Lechner in January 1969 with the topic Landherren, Herrenbesitz und Herrenstand in der Steiermark 1100–1400 ("Landlords, Lords' Property and Lords' Estate in Styria, 1100-1400").
In 1968/69, he worked with Friedrich Hausmann on the new edition of the Steirisches Urkundenbuch. From 1969 to 1980, Dopsch was assistant to Hans Wagner at the Chair of Austrian History at the University of Salzburg. There, in 1977, he completed his habilitation in medieval history and comparative regional history with a thesis entitled Das Erzstift Salzburg im Mittelalter ("The Archbishopric of Salzburg in the Middle Ages").
In 1980, Dopsch was appointed associate professor and in 1984 to the newly created chair of comparative regional history at the University of Salzburg. In 1997, he declined a call to the chair of Bavarian Medieval History and Comparative Regional History at the University of Munich. From 1991 to 1993, he was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Salzburg. In October 2011, he became emeritus professor.
Dopsch authored more than 200 publications. He published city and local histories, in part with other authors. Of particular importance are the Geschichte Salzburgs - Stadt und Land ("History of Salzburg - City and Country"), which Dopsch published together with Hans Spatzenegger from 1981 to 1991 in eight volumes and which replaced Hans Widmann's Landesgeschichte Salzburgs as a standard work, and Die Geschichte der Stadt Salzburg ("The History of the City of Salzburg"), which he published together with Robert Hoffmann in 1996. A concise summary was published by him in 2009 with Kleine Geschichte Salzburgs. Dopsch was co-editor of a three-volume account of the history of Berchtesgaden. He organized two congresses on the scholar Paracelsus and edited two anthologies. He also edited the Festschrift for Kurt Reindel on his 75th birthday on the relations between Bavaria and Italy from the 8th to the 15th century. Dopsch researched the structure of the Salzburg bishopric and the Carantan mission in the 8th and 9th centuries. In 1991, he published an in-depth study on this subject.
Dopsch was awarded numerous honors and memberships for his research. Dopsch was an associate member of the Commission for Bavarian Regional History at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences from 1988 and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1994. A Festschrift was dedicated to him on his 58th birthday. Dopsch received the Golden Medal of Merit of the Province of Salzburg, the Ring of Honor of the City of Salzburg, the Paracelsus Ring of the City of Salzburg, and the Cup of Honor of the Province of Salzburg. Dopsch was also a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
Dopsch was married from 1969. The marriage produced two daughters and a son.
Writings
Catalog raisonné of Heinz Dopsch 1968-2000: Gerhard Ammerer, Christian Rohr, Alfred Stefan Weiß (eds.): Tradition und Wandel. Beiträge zur Kirchen-, Gesellschafts- und Kulturgeschichte. Festschrift für Heinz Dopsch. Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Munich et al. (2001), pp. 489–506.
Monographs
- Geschichte der Stadt Salzburg (1996; with Robert Hoffmann)
- 1122–1278. Die Länder und das Reich. Der Ostalpenraum im Hochmittelalter (1999; with Karl Brunner and Maximilian Weltin)
- Kleine Geschichte Salzburgs. Stadt und Land (2014)
As editor
- Vom Stadtrecht zur Bürgerbeteiligung (= Jahresschrift. Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum) (1987)
- Paracelsus und Salzburg. Vorträge bei den internationalen Kongressen in Salzburg und Badgastein anläßlich des Paracelsus-Jahres 1993 (= Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde) (1994)
- Bayern und Italien. Politik, Kultur, Kommunikation (8.–15. Jahrhundert). Festschrift für Kurt Reindel zum 75. Geburtstag (= Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte) (2001)
