Wolfram Suchier

Wolfram Suchier was born on July 25, 1883 in Halle (Saale), the son of the Romance scholar Hermann Suchier (1848-1914). Wolfram Suchier died in Halle (Saale) in 1964.

His mother Getrude Suchier née Günther (1851-1917) came from Marburg a. d. Lahn. She enjoyed a reputation as a highly talented singer, with whom the Halle conductor and composer Robert Franz primarily rehearsed his songs. The intellectual heritage of both parents: philological-literary thoroughness and artistic-intuitive talent is reflected in the personality and extensive literary work of Wolfram Suchier.

Wolfram Suchier attended the municipal grammar school in Halle (Saale) and the Roßleben monastery school, from which he graduated on March 3, 1903. From 1903-1906, Suchier studied law and economics in Halle (Saale) and Göttingen. On March 11, 1907, he received his doctorate in Halle (Saale) as Dr. jur. utr. On June 3, 1907, he was accepted into the Halle University Library as a library trainee. He cataloged the library of the Department of Geography, which had grown considerably through the purchase of Professor A. Kirchhoff’s scholarly library. From May 1 to September 3, Suchier was on leave as a research assistant at the Braunschweig City Library.

On July 10, 1909, Suchier passed the librarianship examination before the examination board in Göttingen. Initially intended for the library in Königsberg, he was finally transferred to Göttingen on October 1, where he had to replace a colleague on leave and from where he returned to the University Library in Halle on April 1, 1910.

Here Suchier had the task of continuing the work of Walther Schultze, identifying and organizing the extensive collection of old dissertations and the very mixed group of scripta publica by carefully collating and identifying duplicates. The 1300 collected volumes kept in the stacks of the Halle University and State Library are the result of these efforts.

Suchier worked in Marburg from June 6, 1912 to April 5, 1915, the day of his appointment as a regular librarian. He was soon appointed 1st curator of the Hungarian library in Halle.

On April 1, 1919, Suchier was appointed “Library Director in the City of Erfurt”, where he subsequently developed an extremely active professional and academic career over a period of 22 and a half years. Until the beginning of National Socialist rule, his new area of responsibility also included the public library system and, during the war, the deputy management of the city archives with the obligation to keep the chronicle of the city of Erfurt.

As a result of growing disagreements with the political regime, Suchier took early retirement on August 1, 1941 and returned to Halle in 1942, where, now relieved of all official duties, he immediately resumed his academic research work.

From the wealth of Suchier’s diverse academic publications, only the “Bibliographie der Universitätsschriften von Halle-Wittenberg 1817-1885” (= Arbeiten aus der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle (Saale), published in 1953 by the Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Volume 3). This publication, described by reviewers as a bibliographical masterpiece, confirms Wolfram Suchier’s reputation as an exceptionally thorough and conscientious worker.