Ernst Hammerschmidt

Ernst Eduard Maria Hammerschmidt (29 April 1928 – 16 December 1993) was a scholar of Ethiopia as well as Ethiopian Christianity.

Ernst Hammerschmidt was born in 1928 in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia (Mariánské Lázně); he and his family were Sudeten Germans.

The German-speaking Volksdeutsche were expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1945 after the end of World War II, including Hammerschmidt and his family.

[1] In 1970, Hammerschmidt gained a position as full professor for African languages and cultures in the Oriental Studies department of the University of Hamburg, where he succeeded Johannes Lukas [de].

His extensive private library of Ethiopian works and manuscripts was given to the Asia Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg.

[1] Hammerschmidt was particularly interested in codicology (the study of manuscripts), literature in the classical Ethiopic language (Ge'ez), and the history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

He gained permission to undertake a cataloguing project of ancient manuscripts held on monasteries in the islands of Lake Tana, largely in classical Ge'ez (by then a liturgical language, as Amharic was used for everyday communication).