Friedhelm Ludwig Debus (1932-2023)

Friedhelm Debus was a German scholar and university professor. He is best known for his contributions to the onomastics.  

Debus studied German and French at the universities of Marburg, Tübingen, Dijon and Sorbonne. He defended his doctorate thesis in 1957 in Marburg (Die deutschen Bezeichnungen für die Heiratsverwandtschaft). 

Between 1959 and 1965 he worked on the German Language Atlas, first as a scientific assistant, then as a scientific advisor. 

After his habilitation in 1965, he took up a professorship in medieval German literature and German linguistics at the University of Groningen. 

In 1969, he was appointed to the University of Kiel, where he remained until his retirement in 1997. 

From 1995 to 1997, he was President of the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim.

Prof. Debus was editor of the series "Documenta onomastica litteralia medii aevi (Dolma)"

His most cited names-related works are: 

Reclams Namenbuch. Reclam, Stuttgart 2014.

Namenkunde und Namengeschichte. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 2012.

Namen in literarischen Werken. Steiner, Stuttgart 2002.

als Hrsg. mit Wilfried Seibicke: Reader zur Namenkunde III,2 – Toponymie. In: Germanistische Linguistik. 131–133, 1996.