Gustav Roethe

Gustav Roethe (5 May 1859, Graudenz – 17 September 1926, Bad Gastein) was a German philologist.

Life Roethe studied classical and Germanic philology in Göttingen, Leipzig and Berlin, obtaining his PhD in 1881 (doctoral advisor, Friedrich Zarncke). In 1888 he succeeded Karl Goedeke as an associate professor of German philology at the University of Göttingen, and two years later, succeeded Wilhelm Konrad Hermann Müller as a full professor of German language and literature. In 1902 he relocated to the University of Berlin, where in 1923/24 he served as rector.

His studies largely dealt with Middle High German literature, German Romanticism and "Goethe-research". His Die Gedichte Reinmars von Zweter ("Poetry of Reinmar von Zweter") formed the basis for research involving the history of Middle High German Sangspruchdichtung (epigrammatic poetry). From 1908 onward, he was tasked with reorganization of the "Deutsches Wörterbuch" of the Brothers Grimm.