Friedrich Münzer  Friedrich Münzer (22 April 1868 – 20 October 1942) was a German classical scholar noted for the development of prosopography, particularly for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles. He died in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He was born at Oppeln, Silesia (now Opole, Poland), into a Jewish merchant family, went to Leipzig University and then in 1887 to Berlin University, where he wrote his thesis "De Gente Valeria" under the supervision of Otto Hirschfeld. In 1893 he traveled to Rome, where Georg Wissowa recruited him to write biographical articles for the "Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft". From there he went to Athens and participated in excavations on the Acropolis. He also met Clara Engels there; they were married two years later, on 4 September 1897. Meanwhile, Münzer had been appointed as an unsalaried lecturer at University of Basel in 1896; he and Clara were supported by their parents and his article-writing. (When applying for the job, he reported himself as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; three years earlier his CV had said he was of Jewish faith.) He was promoted to the second chair in classical philology in 1902. In 1912 he accepted a post at Königsberg, which made him an official in the German civil service. Clara died in the Spanish flu pandemic on 15 December 1918; and in 1921, the widower took up a post at the University of Münster. His greatest work, "Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien" (Roman noble parties and noble families") had appeared in 1920 and brought him fame for the first time. He was appointed a dean at the university in 1923, and in 1924 married a widow, Clara Lunke "née" Ploeger, becoming a stepfather to two teenagers. Münzer was generally apolitical, but politics began to catch up with him in 1933 in the form of the law that sought to dismiss Communists, "non-Aryans", and opponents of the Nazi Party. Civil servants appointed before 1914 were officially exempt, but his biographers attribute his continued employment to the intercession of influential colleagues and former students. In January 1935 a new law required the removal of all lecturers and professors over the age of 65 (a move to make available more posts for Nazi sympathizers), and Münzer formally retired on 23 July 1935.