On 18 June 2019 Bernd Kluge celebrated his 70th birthday. Since the former director of the Berlin Coin Cabinet retired, he has published a whole series of important scientific and popular scientific works, and given entertaining (and substantial) lectures to numerous numismatic societies. Bernhard Weißer counts that since October 2014 Kluge authored twenty-one publications, among them books as important for the public image of numismatics as the volume “Münzen” (“Coins”) in the Beck’sche Reihe des Wissens, which we presented to you in the MünzenWoche of course. Bernd Kluge has always vehemently advocated the right of private citizens to collect coins. It was symptomatic that he published a comprehensive article on Prussian coinage as part of the the catalogue of the Künker June auction.
His Opus Magnus – you realize the true meaning of the word when you think that Kluge wrote the handbook “Numismatik des Mittelalters” – is still pending. Bernd Kluge is currently working on his monetary history of the Saxon and Frankish period of the Holy Roman Empire, which will replace the work of Hermann Dannenberg.
CoinsWeekly has repeatedly honoured Bernd Kluge in recent years, for example when he retired from museum service and was awarded the Huntington Medal in 2009. However, if you really want to get to know Bernd Kluge, we recommend that you read the comprehensive interview in which he talks about his numismatic career in the GDR and FRG, and of course does not forget the changeful events at the time of the Peaceful Revolution.
CoinsWeekly sends heartfelt congratulations on his birthday and is looking forward to many exciting new books by Bernd Kluge on medieval numismatics that we can present to our readers.