Kroll was born in the town of
Frankenstein in the
Prussian Province of Silesia and brought up in
Breslau, the capital city. From 1887 to 1891 he studied Classics, Archeology, History and
Sanskrit at the universities of
Breslau and
Berlin. After obtaining his Ph.D. in 1891, Kroll went to Italy for the first of many times to study Greek manuscripts in
Florence and
Venice and continued his studies at the
University of Bonn in the summer term of 1892. Before the end of the term, he was awarded a four-year scholarship by the
Prussian Academy of Sciences that gave him the means to further his academic career. Kroll returned to Italy where he continued and expanded his research from September 1893 until April 1894. Having obtained his
habilitation at Breslau University in 1894, he continued to teach and publish as
Privatdozent. After five years he was appointed full professor of Classics at the
University of Greifswald where he started teaching in April 1899. A year later he married Katharina Wegener, the daughter of a schoolmaster. In March 1906, Kroll moved to the
University of Münster, a newly adorned university with a significant number of students. In Münster, Kroll strove to enhance the quality of studying for his students. His efforts to cooperate with his colleagues led to the foundation of the
Institut für Altertumskunde (Institute for Antiquity Studies) which included the departments of classics, ancient history and linguistics (the archaeology department followed suit in 1914). Building upon his success Kroll tried to secure a better position for himself and in 1913 finally obtained a chair at his
alma mater in Breslau. Apart from his teaching and publications, Kroll was an important agent for international collaboration in the classics. As an editor of important journals (
Bursian’s Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1898–1912;
Glotta, 1913–1936) and the
Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (1906–1939, as successor to
Georg Wissowa) he collaborated with hundreds of scholars from all over Europe and the United States. He was one of the first German scholars to be invited to lecture in the
United Kingdom after
World War I, and was awarded a visiting professorship at the
Princeton University in 1930/31. His last years were overcast by the rise of
Nazism in Germany. In 1934 he resigned as president of the
Silesian Society for Patriotic Culture, a learned association that he had headed since 1927. In 1935, under new legislation, Kroll retired earlier than usual. As his successor, he opted for his long-time colleague
Hans Drexler who had been an active supporter of the Nazi party. Drexler would later write Kroll's obituary in the
Gnomon, apologising for his predecessor's alleged lack of a positive worldview. While not being a victim of the
Nuremberg Laws himself, Kroll witnessed the removal of his colleagues from office and the persecution of his former pupils, some of whom he aided in finding work abroad. He also continued to collaborate with Jewish scholars in editing the
Realencyclopädie. For this Kroll was assaulted in the Nazi newspaper
Der Stürmer, after he had already relocated to Berlin with his wife early in 1937. Meanwhile, academic institutions continued to appreciate and honor Kroll's achievement. He was elected ordinary member of the
German Archeological Institute in 1934, corresponding member of the
Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1935 and
Fellow of the British Academy in 1937. He was also awarded honorary degrees by the universities of
Oxford (1935) and
Cambridge (1938). After an operation, Kroll died of an
embolism on April 21, 1939 in Berlin. He was survived by his wife, his daughter and three sons, one of whom had emigrated to
Japan in 1936 and later became a renowned physicist at the
University of Taipei. == Literary works ==