Ernst Hunkel

Ernst Anton Hunkel (born August 10, 1885 in Lindenfels ; † 1936 ) was a German völkisch- radical life reformer and writer.

Life

The teacher's son Ernst Hunkel attended elementary school in Lampertheim and switched to the Grand Ducal Gymnasium in Worms at Easter 1897 until he graduated from high school in 1904. He first studied history and German in Bonn and Prague, before switching to political science at the universities of Berlin and Tübingen from 1905/06 . He also studied statistics and history of philosophy until his doctorate in 1909 at the University of Erlangen as a Dr. phil. about "Prince Bismarck and the workers' insurance". Hunkel was a member of the Association of German Students in Berlin from 1904 to 1924 and of the Association of German Students Saxonia Prague from 1905 to 1925 . Before 1914 he headed the press department of the German Ostmarkenverein and was Secretary General of the German-Asian Society founded in 1901 under President General Colmar von der Goltz . Furthermore, since 1918 he has been in charge of the life reform magazine “Neues Leben”, initially published in the fruit growing colony of Eden , with the addition “Monthly for German rebirth” and the Jungborn publishing house.

Hunkel linked life-reforming and free-economic ideas with a belief in German and nostalgic Germanism, which was to be reborn through race-conscious clan care and rural settlements. With his wife Margarete Hunkel, called Margart, (1887–1968) he founded the open-air settlement Donnershag near Sontra in 1919 . The Jungborn publishing house was relocated there. In 1920, through the purchase of land and leases, cooperative operations and workshops as well as a German hostel were implemented to train young farmers for the desired “livestock” economy. Horticulture, livestock and small animal breeding were carried out in the " light dress ". Up to 350 people lived in the settlement for a time, "free from all the inhibitions of big city life, cultural poisons and capitalist pressure". Only "men and women of German, ie Germanic tribe" were recorded. A “German faith” was mandatory, as was a vegetarian way of life without tobacco consumption, while alcohol in the Germanic way was allowed.

A national peculiarity was the commitment to clan care and racial selection. Ernst Hunkel had taken over the Teutonic Order, founded by Otto Sigfrid Reuter in 1911, as "Chancellor" in 1918, while Margart founded a "German Sisterhood" in 1917 as "Self-help for German women and girls to save themselves from racial and ethnic degeneration". One such means was the Mittgard - polygamy , in the tradition of Willibald Hentschel has been touted as "uninhibited husband acquisition of woman." After violent internal and external disputes with the village community (among other things because of pimping ), the couple had to leave the settlement in 1923. The settlement continued to exist for a year. After the successful currency reform in 1923 , no new settlers came.

"Every Thursday there is" arbor ", alternating familiar, closed and open. In between on Sunday mornings morning speech, if possible in the open air. under the male oak. The annual festivals are celebrated together. Birth and death came between us from the very beginning and demanded the participation of the community. On a spring Sunday we consecrated our parish on the green field, which is to serve us for games and folk dance, for throwing and archery. The Gildemeister spoke the consecration with a raised hammer. ”(Report by Ernst Hunkel, quoted in Linse (1983), Doc. 87)

In 1926, Hunkel founded the “ Labor Self-Help ” within his “Schafferbewbewegung” (against the exploitation of the “Raffer”) as a free-economic self-help campaign. Hunkel advocated the practical fight against individual problems such as housing shortages by building societies. The self-help of the work gave out free money , the WARA, which in restaurants u. Hotels was considered payment. Hunkel expanded the organization to Austria and was still active there in 1935.

Fonts

• Prince Bismarck and the workers' insurance , Junge, Erlangen 1909 [= dissertation], repr. 2012 ISBN 978-588078876-7 Google-online
• Editor (1918–1924) of the magazine Neues Leben
• Germany and the Poland question in the world war , ed. v. German East Brand Association, Berlin 1916
• German Order Land. One will and one work , Sontra 1921
• Self-help work as the path of the free trade movement to political power , Jena, Bern 1926
• Margart Hunkel: Of German Motherhood , Sontra 1919

literature

• Ulrich Linse (ed.): Back o man to mother earth. Landkommunen in Deutschland 1890–1933 , dtv, Munich 1983 (especially pp. 188–199 with documents), ISBN 3-423-02934-X
• Ulrich Linse: Völkisch youth movement settlements in the 20th and 21st centuries. What does völkisch youth movement mean? In: Youth Movement, Anti-Semitism and Right-Wing Politics: From the “Freideutschen Jugendtag” to the present , ed. v. Gideon Botsch, Josef Haverkamp, ​​De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, pp. 29–73
• Beatrix Amon: Rural settlement and community life in Waldhessen. A project by the racial ideologist Ernst Hunkel in Donnershag near Sontra (1919–1924) , In: Eschweger Geschichtsblätter, issue 15, 2014
• Anne Feuchter-Schawelka: Siedlungs- und Landkommunenbewegung , in: Diethard Kerbs / Jürgen Reulecke (ed.): Handbook of German Reform Movements 1880–1933 , Wuppertal 1998, pp. 227–242 ISBN 3-87294-787-7

Web links

• Wolf Backhaus (Sontra): Nest Warmth in Cold Society (2011) Background No. 3

Single receipts

1. ↑ Marc Zirlewagen: Biographies of the clubs German students, Vol. 1: Members A-L. Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-2288-1 , pp. 360–362, here p. 360.
2. ↑ Jungborn-Verlag ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ establishment of the "free-settlement Donnershag" ( "German-Order-Land") in Sontra, 1919. Contemporary History in Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
4. ^ Bartsch: NWO movement