Albert Dulk

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Albert Friedrich Benno Dulk 1855

Albert Friedrich Benno Dulk (born June 17, 1819 in Königsberg , † October 29, 1884 in Stuttgart ) was a German writer , revolutionary , socialist and free thinker .

Life and professional development

Albert Dulk's father Friedrich Philipp Dulk was a pharmacist and professor of chemistry, his mother Emilie, née Hartung, who died early, came from the Konigsberg publishing house Hartung . Albert Dulk attended the Kneiphöfische Gymnasium until 1837 ; At the same time, he completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist with his father. After graduating from high school, he decided to study chemistry, which he began at the University of Königsberg . Other places of study were Leipzig and Berlin. In 1838 he became a member of the Hochhemia Königsberg wreath . During his one-year voluntary service as a hospital pharmacist in Breslau in 1841/42 , he was in contact with Nees von Esenbeck , Hoffmann von Fallersleben and Friedrich von Sallet .

During his studies he maintained contacts with the so-called “free” group of Bruno Bauer , Edgar Bauer , Louise Aston and Max Stirner in Berlin . In Leipzig he joined the democratically minded students. During this time his Vormärz drama Orla was created , which Dulk published anonymously by Julius Fröbel in 1844 in the publishing house Literarisches Comptoir Zurich and Winterthur due to censorship. In August 1845, alongside Robert Blum and Wilhelm Jordan, he gave a funeral speech for those who had fallen in the Leipzig riots , whereupon his expulsion from Saxony was ordered. In order to be able to continue his studies anyway, he hid with the help of his girlfriend Pauline Butter, daughter of a Leipzig banker. Encouraged by his friend, the Jewish doctor, writer and politician Johann Jacoby , Dulk began work on an unfinished drama about the assassination attempt on King Friedrich Wilhelm IV by the Brandenburg mayor Heinrich Ludwig Czech . As a result, Dulk drew the attention of the Prussian "secret police", which in 1846 led to four weeks' pre-trial detention in Halle .

After his doctorate in August 1846 in Breslau, Dulk married his cousin Johanna on October 26th in Königsberg. His habilitation attempts the following year at the university there failed due to his political past. Throughout 1847 Dulk worked on his play Lea , which premiered on February 23, 1848 in Königsberg and later became his most frequently performed play. The drama about the court Jew Joseph Süß Oppenheimer "incorporates deeply rooted anti-Jewish topoi and clichés in order to question and expose them". At the same time, however, it stands for Dulk's idea of ​​a political, social and religious renewal beyond all denominations.

Dulk took an active part in the German Revolution of 1848/49 in Königsberg. Together with a businessman, two master craftsmen and the student Robert Schweichel , he founded a workers' association in April . After he had to relinquish the management in July, he published the five- issue magazine Der Handwerker in November . With it he wanted to contribute to the social question being subject to a “thorough examination” and the “prudent action of thinking workers”. Under the motto "Association, unification, that is the new idea of ​​the Savior and the Gospel of the Times", he reported on master and journeyman congresses, professional workers 'associations and workers' associations. Later he ran a Sunday school for apprentices. With Otto Seemann he wrote the one-act political comedy The Walls .

Bronze high relief in an oval medallion from the workshop of Adolf von Donndorf . The simple wooden frame dates from after 1951. The Dulkhäuschen was renovated in 2011

The failure of his engagement, the victory of the reaction in Prussia, as well as his private circumstances led him to travel to Udine in June 1849, equipped with Prussian papers , where his girlfriend was expecting a child. At the same time he resigned from the church. From there he crossed the Alps, northern and central Italy on foot and after several months reached Naples. He decided to "get lonely, to renounce the happiness of life voluntarily, to look for my God in me again in lonely silence" and organized a trip to Egypt. Of the eight months he spent there, he lived three months on the Sinai Peninsula alone in a rock cave not far from St. Catherine's Monastery , in constant contact with Bedouins. Dulk's Egyptian diary, of cultural historical and literary importance, has so far only been published in excerpts.

Back in Europe, Albert Dulk settled with his wife Johanna, his friends Pauline Butter and later Else Bußler, and their children near Vevey on Lake Geneva . Here he lived with his family in a dairy hut. In November 1858 Dulk moved to Stuttgart, where he worked as a theater critic and literary theorist. In particular, he discovered the importance of Heinrich von Kleist for his own theory of drama. In 1865 he took citizenship of Württemberg. From here he made only two trips that took him to Sweden and Lapland. The drama “Simson” from this time received little attention from the audience. The piece “King Enzio”, which was brought to the stage in 1862, is different, based on music by Johann Joseph Abert (1832–1915). Also in Stuttgart in 1865 he brought his main work "Jesus the Christ" to the public. He caused a stir in the same year when he became the first man to swim across Lake Constance in 6 hours on July 2nd.

In addition to dramas, adaptations and opera libretti, he also wrote in Stuttgart - from 1871 in Untertürkheim and later in the summer months in a forest house above Eßlingen - texts critical of the church, in particular Der Irrgang des Leben Jesu . During this time he also worked on a drama, "Brigitte", which - as a result of his own experiences - dealt with the problem of double marriage. However, this work was never performed or published. Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War , he published several writings, including Patriotism and Piety , in which he passionately polemicized against Bismarck's blood-and-iron policy .

After the unification of the empire under Prussia's leadership, Dulk joined the labor movement after initial hesitation and was henceforth involved in the development of the social democratic party in Württemberg. In 1875, as a Stuttgart delegate, he represented the General German Workers 'Association (ADAV) at the unification congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP) in Gotha . As a candidate in the Reichstag and Landtag elections, he achieved considerable success.

Caricature of Albert Dulk as a person crossing Lake Constance. From the album of the Stuttgart artist society "Das Strahlende Bergwerk", of which he was a member.

Under the impression of the hysteria of assassination in 1878, which led to the restrictive socialist law , Dulk was sentenced to one year in prison for sedition in Esslingen and another two months in Ulm for insulting the church because of an election leaflet . He served his imprisonment in Heilbronn . From then on, he was considered a martyr of political persecution among the Württemberg Social Democrats. At the beginning of May 1881 he gave the funeral speech at the Prague cemetery in Stuttgart on the occasion of Gottlob Eitle's funeral . In his speech, Dulk sharply criticized the socialist law and invoked human rights. The funeral took place during the week, but to the surprise of the police, the funeral ceremony turned into a large party demonstration in which more than 400 comrades took part. On April 2, 1882, Albert Dulk founded the first freethinker congregation in Stuttgart within the German Freethinkers Association, which had existed since 1881 .

Dulk also caused a stir as a member of the men's gymnastics club in Stuttgart . On July 17, 1865, at the age of 46, he was the first man to swim across Lake Constance between Romanshorn and Friedrichshafen in six and a half hours.

On October 29, 1884 Albert Dulk died of heart failure in the Stuttgart train station. The funeral procession through Stuttgart on November 2, with an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 participants, grew into the largest mass demonstration during the Socialist Act. The cremation took place in the Gotha crematorium .

Literary reception and appreciation

Excursion to the Dulkhäuschen. Oldest group photo of Württemberg Social Democrats, taken on September 10, 1893

Dulk was the role model and model for Wilhelm Raabe's figure of Leonhard Hagebucher, protagonist of his novel Abu Telfan or The Homecoming from the Moon Mountains . Raabe was friends with Dulk during his time in Stuttgart. Dulk's childhood friend Rudolf Gottschall also used Dulk's character traits in the novel withered leaves and in Pregel 's novella Romeo and Juliet . His drama Jesus der Christ , for whose passion play-like staging he had demanded a modern people's stage, as well as The Errgang des Lebens Jesu also influenced Gerhart Hauptmann's Der Narr in Christo. Emanuel Quint . Through his supporter, the writer and freethinker Hedwig Henrich-Wilhelmi and the well-known founder of the Freie Volksbühne Bruno Wille , the use of motifs from Dulk's life in writers close to naturalism can be demonstrated, including Wille himself and John Henry Mackay . Dulk also attracted literary loners such as Heinrich Schäff-Zerweck and his friend, the later radical ethnic Ernst Emanuel Krauss (pseudonym Georg Stammler ), and Peter Hille .

At a memorial event on September 20, 1885 at the Dulkhäuschen above Wiflingshausen , a bust donated by workers and friends was unveiled in front of around 2000 participants. The social democratic member of the Reichstag, Bruno Geiser , gave the keynote address . Further social democratic meetings followed up to the First World War . In Koenigsberg, a street north of the Maraunenhof bore his name in 1930, which was renamed in 1938. In addition to the 1,966 designated on the initiative of the conservative and church-critical cultural philosopher Kurt Port Dulkweg in Esslingen since 2002 exists in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim a Dulkstraße . A first Dulkstraße there - listed in 1920 - was renamed in 1933.

The newly built Dulkhäusle

The Dulkhäuschen, a literary as well as a political monument, lost essential attributes of its external appearance apart from the bronze bust in 1951. Dulk was considered a “stranger on Swabian soil”, as an “anarchist-atheist hot head” who “didn't have much to do with the Eßlingers”. The basic repair work on the hut, which is valued at least as an "idyllic gem", was correspondingly poor. In 2010, the Dulkhäusle lost its status as a monument after it had been determined that hardly any of the original building fabric had existed since the 1950s. The Dulkhäusle was then torn down and completely rebuilt with the free help of some craft businesses, accompanied by a fundraising campaign. The renovated bronze bust was put back on the facade. The inauguration of the new building took place on September 25, 2011. The broken off Dulkhäuschen was presumably the oldest social democratic memorial in Germany. The plan to set up a memorial for Albert Dulk in the Dulkhäuschen was abandoned by the City of Esslingen am Neckar for reasons of cost.

Albert Dulk Prize

Since 2016, the Albert Dulk Prize, endowed with 3,000 euros, has been awarded by Untertürkheim associations to personalities from the fields of art and culture, social politics, science and business who - like the namesake - cross borders with courage and openness, create and use freedom. The first prize winner in 2016 was the Stuttgart performance artist Pablo Wendel , the second prize winner in 2019 was the cabaret artist and author Peter Grohmann .

Works (selection)

  • Orla. Dramatic poetry . Literarisches Comptoir, Zurich and Winterthur 1844 (“New edition increased with an appendix”, JP Grohe, Mannheim 1847).
  • Lea. Drama in 5 acts. Samter & Rathke, Königsberg 1848.
  • The Walls, a political comedy in one act. (in collaboration with Otto Seemann). Pfizer et al. Heilmann, Königsberg 1848. Reprinted in: Horst Denkler (Hrsg.): Der deutsche Michel. Forty-eight revolutionary comedies. Stuttgart 1979, pp. 172-208.
  • "Simson", Drama, Stuttgart, 1859
  • King Enzio. Great opera in four acts . Blum and Vogel, Stuttgart, 1862. Music: Johann Joseph Abert . Premiere 1862 Stuttgart (court theater). New version: Enzio von Hohenstaufen . Premiere 1875 Stuttgart (Court Theater)
  • Jesus the Christian. A piece for the Volksbühne in nine acts with an episode. E. Ebner, Stuttgart 1865.
  • Konrad the Second, historical play in six acts. First part: King Conrad the Second. Second part: Emperor Conrad the Second. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1867.
  • "Brigitte", Drama Stuttgart 1868 (only survived as a manuscript)
  • Patriotism and piety. A word about the knowledge of time. Ph. Rohr, Kaiserslautern 1871.
  • "Entzio von Hohensteifen" - second arrangement of the piece "König Enzio" from 1862, Stuttgart 1875
  • Willa. Acting in three acts. Rosner, Vienna 1875.
  • “Voices of Humanity, Christian Doctrine of Faith” Stuttgart 1876/1880
  • The aberration of the life of Jesus. Volume I, JHW Dietz , Stuttgart 1884 and Volume II, Stuttgart undated
  • Poems. Selected from his estate. JHW Dietz, Stuttgart 1887.
  • All the dramas , ed. from Ernst aim . Vol. I-III, JHW ​​Dietz, Stuttgart 1893/94 (with considerable deviations from the individual editions).
  • The correspondence between Albert Dulk and Paul Heyse 1860–1882. In: Ernst Rose (Ed.): Germanic Review. New York 1929, pp. 1-152.
  • Down with the atheists! Selected writings critical of religion from the early free-thinker movement. ed. v. Heiner Jestrabek . IBDK Verlag, Aschaffenburg 1995, ISBN 3-922601-27-8 .
  • Lights from Frankfurt. Friedrich Stoltze's correspondence with Albert Dulk 1867-1884. VDG, Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-89739-426-X .

literature

  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: A – E. Heidelberg 1996, pp. 225-226.
  • Ludwig Julius Fränkel:  Dulk, Albert . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 149-160.
  • Gisela Hengstenberg: Rübezahl in the Königsbau. The Stuttgart artists' society “Das Strahlende Bergwerk” . Hohenheim, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-89850-977-X .
  • Heiner Jestrabek: Albert Dulk (1819–1884) playwright, revolutionary, free thinker . In: Derselbe (Ed.): Freethinkers. Lessons from history. Portraits and essays . Freiheitsbaum edition Spinoza, Reutlingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-922589-52-5 , p. 5-51 .
  • Gerhard Maag: From the Socialist Law to the First World War. In: Working group history of the Nürtingen labor movement: The other Nürtingen. A contribution to the local history of the 100th birthday of the Nürtingen SPD , ed. v. SPD local association Nürtingen. Nürtingen 1989, pp. 23-62, p. 33.
  • Jochen Meyer: Albert Dulk. A forty-eight. From the life novel of a radical . In: Marbacher Magazin . No. 48 . German Schiller Society Marbach am Neckar, Marbach 1988, ISBN 3-929146-78-9 .
  • Sylvia Peuckert: From pre-March to post-March: Albert Dulk's trip to Egypt . In: Christina Ujma (ed.): Ways to Modernity. Travel literature by writers from the Vormärz . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-89528-728-2 , p. 255-269 .
  • Christof Rieber: The Socialist Law. The criminalization of a party . In: House of History Baden-Württemberg (Hrsg.): Political prisoners in Southwest Germany . Silberburg-Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-87407-382-3 , p. 166-194 .
  • Christof Rieber, Ilse Walter-Dulk: Albert Dulk (1819–1884) . In: Siegfried Bassler (ed.): With us for freedom. 100 years of the SPD in Stuttgart . Thienemann, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-522-62570-6 , pp. 160-164 .
  • Ernst Rose:  Dulk, Albert Friedrich Benno. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 184 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Astrid Schweimler: Albert Friedrich Benno Dulk (1819–1884): A playwright as a pioneer of social emancipation . Focus, Giessen 1988, ISBN 3-88349-465-8 .
  • Theodor von Wächter : Albert Dulk as a thinker and poet of freedom . Jung, Stuttgart 1904.
  • Ilse Walther-Dulk: Lights from Frankfurt / Friedrich Stoltze's correspondence with Albert Dulk 1867-1884 . VDG Verlag and database for the humanities, Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-89739-426-X .
  • Ilse Walther-Dulk: Albert Dulk's flight into Egypt . VDG, Weimar 2002, ISBN 978-3-89739-306-6 .
  • Bruno Wille : Albert Dulk . In: The Socialist Academic . II. Year 1896 July No. 7, pp. 427-432. Digitized
  • Serious goal: Albert Dulk. On the thirtieth anniversary of his death († October 29, 1884) . In: Der Wahre Jacob , No. 738, end of October 1914, pp. 8504-8505, digitized

Web links

Commons : Albert Dulk  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Albert Dulk  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: AE. Heidelberg 1996, p. 225.
  2. ↑ Jochen Meyer: Albert Dulk, a forty-eight . In: Marbacher Magazin , No. 48, 1988, p. 19
  3. ↑ Anat Feinberg : "Because I am a Jew". Albert Dulks Lea , in: Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer, Jens Malte Fischer (Ed.): Jews roles. Forms of representation in European theater from the restoration to the interwar period . Tübingen 2008, p. 100.
  4. ↑ Feinberg, p. 91
  5. ^ Edmund Silberner : Johann Jacoby Briefwechsel 1816-1849 , Hannover 1974, p. 476
  6. ↑ Meyer, p. 63
  7. ↑ Meyer, p. 68
  8. ↑ Helmut Sembdner : Heinrich von Kleist's Nachruhm. A history of impact in documents , dtv pocket books, Volume 2414, Munich 1997
  9. ↑ Ernst Rose, Albert Dulk, Neue Deutsche Biografie, Volume 4, 1959, pp. 184 f. in: http://www.deutsche-Biographie.de/html
  10. ^ Gerhard Maag: From the Socialist Law to the First World War . In: Working group history of the Nürtingen labor movement: The other Nürtingen. A contribution to the local history of the 100th birthday of the Nürtingen SPD , ed. v. SPD local association Nürtingen. Nürtingen 1989, pp. 23-62, p. 33.
  11. ↑ See ibid .; see. Rieber, Christoph, The Socialist Law and Social Democracy in Württemberg 1878-1890 , Stuttgart 1984, pp. 296-300, p. 728; see. ibid., p. 824.
  12. ↑ Astrid Schweimler: Albert Friedrich Benno Dulk (1819–1884): A playwright as a trailblazer for social emancipation , Giessen 1988, p. 14
  13. ↑ Bruno Wille: Albert Dulk , in: The socialist academic. Organ of the socialist students and students of the German language, Berlin 1896, pp. 427-432
  14. ↑ Friedrich Kienecker (Ed.): Peter Hille. Collected Works . Volume 4. Essen 1985, pp. 206-223. In the story I am the murderer , Hille lets his protagonist say: "I would really like to get to know Albert Dulk."
  15. ↑ HM Mühlpfordt: Which fellow citizens did Königsberg publicly honor? In: Yearbook of the Albertus University of Königsberg , Volume XIV, 1964
  16. ↑ Esslinger Zeitung , June 20, 1951
  17. ↑ Esslinger Zeitung , August 16, 1958
  18. ↑ Esslingen's first 'red' monument . ( Memento from May 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , Esslingen district edition, for the first time on September 26, 2011
  19. ^ Albert Dulk Prize, Untertürkheim. Retrieved May 24, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Dulk, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dulk, Albert Friedrich Benno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German socialist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 1884
Place of death Stuttgart