Alfred Baeumler

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Bookplate by Alfred Baeumler, woodcut by Otto Wirsching , 1914

Alfred Baeumler (born November 19, 1887 in Neustadt an der Tafelfichte , Bohemia , Austria-Hungary , † March 19, 1968 in Eningen unter Achalm ) was a German philosopher and educator . He played a leading role in shaping education under National Socialism .

Life

After studying philosophy and art history in Berlin and Bonn , Baeumler received his doctorate in Munich in 1914 with a thesis on The Problem of General Validity in Kant's Aesthetics . From 1924 he taught at the Technical University of Dresden , where he completed his habilitation, and in 1928 he became associate professor and in 1929 full professor. In 1933 he was appointed by the National Socialist Prussian Minister of Education Bernhard Rust, without the involvement of the faculty, to a newly established chair for philosophy and political education at the Berlin University and at the same time as director of the newly founded Institute for Political Education . "Poor Berlin faculty: Baeumler your philosopher, Neubert your Romanist", commented Victor Klemperer . In addition to Ernst Niekisch , with whom he was close friends, he had resistance in the first few years of the magazine . Journal for National Revolutionary Politics Articles written under the pseudonyms "Leopold Martin" and "Wolf Ecker".

Originally, Baeumler was close to the Bündische and the young conservatives , but then turned to National Socialism . In 1930 he was a co-founder of the völkisch - anti-Semitic Kampfbund for German culture . From the beginning of the thirties he had personal contact with Hitler and the "Nazi chief ideologist" Alfred Rosenberg . At the Reichstag elections of 1932, Baeumler openly supported the NSDAP with other philosophers , but only after the party came to power did he apply for membership .

On May 10, 1933, Baeumler gave his inaugural lecture “Against the un-German spirit” as part of his “Science, University, State” course in the overcrowded lecture hall 38 of Berlin University. Most of the students had appeared in SA uniform . At the beginning of the lecture a student flag delegation marched in with the swastika banner. The neglected key quote of this lecture reads as follows: “Politics can only be made by those who are responsible for it. There is a philosophy and science of politics, but there is no scientific politics and just as little a political science. The thought must answer to the thought. ”Bäumler went on to explain:“ In one word, what National Socialism means spiritually: the replacement of the educated by the soldier type. ”The“ epoch of freedom of conscience, of individualism ”is over . “You are now going out to burn books in which a spirit alien to us has used the German word to fight us. [..] What we are dismissing from ourselves today are toxins that have accumulated during the period of false tolerance. ”Later, the procession of torchbearers formed - but without Baeumler at the top - to the Opera Square . There, according to the Völkischer Beobachter , the “German spirit” should be symbolically purified by burning 20,000 books .

In 1934, Baeumler called for the “political soldier”, the establishment of “men's houses” and the exclusion of the “female democratic” as a student ideal. Martin Heidegger criticized both Baeumler and Ernst Krieck for the fact that their ideas lacked depth and that they wanted to implement the national educational model of the “political soldier” through external training programs and military training. In 1934 Reichsleiter Rosenberg appointed Baeumler to the position of “Head of the Office of Science of the Fuhrer's Commissioner for Supervising the Spiritual Training and Education of the NSDAP”; in 1941 he was promoted to Head of Service ; Baeumler worked there primarily as Rosenberg's liaison to the universities. In this sense, Baeumler also worked as editor of the International Journal for Education and, from 1936, of the journal Weltanschauung und Schule , of which Hans Karl Leistritz was the editor . His task in the Rosenberg Office , Science Department, was in particular "to process the assessment of the humanities scholars to be appointed at universities and to deal with the fundamental questions of education."

On the 50th birthday of Adolf Hitler , Baeumler wrote an article in the Festschrift Deutsche Wissenschaft in 1939 . At that time, Ernst Krieck and Baeumler were considered "the two leading philosophers of National Socialism". Since April 1942, Baeumler was head of the "construction office of the high school", a planned party university called the high school of the NSDAP .

After 1945 Baeumler was interned in camps in Hammelburg and Ludwigsburg for three years . He was one of the few Nazi professors who did not return to a university position.

Educational-philosophical views in the Nazi field of vision

"Race as a basic concept in educational science"

In this work from 1942, Baeumler shows how the terms race and heredity have an outstanding meaning in the Nazi regime. He also claims that the concept of “man's plasticity” has been misunderstood up to now. This proof is to be provided by racial thinking. He sees a problem in intellectualism . In his view, intellectualism assumes:

  1. that man as pure, d. H. indefinite disposition ( tabula rasa ) come into the world;
  2. that the environment has the power to write what it will on this board;
  3. that the organ with which man relates to the world is the intellect;
  4. that human actions are guided by the intellect and can therefore be decisively influenced by influencing the intellect.

The term “unlimited plasticity” would be derived from this intellectualistic assumption. Educational science does not start from real human beings; the educational goal is human beings in themselves, as there never was and never will be. The success of education results from the correct application of the means. All educational theory would have no foundation if it were not based on reliable scientific knowledge of man. The opponents of life and race science of education would still work with a historically outdated human knowledge. It depends on the right balance between intelligence and character. From this a realistic theory of education would grow.

Therefore it is of the utmost importance to develop character and intelligence. In racial thought, a principle of unlimited plasticity would not be opposed to the principle of limited plasticity, but only through this would the true principle of plasticity be "discovered". The unity of the character does not consist in its static, resting nature, but in its dynamically moving moments. It is the unity of direction. This unity is followed by education; this unity can never be produced through intellect and environment.

The task of education arises from the relatively indefinite direction of unity. Only through the forming effect of others can the soul come to itself, become what it is. At the end of the upbringing, there is a clearly defined form, the form of the "type". And he can only achieve this by being educated by the community. With the insight into the impossible concept of "unrestricted education", the concept of any "restriction" through educational measures also lapses:

"The limitation is not an invention of racial educational science, but an essential characteristic of humans".

"The German school and its teacher"

In this publication from 1942, Baeumler explains what he means by political pedagogy. He states that the “Dictionary of Compassionate Love” would not be available to the National Socialists. He interprets the word "new" and claims content that has never existed in this simple explanation. Pestalozzi and Herbart are classic patterns for him, which were only surpassed by the "new era". The role of the teacher should be “set in motion” from the political point of view. Pedagogy cannot take on this role. For him, historical epochs of the harvest are only suitable for a spiritual content to “reach that degree of its formation at which it can be taught”.

"The National Socialist age will also produce the school that is spirit of its spirit, but we must be aware that we are at the beginning of the new education." Only after the new worldview has been "shaped" by artists and thinkers, I will give it to the school as teaching material. School, however, is excluded from attaining the worldview itself. In this way, at Baeumler, the school results as an object and mediator of what was formed yesterday. On the other hand, he sees the school as a place that receives meaning and substance from the struggling national community , with which it also necessarily participates in the historical ups and downs of things. This means that it is no longer independent of life, but rather a part of folk and historical life itself, and it can no longer evade its laws.

"The new teacher training"

In this publication from 1942, Baeumler deals with the reorganization of teacher training. He is based on the teacher training institute , which at that time had taken on the final form after Adolf Hitler's decision . He explains this measure with "necessities of national existence" and "facts of the matter". In doing so, without showing it, he indirectly expresses that pedagogy had only become the product of Nazi ideology.

For him, in the training of teachers, the concept of the “camp” is at the top, where there is an “educational atmosphere”. Without describing this Nazi concept in more detail, it is sufficient to cite the relevant vocabulary: “community life”, “experience”, “inner sympathy”, “school camp”, “readiness”, “adoring heart”, “miracle”, “talking would mean talking to death ”,“ air of educational life ”and the like. a.

Baeumler and Nietzsche

At the end of the 1920s, Baeumler began to portray Friedrich Nietzsche as a philosopher of National Socialism . He wrote a book Nietzsche, the Philosopher and Politician , which appeared in Reclam's Universal Library in 1931 and was widely distributed; In 1932 he compiled an extensive volume of Nietzsche in his letters and reports of contemporaries in Alfred Kröner Verlag : The life story in documents ; and he published a 12-volume work edition of Nietzsche's writings, which was also published by Alfred Kröner from 1930 and is still available in new editions today (2009). Baeumler wrote introductions and afterwords for the individual volumes of the work edition, which continued to be printed in new editions after 1945. Martin Heidegger praised Baeumler's edition of Der Wille zur Macht as “a faithful reprint of Volumes XV and XVI of the complete edition with a sensible afterword and a concise and good outline of Nietzsche's life story.” Later, Baeumler's texts were successively replaced by texts by Walter Gebhard. Only the two volumes compiled by Baeumler under the title The Innocence of Becoming with materials from Nietzsche's estate are still in the original version from 1931 in the Kröner Verlag's program.

Writings by Alfred Baeumler

  • Kant's Critique of Judgment. Your History and Systematics, Volume 1, 1923
  • Bachofen der Mythologe der Romantik, 1926 (new edition as The mythical world age. Bachofen's romantic interpretation of antiquity. , Munich 1965 with a new epilogue Bachofen and the history of religion )
  • Introduction to the selection published by M. Schroeter from Bachofen: The Myth of Orient and Occident. Munich 1926, pp. XXV-CCXIV
  • Hegel's philosophy of mind and philosophy of law
  • Handbook of Teacher Training, 1930–1933 (Ed. Together with Richard Seyfert and Oskar Vogelhuber)
  • Nietzsche, the philosopher and politician, 1931
  • Aesthetics, manual of philosophy
  • Men's Association and Science, 1934
  • Studies in German intellectual history, 1937
  • Manual of Philosophy, 1931 (with Manfred Schröter )
  • What does Herman Wirth mean for science ?, Ed., 1932
  • The political student, in: Der Deutsche Student, Heft 1, pp. 3–9
  • The empire as action. Speech at the celebration of the foundation of the Reich of the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin on January 18, 1934
  • Politics and education. Speeches and essays, 1942
  • Race as a basic concept of educational science, in: Bildung und Gemeinschaft, 1942, pp. 81–85
  • The German School and its Teacher, in: Education and Community, 1942, pp. 98-108
  • The new teacher training, in: Education and Community, 1942, pp. 74–80
  • Education and Community, 1942
  • World Democracy and National Socialism, 1943
  • Alfred Rosenberg and the Myth of the 20th Century, 1943
  • The problem of irrationalism in the aesthetics and logic of the 18th century up to the Critique of Judgment, 1967 (new edition of "Kant's Critique and Judgment", 1st edition, Halle an der Saale, 1923).
  • Hitler and National Socialism. Records from 1945–1947 . In: Der Pfahl , Vol. 5, Matthes & Seitz , Munich, 1991, pp. 159-204.

literature

  • Sandro Barbera: "He wanted Europe, we wanted the 'Reich'" Comments on the Nietzsche interpretations by Alfred Baeumler. In: Sandro Barbera, Renate Müller-Buck (eds.): Nietzsche after the First World War. Volume 1. Edizione ETS, Pisa 2006, ISBN 88-467-1805-4 , pp. 199-234 ( Nietzscheana Saggi 9)
  • Marianne Baeumler, Hubert Brunträger, Hermann Kurzke : Thomas Mann and Alfred Baeumler. A documentation. Wuerzburg 1991
  • Leonore Bazinek: À la découverte du sens historique. Alfred Baeumler et la Nouvelle vision du monde, in: texto !, Volume XIX - n ° 1 (2014). Coordonné par Régis Missire. [1] .
  • Leonore Bazinek: The political pedagogy of Alfred Baeumler. Legitimate further development of Herbartian impulses or usurpation? In: Rotraud Coriand, Alexandra Schotte Ed .: Native terms and discipline development . Paideia, Jena 2014, pp. 79–95.
  • Ulrich Fröschle , Thomas Kuzias: Alfred Baeumler and Ernst Jünger. With an appendix of the traditional correspondence and other materials. Thelem, Dresden 2008 ISBN 978-3-939888-01-7
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy , Heidelberg 2004, p. 18. ISBN 3-935025-68-8 .
  • Thomas Laugstien: Philosophy Relationships in German Fascism. Argument, Hamburg 1990 ISBN 3-88619-169-9 (Argument special volume 169), (Series: Ideological Powers in German Fascism, 4)
  • Armin Mohler : The Conservative Revolution in Germany 1918–1932. A manual. Ares-Verlag , Graz 2002, ISBN 3-902475-02-1 , p. 479.
  • Ernst Nolte : On the typology of the behavior of university teachers in the Third Reich, in: From Politics and Contemporary History , Supplement B 46/65 to “The Parliament”, November 17, 1965 ISSN  0479-611X , pp. 3–14 (again in: Ernst Nolte: Marxism, Fascism, Cold War. Lectures and essays 1964–1976. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-421-01824-3 , pp. 136–152).
  • SF Oduev: In the footsteps of Zarathustra. Nietzsche's influence on bourgeois German philosophy. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1977, chap. 8: Nietzsche's philosophy and fascism. Pp. 198-221
  • Barbara Schneider: The High School in National Socialism. Böhlau, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-412-03500-9 (contributions to historical educational research, 21) pp. 221–276
  • Manfred Riedel : Nietzsche in Weimar. A German drama . Reclam, Leipzig 2000 ISBN 3-379-01685-3 . Chapter 3, §7: "Heroic Realism" or how Alfred Baeumler systematizes the "Will to Power" , pp. 90–98.
  • Philipp Teichfischer: The masks of the philosopher. Alfred Baeumler in the Weimar Republic - an intellectual biography Tectum, Marburg. ISBN 978-3-8288-9892-9 .
  • Christian Tilitzki : The German university philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich. Akademie, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-05-003647-8 , esp. Pp. 545-583, pp. 605-612.
  • Werner Tress: Alfred Baeumler. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Volume 2: People. Part 1: A - K. de Gruyter Saur, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24072-0 , pp. 40-42.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Baeumler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Victor Klemperer : Diaries 1942-45 . Aufbau-Verlag Berlin 1995, p. 479.
  2. ^ Armin Mohler: The Conservative Revolution in Germany . Stuttgart 1999 5 , p. 479
  3. a b c Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 24.
  4. Christoph Jahr: The National Socialist Takeover and Its Consequences. In: Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Hrsg.): History of the University under the Linden 1810-2010. Volume 2. The Berlin University between the World Wars 1918-1945. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-004667-9 , p. 315.
  5. ^ T. Laugstien: Philosophy Relationships in German Fascism . P. 27
  6. ^ T. Laugstien: Philosophy Relationships in German Fascism . P. 203
  7. Men's Association and Science, pp. 129, 130, 137; Christoph Jahr: The National Socialist Takeover and Its Consequences. In: Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Hrsg.): History of the University under the Linden 1810-2010. Volume 2. The Berlin University between the World Wars 1918-1945. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-004667-9 , p. 302.
  8. Men's Association and Science, 1934
  9. Léon Poliakov , Josef Wulf : The Third Reich and its thinkers . Berlin 1959
  10. Klaus-Peter Horn: Educational Science at the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in the time of National Socialism. In: Rüdiger vom Bruch (ed.): The Berlin University in the Nazi era. Volume 2: Departments and Faculties. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-515-08658-7 , p. 218
  11. Ernst Nolte : On the typology of the behavior of university teachers in the Third Reich . In: From politics and contemporary history , Supplement B 46/65 to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament , November 17, 1965
  12. according to other sources, he had held this office since 1940. Diss. Phil. University of Giessen 2013: The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and his activities in the Ukraine 1941 - 1944 , by Nazarii Gutsul, p. 25
  13. ^ Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche. 2 volumes. Pfullingen 1961; here volume 1, p. 17