Bernhard Constantin von Schoenebeck

Gravestone of Schoenebeck

Bernhard Constantin von Schoenebeck (born April 4, 1760 in Johannisberg near Windhagen , †  September 13, 1835 in Altenkirchen (Westerwald) ) was a German physician , scholar, librarian and author.

Life

Bernhard Constantin von Schoenebeck was born as the son of Johann Michael Joseph, a soldier in the Electorate of Cologne and the Netherlands, in 1751 Licentiate of Law and Maria Bernhardine von Graff. His great-grandfather Peter Dietrich von Schoenebeck acquired the manor Düsternau near Peterslahr , where they lived, through marriage to Maria Elisabeth von der Hoven called Pampus , who was the heiress of the manor Düsternau. Bernhard Constantin's parents both died in 1761, so that he grew up with his grandmother on the Düsternau. According to the tradition of the family, the boy’s career in science was mapped out; all of his relatives were respected scholars and officials in the Bergisch and Cologne service. He attended the Latin school in Linz am Rhein , then went to the Montanergymnasium in Cologne and was matriculated at the University of Cologne on May 22, 1776 . He took philosophy and science and was accepted into the medical faculty. In 1779 he went to the University of Duisburg and finished his studies there in 1783 with a dissertation on animal warmth.

After studying medicine, however, he was more interested in philosophical, historical and other aesthetic matters; So in 1778 he entered the service of the collector and writer Baron Adolf von Hüpsch , who hired him to do a variety of jobs in his cabinet; he had Schoenebeck translate the work of the Jesuit missionary Bernhard Havestadt , Chilidugú, sive Res Chilensis (Münster, 1777). At Hüpsch he also got to know his future brother-in-law Johann Peter Eichhoff , who, as one of the most ardent pioneers in the literary field, published a weekly newspaper in 1778/79, which was initiated by a "Society of Literary Friends".

Schoenbeck, influenced by the spirit of the Enlightenment, moved to Bonn ; he found his first public office in 1784/85 in the academy that had been created by Elector Max Franz ; he became a teacher of botany . However, since the low number of students made the professorship superfluous, he devoted himself to journalism and literature. In 1784 his work Mahlerische Reise am Niederrhein , Curiosities of Nature and Art from the Regions of the Lower Rhine was published ; a second booklet appeared in 1785, the third and the additions in 1789. The open judgment on ecclesiastical matters and especially the monasteries earned him the distrust of conservative circles, including the elector.

Bernhard v. Schoenebeck, back of the tombstone

In March 1785 he married Barbara Eichhoff. The circle in which Schoenebeck moved in Bonn encompassed the entire upper class, from academic and aristocratic to cultural circles. From his brother-in-law, Peter Eichhoff, he took over the editing of the Bönnischer Intellektivenblatt , and in 1787 his anonymous work, the Law Book of Pure Reason , was published in his own print shop . After the birth of his first son Johann August, he moved to Kirchen (Sieg) and practiced the medical profession there. In the following year he was appointed Kirchberg-Saynischen Hofrat and joined the Bonn Reading Society. The family now lived in Düsternau, where six more children were born to him. During the time of the French occupation of the Rhineland, he was appointed sworn translator at the civil court in Cologne , in May to Aachen and finally to the notary of the canton Weiden near Cologne. 1800/01 he worked as a librarian in Cologne; he vehemently opposed the transfer of cultural property to France.

In 1804 he was professor of ancient languages ​​at the Central School in Cologne; then he was drawn back to his home in the western forest. From 1805 to 1813 he worked as a doctor in Altenkirchen . The family continued to live on Gut Düsternau, where his wife died in 1811. In his second marriage he married Margarethe Josephine Schmidt from Hachenburg , who gave him five children. From 1817 to 1824 he was a doctor in Eitorf an der Sieg , then on August 21, 1824 the Prussian government assigned him the district physics office in Altenkirchen, where he worked until his death. He was buried in the Catholic cemetery; His tombstone is now at the Altenkirchen District Health Office.

Works

• Mahler's journey on the Lower Rhine: Curiosities of nature and art from the areas of the Lower Rhine . Author, Cologne on the Rhine; Weigel & Schneider, Nuremberg 1784- digitized (3 issues)
• BC von Schoenebeck: Mahlerische Reise am Nieder-Rhein 1783 , new edition July 2018, ISBN 978-3-929386-98-1 , Kid Verlag , Bonn

literature

• Barbara Weber: Johann Bernhard Constantin von Schoenebeck. The doctor and philosopher . In: Christiane Amls-Hammerstein and Ingrid von der Dollen (eds.): Martinus-Gymnasium Linz, Rhein. People in their time . Bad Honnef 2006
• Josef Schäfer: Bernhard Constantin von Schoenebeck . In: Pictures of life from the Altenkirchen district . Altenkirchen 1979

Web links

• Entry at the University of Duisburg
• Biography of Bernhard Constantin von Schoenebeck at the portal Rheinische Geschichte