Carl Christian Otto

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Carl Christian Otto (also: Carl Otto Reventlow ; * December 10, 1817 in Store Heddinge ( Seeland ); † April 19, 1873 in Kempten (Allgäu) ) was a mnemotechnician and journalist.

Life

The son of a painter studied philology at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel in 1838/39 . Otto was a member of the Corps Saxonia Kiel along with others in the Schleswig-Holstein striving for independence such as Rudolf Schleiden , Friedrich Unzer, Andreas Springborn and Traugott Graf zu Reventlow . Relegated in Kiel because of a duel, he traveled to England and Switzerland as a publicist. Through the intervention of his college friends, he returned to Denmark to continue studying at the University of Copenhagen in 1844 .

In 1843 he published his first book on mnemonics . The method of pictorial memory techniques developed by him was used particularly in schools to absorb mathematical and historical knowledge. His textbooks achieved high editions and were continuously expanded and reissued over three decades. On many trips through Germany and Western Europe, he came to Berlin , Leipzig , Gdansk and Prague , among others , where he presented his methods. Educational critics such as the language teacher Carl Nauck (1813–1890) and the Swiss Eduard Pick (1862–1926) initially saw Otto as an epigone of the French lawyer and co-inventor of shorthand Aimé Paris (1798–1866). Contemporary specialist colleagues such as Hermann Kothe and Ignatz Bernhard Montag admired his system of easy-to-learn memory aids. The time critic Eduard Maria Oettinger , who was very popular at the time, also valued Otto. His technique of “basic images that cannot be dismantled” is now considered to be decisive for the development of mnemonics.

Otto took part in the German Revolution of 1848/49 and came under police surveillance. He stayed in Sweden and Norway until 1850. Emigrated to Cincinnati in 1853 , he became editor and publisher of various émigré papers, first in Syracuse, then in Albany. He took over the German free papers from religious emigrants in Cincinnati, from 1857 the high guard . The Journal was actually in the tradition of the German high guard , which appeared in Pforzheim in 1832, but was under Otto to a communist periodical for the German exiles of the emigrant 48er' `. Karl Marx used the contact with him to recommend Conrad Schramm, an important functionary of the Association of Communists, as an employee. In the dispute between the collapsing federation, Marx then expressed his disdain for Otto, who had become “liberal”.

In his later years Otto lived in Kempten.

Works

  • Textbook of mnemonics based on a completely new system applicable to the positive of all disciplines . Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1843.
  • Dictionary of mnemonics according to own systems . Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1844.
  • Guide to mnemonics for schools. Containing approximately 3000 mnemonically processed data from history and geography . Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1846.
  • Practical textbook of mnemonics or memory art. Containing approximately 9000 applications to the various school disciplines. Second completely revised edition Cotta, Stuttgart 1847.

literature

  • Carl Wilhelm Nauck: Reventlow and the mnemonics and the mnemonics and the school . Cottbus 1844.
  • Edward Pick: Mnemonic and Its Application to the Study of History . Steiner'sche Buchhandlung, Winterthur 1848.
  • Eduard Maria Oettinger : Karl Otto called Reventlow or mnemonics in their highest education Leipzig 1845.
  • Hermann Kothe, Ignatz Bernhard Monday: Catechism of the art of memory or mnemonics . Weber, Leipzig 1863.
  • Eduard Alberti : Lexicon of Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg and Eutinian writers from 1866–1882. Volume 2, Biernatzki, Kiel 1886.
  • Wilhelm Momm, E. Friedrich: Corps album Saxonia zu Kiel . Kiel 1933.
  • Ulrich Voigt: Mnemonics between Simonides and Harry Lorayne . Likanas, Hamburg 2001.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 77/12.
  2. ↑ Corpsalbum Saxonia, p. 31
  3. ↑ Kothe / Monday 1863, p. 26
  4. ↑ Charivari, 1847, edition 222, p. 3546
  5. ↑ Voigt, especially p. 90ff
  6. ^ Pierer's Universal Lexicon. 4th edition, 1857-1865
  7. ↑ A history of the development of Cincinnati and its Germanness, with biographical sketches and illustrations . Cincinnati: Queen City Pub. Co., 1901. p. 81 Harvard University online edition
  8. ^ Letter from Marx to Conrad Schramm, December 8, 1857. Quoted in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Gesammelte Werke (translated by P. Ross). Ed .: Lawrence & Wishart, 1983. ISBN 0-85315-461-9 , p. 217
personal data
SURNAME Otto, Carl Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reventlow, Karl Otto; Otto Reventlow, Karl Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish-German mnemonic technician and communist journalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Store Heddinge ( Zealand )
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1873
Place of death Kempten