Christiane Luise Hegel

Christiane Luise Hegel (born April 7, 1773 in Stuttgart , † February 2, 1832 in Bad Teinach ) was a middle-class woman in Württemberg . She was the sister of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel .

Life

Christiane Luise Hegel's father was the rent chamber secretary Georg Ludwig Hegel (1733–1799), her mother Maria Magdalena Louisa born. Fromm (1741-1783). She was born in the Hegelhaus in Stuttgart and spent almost two thirds of her life in Stuttgart; she was three years younger than Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and three years older than her brother Georg Ludwig Hegel (1776–1812).

When she was 10 years old, her mother, who had contributed significantly to her education, died. At the age of 20 she was in contact with her brother's former college friends, members of the Stuttgart court master scene, who were discussing the establishment of a southern German republic.

The closest friend is Wilhelmine Hedwig Elsässer, married. Hauff, the mother of the poet Wilhelm Hauff , whose godmother was Christiane Hegel. There is no authentic evidence of the unhappy love for a man that is said to have thrown her off course; it may have been Gotthold Stäudlin (1758–1796).

In the autumn of 1801, Hegel left the Württemberg royal seat of Stuttgart to be employed as an educator and teacher for the five daughters of Joseph Freiherr von Berlichingen in Jagsthausen . Simultaneously with her, the composer Friedrich Silcher was tutor there . She worked as governess until 1814 . In the summer of 1815 Christiane Hegel spent a few weeks with her brother Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and his family in Nuremberg . It was their last meeting. She then spent five years with her cousin Louis Göriz, the dean of the Protestant diocese of Aalen . From May 1820 to August 1821 she was in the Königlich-Württembergischen Heilanstalt Zwiefalten with “board and lodging at Irrenmeister Fischer”. After her release, Christiane Luise Hegel returned to her hometown of Stuttgart. There she settled down as a private teacher and maintained the family's previous contacts.

In mid-November 1831, Christiane Hegel's environment registered a deterioration in her health, combined with severe depression . In December 1831, on the recommendation of her doctor Karl Schelling, Christiane stayed with her maid in the spa town of Bad Teinach in the northern Black Forest . Three days after signing her will, Christiane threw herself into the Nagold near Bad Teinach “probably in a fit of melancholy” . Two days later she was buried in Calw . In her will, Christiane named Hegel's three sons as heirs of their capital assets. With this inheritance of Hegel's illegitimate son Ludwig Fischer, Christiane caused unrest in the family. All of Christiane's original letters to him are missing in Hegel's estate, only three letters to her sister-in-law have survived.

Works

Christiane Hegel wrote poems, all of which are lost. Karl Rosenkranz, Friedrich Hegel's first biographer, who has still read some of them, wrote that some of them were “really beautiful”.

literature

• Wilhelm Raimund Beyer : From Hegel's family life. The letters from Susanne von Tucher to her daughter Marie Hegel. In: Hegel yearbook. 1966, pp. 52-101 and the Hegel yearbook . 1967, pp. 114-137.
• Alexandra Birkert: Hegel's sister. On the trail of an unusual woman around 1800 . Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7995-0196-5 . ( Review by Heike Geilen on literature.de)
• Horst Brandstätter : Christiane Luise Hegel - medical history of a sympathizer . In: Horst Brandstätter: Asperg. A German prison . Wagenbach, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-8031-2045-4 , p. 46ff.
• Hellmut G. Haasis: In the shadow of the big brother III: Christiane Hegel . In: Hellmut G. Haasis: Give wings to freedom . Volume 2. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1988, pp. 825-830.
• Hellmut G. Haasis: Christiane Hegel. On the suffering and downfall of a footnote . In: Commons . 17, 1997, pp. 124-131.
• Justinus Kerner: The picture book from my boyhood. Memories from the years 1786 to 1804 . Braunschweig 1849. Edited by Günter Häntzschel, pp. 280 - 282. Reprint: Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-458-32038-5 .
• Hans-Christian Lucas: The sister in the shadow. Comments on Hegel's sister Christiane . In: O princess of home! Happy Stutgard . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-608-91451-X , pp. 284-306.
• Hans-Christian Lucas: Between Antigone and Christiane. The role of the sister in Hegel's biography and philosophy and in Derrida's "Glass" . In: Hegel yearbook . 1984/85, 1988, pp. 409-442.
• Karl Rosenkranz: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Life . Berlin 1844, p 424 - 426. Reprint: WBG, Darmstadt 1977, ISBN 3-534-13817-1 .
• Karl Schumm: Christiane Hegel. The philosopher's sister . In: Swabian homeland . 4, 1953, pp. 177-180.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexandra Birkert: Hegel's sister. On the trail of an unusual woman around 1800 . P. 58.