David Baumgardt

David Baumgardt (born April 20, 1890 in Erfurt , † July 21, 1961 in New York City ) was a German philosopher.

Life and activity

Baumgardt was a son of the businessman Samuel Baumgardt (1856–1927) and his wife Regine, geb. Harz fields. After attending the humanistic grammar school in his hometown, he studied philosophy, physics, history and literary history at the universities of Freiburg, Vienna, Munich, Heidelberg and Berlin from 1908 to 1914. In Berlin he belonged to Kurt Hiller's early Expressionist New Club . He was also on friendly terms with Georg Heym and Jacob van Hoddis . After interrupting his studies due to his compulsory participation in the First World War, Baumgardt obtained his doctorate in 1920. phil.

After his habilitation as a private lecturer in 1924, Baumgardt taught until 1935 as a private lecturer (1924–1931) and then (1932–1935) as an associate professor of philosophy at the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms University. In 1931 he received a teaching position for history and aesthetics. In between he was visiting lecturer at the University for the Science of Judaism. After the National Socialists came to power, he was dismissed from university service in 1935 on the basis of the Nuremberg Race Laws due to his - according to National Socialist definition - Jewish descent. In the same year he went to Spain - where he briefly taught in Madrid - to emigrate to Great Britain. There he taught from 1935 to 1939 as a visiting professor at the University of Birmingham.

After his emigration, Baumgardt was classified as an enemy of the state by the National Socialist police forces: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be successful if they were successful Invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the occupying troops following SS special commandos with special priority.

In 1939 he came to the United States, where he first taught at various colleges, and finally from 1941 to 1954 he worked as a consultant for philosophy and political science in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. From 1955 to 1956 he was visiting professor of philosophy at Columbia University in New York. He also worked for various magazines.

Baumgardt was a member of the American Philosophical Association and the International Academy of Human Rights.

Baumgardt's main research interests were ancient philosophy and ethics.

Baumgardt's estate is now kept by the American Leo Baeck Institute , which also awards a scholarship to support students engaged in researching and continuing his work.

Fonts

• The problem of possibility of the Critique of Pure Reason, Modern Phenomenology, and Object Theory , 1920. (Reprint 1978)
• Franz v. Baader and the Philosophical Romanticism , 1927.
• Spinoza and Mendelssohn. Speeches and essays on her memorial days , 1932.
• The struggle for the meaning of life among forerunners of modern ethics , 1933.
• Bentham and the Ethics of Today , 1952.
• Great Western Mystics and their Lasting Significance , New York 1961.
• Western mysticism , 1963.
• Mysticism and Science: Their Place in Occidental Thought , 1963.
• Looking Back on a German University Career 1908-1933 . In: Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 10 (1965), pp. 239-265.
• Beyond power morality and masochism: hedonistic ethics as a critical alternative , 1977.

literature

• Wilhelm Kosch / Lutz Hagestedt: German Literature Lexicon. The 20th century. Biographisches-Bibliographisches Handbuch, Vol. 2 (Bauer-Ose-Björnson), p. 32.
• Zee Levy: David Baumgardt and Ethical Hedonism , 1988.
• Ders .: "David Baumgardt and his Jewish Studies", in: Gesher No. 117, Jerusalem Spring 1988, pp. 89-102.
• Baumgardt, David. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 1: A-Benc. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-598-22681-0 , pp. 415-418.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Baumgardt on the special wanted list GB .