Eduard Baltzer

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Eduard Baltzer
Memorial plaque in the Baltzerstraße in Nordhausen

Eduard Wilhelm Baltzer (born October 24, 1814 in Hohenleina ; † June 24, 1887 in Durlach near Karlsruhe ) was a German democrat and Protestant theologian. He represented an ethical vegetarianism, founded the first vegetarian association in Germany, was a pioneer of the life reform movement and the first president of the Federation of Free Religious Congregations in Germany . In 1852 he coined the term “ Jugendweihe ”.

Life

Eduard Baltzer

Eduard Baltzer was the son of a Saxon pastor and studied - destined for the spiritual profession - from 1834 to 1838 classical philosophy and Protestant theology in Leipzig and Halle. After studying, including some medical lectures, he became a deacon and hospital preacher in Delitzsch in 1841 . Around 1842 he joined the "Protestant Friends" ( friends of light ), who had formed to defend rationalism against the New Orthodoxy that was emerging in Prussia and who not only accepted the Bible, but also "elevated the spirit present in man to Christian norm" . Because of his opposition to the Apostolicum , the District President in Merseburg refused to be elected as pastor at the St. Ulrichs Church in Halle (Saale) in 1845 . An initially confirmed election to the Nikolaikirche in Nordhausen was canceled by the Ministry of Culture in Berlin after the Friends of Light in Prussia and Saxony had been banned. After exhausting all legal possibilities, he gave up his pastoral office in January 1847 and founded the Free Protestant Congregation Nordhausen with church leaders and parishioners of the Nikolaikirche, as its preacher and director he worked until 1881. Despite the so-called March Edict of 1847, which was supposed to force the rationalists out of the official church, the first period of the free church, but also the years of the reaction era after 1849, were marked by violent conflicts with the authorities, including the establishment of a Froebel kindergarten . Baltzer, a supporter of his Thuringian compatriot Friedrich Fröbel , who was probably also influenced by Pestalozzi in terms of educational measures , commented:

“Our free community, which is openly committed to the innermost principles of this way of upbringing, recommended kindergartens only and especially to free communities. In kindergarten, in everything that happens, voluntariness is the driving force, as it is the principle of our free community on a large scale. "

In March 1848, Baltzer took part in the preliminary parliament of the first German National Assembly in Frankfurt's Paulskirche as a city councilor sent by the state parliament and from the end of May 1848 was a member of the constituent Prussian National Assembly in Berlin. In parliament, Baltzer advocated social reforms. In 1851, Baltzer, who wanted to contribute to a natural upbringing of mankind, opened the first kindergarten in Prussia based on the example of Froebel in Nordhausen.

Like most other independent congregations, the Nordhausen congregation under Baltzer soon turned away from Protestant rationalism and towards a pantheistic natural religion. Christian celebrations were continued in the free religious movement , but reinterpreted, such as the confirmation of youth consecration. In 1859, when the Friends of Light merged with the free religious German Catholics, Eduard Baltzer was elected the first President of the Association of Free Religious Congregations in Germany.

Through an official colleague who was already living as a vegetarian, a "Herrenhuter Preacher", Baltzer already "converted" from the work The Natural Diet, the Diet of the Future by the alternative practitioner Theodor Hahn , in 1866, knowledge of Theodor Hahn's work The practical manual for a healthy lifestyle . Thereupon he stopped smoking cigars on November 26th, 1866, became a vegetarian and founded the “Association for Natural Lifestyle” in Nordhausen at Easter 1867, which grew rapidly. At the association meeting on July 9, 1868, it was decided to rename the "German Association for a Natural Way of Life"; from May 19, 1869, it was called the "German Association for a natural way of life".

In the years 1867–1872, Baltzer wrote a four-volume work entitled The Natural Way of Life , in which he tried to justify vegetarianism in religious, moral, political, economic and health terms. Baltzer outlined the utopia of the emergence of a new and higher human race, which by avoiding the consumption of meat and a natural way of life develops "to the truth, right and good", in order to finally "approach God", what he called the term "Vegetarianism" summarized. He also saw the cheaper vegetarian diet in his bill as an opportunity to better feed the poorer population.

The journal for friends of the natural way of life (vegetarians) published by Baltzer from June 1868 was the first journal of the vegetarian movement in Germany. After Baltzer's death, a new name was chosen for the paper, Thalysia . Baltzer called Thalysianism the "natural way of life" of the vegetarians, after Thalysia , the ancient harvest festival in honor of Demeter and Dionysus .

In order to grow his own plant-based food and in anticipation of the transformation of "plague-bearing cities and desolate regions" into a large, "healthy, beautiful, productive garden land", he thought of the development of allotment gardens initiated in the name of orthopedist Moritz Schreber (originally the physical Serving fitness) in the sense of the life reformers, first in Brandenburg (so the non-profit vegetarian fruit growing colony Eden ), first of all .

In 1881, Baltzer resigned from his free church and resigned from all offices.

Three years before his death, he was sentenced to one month's imprisonment for a fortress because, in a newspaper article, he accused the Crown Prince of being involved in a hunt of barbarism.

Fonts

  • Delitzsch - Halle - Nordhausen or my way from the regional church to the free Protestant community , Nordhausen 1847
  • German Church. Messages from the free community in Nordhausen , Nordhausen 1847
  • Old and new worldview. Lectures given in the free religious community in Nordhausen , Nordhausen 1850–1859
  • From work. Or human work in a personal and economic relationship. First edition , Nordhausen 1864
  • The natural way of life 1st part: The way to health and social welfare , Nordhausen 1867
  • The natural way of life 2nd part: The reform of the national economy from the standpoint of the natural way of life , Nordhausen 1867
  • Pythagoras, the sage of Samos. A picture of life , Nordhausen 1868 (Reprint Heilbronn 1991. ISBN 3-923000-58-8 )
  • The natural way of life 3rd part: Letters to Virchow about his work "Food and Beverage" , Nordhausen 1868
  • God, world and man. Basic lines of religious studies systematically presented in their position and design , Nordhausen 1869
  • The natural way of life 4th part: Vegetarianism in the Bible , Nordhausen 1872
  • Long live vegetarianism - vegetarianism and social reform , Nordhausen 1873
  • Ideas for social reform , Nordhausen 1873
  • Apollonius of Tyana. From the Greek by Philostratus , Rudolstadt 1883 (reprint, Aalen 1970)
  • Vegetarian cookbook for friends of the natural way of life
  • Memories. Pictures from my life. Frankfurt a. M. 1907.
  • Georg Herrmann (ed.): Eduard Baltzer: theologian and revolutionary. Pictures from my life. - For the centenary of the founding of the Federation of Free Religious Congregations in Germany (= Die kleine Kulturzeitschriften, Volume 4), Konstanz 1959

Honor

Baltzerbrunnen in Nordhausen, 1924

The sculptor Adolf Jahn created an Eduard Baltzer fountain for Nordhausen in 1910 , which was destroyed in the air raids on the city in April 1945.

literature

Web links

Commons : Eduard Baltzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 50.
  2. ^ Robert Jütte : History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40495-2 , p. 160.
  3. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 50.
  4. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 50.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Karl Nacke: About the external affairs of elementary schools and their teachers . In: Karl Nacke (Hrsg.): Annual educational report for Germany's primary school teachers . Seventh volume. Leipzig 1853, p. 355 f.
  6. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 51.
  7. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 50.
  8. ^ Robert Jütte: History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. 1996, p. 116.
  9. ^ Theodor Hahn: The natural diet, the diet of the future. Compiled from experience and science of all times and peoples. Paul Schettler, Cöthen 1859.
  10. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 51 f.
  11. ^ Karl Eduard Rothschuh : Naturopathic Movement, Reform Movement, Alternative Movement. Stuttgart 1983; Reprint Darmstadt 1986, p. 109 and 111.
  12. ↑ Eva Barlösius: Natural lifestyle. On the history of life reform at the turn of the century , Frankfurt 1997, pp. 36–47. Hans-Jürgen Teuteberg: To the social history of vegetarianism . In: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte , 81, 1994, p. 48 f.
  13. ^ Eduard Baltzer: Association sheet for friends of the natural way of life (vegetarians), No. 2, August 1, 1868 . In: Association sheet for friends of the natural way of life (vegetarians) 1868–1870, Nordhausen 1870; P. 26. Full text (PDF; 114 MB)
  14. ^ Eduard Baltzer: Association sheet for friends of the natural way of life (vegetarians), No. 10, June 7, 1869 . In: Association sheet for friends of the natural way of life (vegetarians) 1868–1870, Nordhausen 1870; P. 145. Full text (PDF; 114 MB)
  15. ^ Eduard Baltzer (1814-1887) . International Vegetarian Union (IVU)
  16. ↑ Clarence L. Bernhart, Jess Stein (Eds.): The American College Dictionary. (1947) 14th edition. New York / Toronto 1960, p. 1346 ( vegetarianism : "the belief in or practice of eating only fruits and vegetables").
  17. ↑ Claus Leitzmann: Vegetarianism: Basics, Benefits, Risks . 4th edition. CH Beck, 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-64194-7 , pp. 34-35.
  18. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), pp. 55–59.
  19. ^ Gundolf Keil: Vegetarian. 2015 (2016), p. 50.
  20. ↑ NordhausenWiki: Baltzer fountain . Retrieved August 6, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Baltzer, Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baltzer, Eduard Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German democrat and Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohenleina
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1887
Place of death Durlach