Ernst Koch (writer)

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Ernst Wilhelm August Peter Koch (born June 3, 1808 in Singlis near Borken (Hesse) , † November 24, 1858 in Luxemburg (city) ) was a German poet lawyer during the Romantic era; Pseudonyms: Eduard Helmer, Leonhard Emil Hubert, Hubertus.

Career

Ernst Koch's birthplace in Singlis
Ernst Koch's birthplace in Singlis
Memorial plaque on the house where Ernst Koch was born
Memorial plaque on the house where Ernst Koch was born

Ernst Koch was born in Singlis near Borken (Hessen) in the house of his grandfather , Conrad Hermann Murhard, the governor of the Philipps University of Marburg . He was the first child of Johanna Auguste geb. Murhard and Karl Georg Koch, at that time justice of the peace (according to the law of the Kingdom of Westphalia) in Oberaula .

House in Witzenhausen where Ernst Koch lived as a child
Badge on the house in Witzenhausen

He spent his childhood in Neukirchen (Knüll) and Waldkappel , until he lived in Witzenhausen from the age of 8 to 14 , which he later called "Lenzbach" in Prince Rosa-Stramin . After his father was transferred to Kassel , he attended the Lyceum Fridericianum there . As one of the best of his year, he was allowed to give a “valedictio” (farewell speech) at the end. The title of his farewell speech - delivered on March 21, 1825 - was "De reverentia parentum" ("About the reverence for parents").

Education

Marburg market square: memorial plaque for Ernst Koch
Marburg market square: memorial plaque for Ernst Koch

After graduating from high school, he studied law at the Philipps University of Marburg and the Georg-August University of Göttingen . He became a member of the Corps Hassia Marburg and the Corps Hassia Göttingen. With a doctoral thesis with the Marburg constitutional lawyer Sylvester Jordan , he was awarded Dr. iur. PhD . It dealt with the "rights of those who produce something from foreign matter" (today: §§ 946 ff. Civil Code : connection , mixing , processing ). He gave up his intention to complete his habilitation at the Royal Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in the summer of 1830 because of the July Revolution of 1830 and the following political events in the Electorate of Hesse . He was shaped by the promise of a constitution by the Hessian elector on September 15, 1830 and the proclamation of the Hessian constitution of 1831 . His doctoral supervisor played a key role in their formulation. Koch returned to Kassel and became a trainee lawyer there in 1831 .

Poet and politician

Encouraged by the "freedom of the press" granted in the new constitution (§ 37 of the constitution), Ernst Koch and his former student colleague Salomon Abraham Hahndorf founded the Kassel sheets for mind and heart . Because of the massive intervention of his father, he was only able to publish one article. In the Weekly Conversations, a companion of the constitution friend , he published in the period from November 1831 to April 1832 a. a. six essays he secretly wrote at night. He called them Vigils of the poor right-wing candidate Leonhard Emil Hubert .

In 1832, Koch was also professionally successful. He was first secretary of the Landtag commissioner , later also a "speaker" in the Ministry of the Interior, which was headed by the reactionary Ludwig Hassenpflug . The acquaintance with Henriette von Bosse, who was visiting Kassel, the 19-year-old daughter of a lieutenant colonel (retired), fell during this period. In 1832 he got engaged to Henriette, who lived with her parents in Braunschweig , so that contact between the betrothed was only possible through correspondence. At Easter 1833 Ernst Koch visited his bride in Braunschweig.

Because of the "reactionary politics" pursued by Hassenpflug, a. directed against the Hessian constitution of 1831, Ernst Koch did not want to work under his leadership. In 1834 he gave up his position as a consultant in order to continue his legal training as a trainee lawyer - without any remuneration. Since he kept this professional change from his bride and her parents, they broke off the engagement.

At the insistence and financial support of his friends, including his friend Hahndorf, Koch summarized his previously unpublished texts and published them as a book under the title Prinz Rosa-Stramin . Henriette had inspired him to use the strange title, because she gave him a notebook bound in pink canvas on which she had embroidered a Persian prince.

Franz Dingelstedt described this work in August Lewald's magazine “Europa” (year 1836, p. 73) as a “torso, a fragment without beginning and end, just a swelling seed from which the richest harvest would have grown in better soil ... . " . Prince Rosa-Stramin describes events from Koch's youth and student days, glorifies Witzenhausen as “Lenzbach” and ironically deals with the civil guards that were current at the time. Comparing his study cities (around 1826), Koch comes to the much-quoted, positive judgment for Marburg: "Göttingen has a university, Marburg is one ..." He also sings about his fiancée Henriette von Bosse. The last sentence of the book reads: “Henriette. Henriette, I love you and you are as beautiful as the sunrise! "

Flight and Exile

"... instead of doing my exams, I began an unrestrained life that plunged me into debt and all sorts of confusion, and in December 1834 I decided to leave my country secretly and without a definite prospect, " Koch himself describes the situation facing him caused his escape from Kassel. His escape led him to Strasbourg and then to Paris . Finding no way of earning a living, financial hardship forced him to join the Foreign Legion .

After a stay in North Africa, Koch moved with the Legion "sold" by France to the regent Maria Christina of Spain to where it was used in the costly battles of the First Carlist War. Out of 7,000 legionnaires, only 381 survived this Spanish civil war. In the story From the Life of a Bad Boy , Koch later describes his experiences as a Foreign Legionnaire. In Spain, Ernst Koch converted to the Roman Catholic faith.

Kassel Weinberg: memorial plaque for Ernst Koch
Kassel Weinberg: memorial plaque for Ernst Koch

Return to Kassel and appointment to Luxembourg

In a six-week walk, Koch returned from Spain to Kassel in 1837, where he worked for a lawyer . In 1839, Ludwig Hassenpflug , who was now working as civil governor in Luxembourg , brought Ernst Koch there as government secretary. It was here that Ernst Koch married Octavie Mullendorf in 1841. The marriage had 10 children, but seven of them died early. From 1850 on, Ernst Koch was a high school professor for German language and literature at the Athénée de Luxembourg .

He died of tuberculosis in Luxembourg at the age of 50 . His grave is there in the Notre Dame cemetery .

Aftermath

No picture of Ernst Koch has come to posterity. “This sentence by Wilhelm Eckhardt (1871–1934, lawyer, counselor and“ Witzenhäuser out of inclination ”) about the edition of“ Prinz ”illustrated by Otto Ubbelohde is still valid today. This also applies to the picture in the town hall of Witzenhausen, which is documented for the first time more than 100 years after its supposed creation and was first published in 1950.

Kochstrasse in the Kassel district of Wehlheiden, “Rue Ernest Koch” in Luxembourg, Ernst-Koch-Strasse in Witzenhausen and the library there are reminiscent of Ernst Koch. There are memorial plaques on the birthplace in (Borken-) Singlis, on the former home of the Koch family in Witzenhausen, on a house on Marburg market square and - since 2014 - in Kassel in the Henschelpark on the vineyard described by Koch in the "Prince".

"Prinz Rosa-Stramin" appeared in two editions while Koch was still alive; another three appeared in the 19th century, each with a “foreword” by Karl Altmüller, and a Reclam edition with a foreword by Franz Brümmer . The editions illustrated by Otto Ubbelohde appeared in 1922, 1924 (2nd edition) and as a reprint in 1965. A paperback edition was published in 1960 in Luxembourg by “éditions du center J. Krippler-Muller”.

Works

  • Vigils of the poor right-wing candidate Leonhard Emil Hubert
  • Prince Rosa-Stramin by Dr. Eduard Helmer , Kassel, published by J. Luckhardtschen Hofbuchhandlung, 1834. Digitized in Gesammelte Schriften Kassel 1873
  • Prince Rosa-Stramin Part 2 (fragment, never published, probably burned by Koch before his death)
  • Stories by Ernst Koch , Kassel, printed and published by H Hotop, 1847, contains: From the life of a bad boy , "The Queen Consort", "Maria begs for me",
  • Ernst Koch's poems collected from his estate and edited by a friend of the deceased , Luxembourg 1859, printed and published by B. Bück

literature

  • Klaus Beckenbach: Ernst Koch - Critical comments on the alleged portraits of the poet . In: Hessische Heimat 2008 (2/3), pp. 51–57.
  • Klaus Beckenbach: Ernst Koch: "It was the Leo brothers" - comments on a footnote in "Prinz Rosa Stramin" . In: Hessische Heimat , 2011 (61st year), issue 2/3, p. 89 ff.
  • Franz BrümmerKoch, Ernst . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 51, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 292-294.
  • Wilhelm A. Eckhard (Ed.): Ernst Koch, Prince Rosa-Stramin. = Publications of the Historical Commission for Hessen Volume 46/09. Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-7708-1319-3
  • Jean-Pierre Henrion: Ernst Koch. His life and works . Treatise on the program of the Athenaeum, Luxembourg 1878.
  • Joseph Kohnen : Creating in Modesty. In memory of Ernst Koch (1808–1858). In: Nos cahiers. Letzebuerger Zaitschreft for Culture, Luxemburg 2007, Issue 4, pp. 31–47
  • Franz Menges:  Chef, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 261 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ludwig Rinn: Otto Ubbelohde's drawings for “Prince Rosa-Stramin” . In: Hessische Heimat 2008 (2/3), pp. 58–62.
  • Raimund Steinert: Afterword . In: Ernst Koch: Prinz Rosa-Stramin , pp. 191–199. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1917
  • Oscar von Redwitz: Explanation on Amaranth. Program, published at the end of the school year 1856–1857, King-Grand Ducal Athenaeum of Luxembourg

Web links

Wikisource: Ernst Koch  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Kösener corps lists 1910, 160/175; 73/58
  2. Dissertation: De iure eius qui speciem ex materia aliena fecit
  3. Beckenbach.