Ernst Friedrich Kauffmann

Ernst Friedrich Kauffmann

Ernst Friedrich Kauffmann (born November 27, 1803 in Ludwigsburg ; † February 11, 1856 in Stuttgart ) was a Württemberg mathematician and teacher who wrote and composed textbooks during a temporary ban on the profession. Today he is best known as a composer of songs.

Life

Ludwigsburg

Memorial plaque on the building facade at Schorndorfer Straße 26 in Ludwigsburg

Kauffmann attended the Ludwigsburg Latin School together with Eduard Mörike and David Friedrich Strauss . On the basis of a scholarship, he studied mathematics, technology and physics at the State University of Tübingen . Kauffmann's school friends Mörike and Strauss also visited the same university, so that they became close friends.

From April 1827 he worked as a teacher at the Ludwigsburg Realanstalt. On July 29, 1828 he married Marie Lohbauer. The couple had four sons, the fourth son Karl Emil was born in Ludwigsburg in November 1836.

Kauffmann was politically influenced by his wife's older brother, Rudolf Lohbauer . This was editor of the daily newspaper Der Hochwächter and friend Eduard Mörikes. In 1831/32, Kauffmann joined the revolutionary circle around Lieutenant Ernst Ludwig Koseritz from Ludwigsburg , which included Rudolf, three officers from the Heilbronn garrison and the young Heilbronn lawyer Ernst Schreiber. After the Franckh-Koseritz conspiracy was uncovered, Kauffmann was arrested and banned from working.

Due to the professional ban, he now earned his living as a publicist, author and composer. He published textbooks on mathematics and geometry, translated French-language magazines and articles and worked on his realities textbook Orbis Pictus . In addition, he published several books on mathematical subjects. The mathematician is credited with introducing descriptive geometry with Orbis Pictus .

From 1835 he was particularly active as a song composer. He wrote songs for the poems of Mörike, Eichendorff , Goethe , Heine , Kerner , Lenau , Uhland , Wilhelm Waiblinger and Ludwig Pfau (the entire sheet music is part of the Dr. Fritz Kauffmann collection in the German Literature Archive in Marbach). A pardon was granted on March 14, 1839. In 1841 the ban was lifted.

Heilbronn

Kauffmann was appointed teacher of mathematics at the Heilbronner Realanstalt on December 8, 1841 and began teaching on January 2, 1842. He taught mathematics and geometry at the higher girls' school in Heilbronn. He gave French lessons in the lower classes of the Karlsgymnasium . The family of six initially lived in an apartment in Heilbronn in front of the Sülmertor. Two years later they lived on Sülmerstrasse.

The musical evenings with the Kauffmann family brought Eduard Mörike to Heilbronn. For example, on February 25, 1843, when the Mörikel songs set to music by Kauffmann were sung Ein Hündlein Wohl vor Tage und Schön Rohtraud . In August 1849, the Kauffmann couple celebrated Goethe's 100th birthday, while Kauffmann played compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven . When David Friedrich Strauss visited the Kauffmann family in Heilbronn in August 1851, Kauffmann played the piano to the piece Don Juan .

Stuttgart

In autumn 1852 they moved to Stuttgart, where Kauffmann had been appointed professor of mathematics at the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium . He died in Stuttgart in 1856.

literature

• Annette Geisler: Music in the Province. Ernst Friedrich Kaufmann in Heilbronn . In: International Hugo Wolf Academy for Singing, Poetry, Lied Art (ed.) / [Ed .: Elisabeth Hackenbracht…]: A house for flowers and music: Henriette Faißt in Heilbronn and Hugo Wolf , Stuttgart 2006, p. 25 - P. 34.
• Letter from the young Henriette Cluss to Marie Lohbauer, Ernst Friedrich Kaufmann's widow . In: International Hugo Wolf Academy for Singing, Poetry, Lied Art (ed.) / [Ed .: Elisabeth Hackenbracht…]: A house for flowers and music: Henriette Faißt in Heilbronn and Hugo Wolf , Stuttgart 2006, p. 36.
• Fritz Kauffmann: Ernst Friedrich Kauffmann. Mathematician and song composer 1803-1856. In: Swabian Life Pictures. Volume 6, Kohlhammer-Verlag, Stuttgart 1957, pp. 211-229.
• Karl Walter: Ernst Friedrich Kauffmann and his Swabian friends. In: Journal for Württemberg State History , NF 1 1937, pp. 406–445.
• Julius Hartmann:  Kauffmann, Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 473.