Free thinkers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Freethinker is historically a general term for people who claim that their thinking can only be determined by the evidence of the matter and not by an authority . In this sense, the term was used when it was introduced by the English Enlightenment in the late 17th century and was also naturalized in France in the 18th century. Since the demand to hold assertions absolutely true without critical examination was only made for religious doctrines at the time, the freethinkers asserted their claim primarily when rejecting such doctrines. Initially, this did not necessarily mean a rejection of any form of religion, but the freethinkers were fought as atheists by their opponents . From the 18th century onwards, the equation of freethinking and atheism, which is still common today, arose. In the 19th century, freethinkers became the self-designation of those who wanted to radically free their thinking from religious ideas.

In today's parlance, freethinkers are people who advocate an independent and responsible way of life and who reject any religious belief, especially belief in God and church dogma, see themselves as atheists, agnostics or skeptics and advocate secular humanism . In a narrower sense, the term refers to supporters of the free thinker movement, especially members of freethinkers' associations.

term

England and France

The term free thinker has its origins in the English and French Enlightenment. The word is first attested in a letter from the English philosopher and scientist William Molyneux of April 6, 1697 to John Locke , a well-known pioneer of the Enlightenment . There Molyneux described the addressee as a candid freethinker . In his writings, John Toland initially adopted this term for himself and his friend Deists . As early as the 16th century, deists were the philosophers who, in contrast to the theists , assumed a divine creation of the world, but did not believe in a personal creator god in the Christian sense. Toland brought out the weekly The Free-Thinker temporarily (1711) and tried to distinguish between religion and superstition . Locke's student Anthony Collins brought the term into circulation in 1713 through his anonymous publication Discourse of Free-Thinking . A French translation of this work appeared in 1713/14. The discussion about it initially aroused great indignation in the upper classes and nobility of England, and after the translation also in France, but did not yet reach the people.

Germany

The German transfer from freethinker to freethinker , which was carried out in 1715 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , was associated with the well-known term freigeist in the course of the 18th century . Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote the comedy Der Freigeist in 1749 , which he published in 1755. The terminology, however, remained relatively vague. In the Freydenker Lexicon published by Johann Anton Trinius in 1759, Freigeist stands for "atheists, naturalists, deists, gross indifferentists, skeptics and the like". Gottfried Ephraim Lessing's dispute over fragments with Hermann Samuel Reimarus also belongs here .

It was not until the second half of the 19th century, under the influence of the scientific worldview , the criticism of religion and dialectical materialism, that there was a clear shift in emphasis from the religious-philosophical to religious-political freethinkers movement. The quarrel between the freethinkers and the church concerned the radical demand for the separation of church and state , including the controversy about the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body in connection with the demand for cremation .

historical development

Associations, division and unification

As early as the middle of the 19th century there were freethinking movements in Germany such as the Friends of Light , which was founded as the Association of Protestant Friends on June 29, 1841, and the Los-von-Rom movement of the German Catholics of 1844. Both joined forces on June 1, 1859 in Gotha to form the Federation of Free Religious Congregations . They represented free self-determination in all religious matters.

On 29./31. In August 1880, at the instigation of Belgian and French freethinkers, the natural-philosophical freethinker was first established in the bourgeois International Freethinkers Association (IFB) in Brussels. By Ludwig Buchner , a brother of the writer Georg Buchner , has been in cooperation with August Specht of April 10, 1881 in Frankfurt am Main German freethinkers Federation (DFB) was founded. Even Wilhelm Liebknecht , a leading at the time representatives of the German Social Democracy , is to have the foundation supports.

The German Monist Association , which was founded in 1906 under the chairmanship of Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm Ostwald and gathered intellectuals for a scientific worldview, reached more than 10,000 members in 1930. In 1933 it was banned, in 1947 it was re-established, in the GDR it was banned, in 1956 it joined the Freigeistige Aktion - Monistenbund 1957 with the magazine Die Freigeistige Aktion . In 1905, Marxist free-thinking was formed in the Cremation Association. In 1908 certain working groups developed the Central Association of Proletarian Freethinkers in Germany with the magazine Der Atheist . In 1905 the Association of Freethinkers for Cremation (VFF) was founded in Berlin , after merging with other associations in 1927 as the "Association for Freethinking and Cremation (VfFF)", which in 1930 was renamed the German Freethinkers Association (DFV). This association, which has a large number of members, had 660,000 members by 1932. Political differences between SPD and KPD members led to the KPD supporters splitting off and the founding of the Central Office of Proletarian Freethinkers (ZpG) , which however remained meaningless. In 1933 the Nazi regime banned the DFV and expropriated its property. There was also the Association of Socialist Freethinkers with 20,000 members. International associations were formed in 1925 as the International Proletarian Freethinkers (IpF) in Vienna, in 1931 as the International Freethinkers Union (IFU) in Berlin, and in 1936 as the IpF and IFU to form the World Union of Freethinkers (WUF) in Prague. After 1945, the German Freethinkers Association was prohibited from reestablishing in the zones of occupation. It was only after the FRG was founded in 1949 that the DFV was re-established, in the old FRG as the German Freethinkers Association DFV (seat in Dortmund), in West Berlin as DFV (seat in Berlin), today's Humanist Association of Germany . The DFV remained banned in the GDR.

In Switzerland, the Freethinkers Association of Switzerland became active from 1908 . It has been publishing a German-language magazine since 1915, and has been entitled thinking freely since 2010 .

Oppression and resistance between 1933 and 1945

Ordinance of the Reich President on the dissolution of the communist godless organizations of May 3, 1932

As early as March 28, 1931, the “Ordinance of the Reich President to Combat Political Rioting” severely restricted the possibilities of communist free-thinking in Germany. Another ordinance of May 3, 1932 banned the communist associations with the charge of "godless propaganda"; it affected around 150,000 members. Under the dictatorship of National Socialism , the bourgeois German freethinkers' associations, which had around 540,000 members in 1932, were dissolved by violent SA actions, and the assets of the cremation coffers were transferred to the New German Funeral Fund; Furthermore, in March 1936, the People's Court declared the German Freethinkers' Association (DFV) to be a treasonable organization and banned it. Numerous simple members of the Freethinker Association and people from the organizational leadership offered resistance in the “Third Reich” . As a result, for example, the chairman Max Sievers was executed on January 17, 1944 in the Brandenburg prison. Ernst Fraenkel , Else and Kurt Megelin , Otto Ostrowski (who was chairman of the West Berlin Freethinkers Association from 1950 to 1953) and others were involved in the left-wing socialist resistance group, the Red Shock Troop , from the time power was handed over until 1944 .

New beginning in Germany after 1945

On March 21, 1951, the German Freethinkers Association (DFV) was established in Braunschweig in the FRG . In 1955 he had 5500 members in his five regional associations and has been publishing the magazine Der Freidenker ever since .

Freethinker associations remained banned in the GDR until 1989 on the grounds that the SED itself had taken over the function of the former proletarian freethinker and had sufficient atheist organizations. On June 7, 1989, 400 delegates (mostly university professors) founded the “Association of Freethinkers” in East Berlin at the headquarters of the Academy of Arts .

According to REMID , the DFV still had around 3,000 members in 2010.

Some of the members organized in the DFV and the short-lived Freethinker Association of the GDR joined the Humanist Association of Germany (HVD) after 1990 . In Berlin, the HVD regional association emerged from the local freethinkers association and has since developed into the nationwide largest provider of cultural, educational and social offers based on a humanistic worldview.

practice

Simmering fire hall - urn grave

The free thinkers, like the free religious movement, did not create completely new forms of festive life, but they did create alternatives. Analogous to the church rituals and ceremonies, the freethinkers' associations created non-church forms that the so-called free speakers performed. This is how contemporary secular celebration rituals arose, which the church also saw as imitation, as a quasi-religious ritual, for birth , for example the naming ceremony, naming; instead of the confirmation or communion for adolescence , for example the youth celebration or youth consecration ; instead of church weddings, secular marriage or same-sex civil partnership celebrations; instead of the church funeral, a secular funeral service. Today's funeral orator stands with his funeral speech in this tradition of the funeral speech of the free speaker.

literature

Overview representations in manuals

Introductions and investigations

  • Walter Lindemann Walter, Anna Lindemann: The proletarian free thinker movement. History, theory and practice (= series of workers' culture . Volume 2). Leipzig-Lindenau 1926, reprint with an afterword by Henning Eichberg , Atalas, Münster 1980
  • Joachim Kahl, Erich Wernig: Freethinkers: Past and Present (= Small Library. Volume 214). Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1981.
  • Jochen-Christoph Kaiser: Labor Movement and Organized Criticism of Religion: Proletarian Freethinker Associations in the Empire and Weimar Republic. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1981.
  • Albert Dulk: Down with the atheists! Selected writings critical of religion from the early free-thinker movement. Edited by Heiner Jestrabek, IBDK Verlag, Aschaffenburg / Berlin 1995.
  • Horst Groschopp : Dissidents. Freethinking and culture in Germany. 2nd, improved edition. Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8288-2771-4
  • Manfred Isemeyer (ed.): Humanism is the future: Festschrift Hundred Years of Humanist Association Berlin. HVD, Berlin 2006.
  • Heiner Jestrabek: Freethinkers. Lessons from history. Portraits and essays. Freedom tree edition Spinoza, Reutlingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-922589-52-1 .

Web links

Commons : Freethinkers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Freethinkers  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Hoffmeister (ed.): Dictionary of philosophical terms. 2nd Edition. Meiner, Hamburg 1955, p. 236.
  2. ^ Joachim Mehlhausen: Freethinkers. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia. Volume 11, Berlin / New York 1983, p. 490.
  3. ↑ Reiner Wild: Freethinkers in Germany. In: Journal for Historical Research. Volume 6, 1979, p. 279 ff .; Gottfried Hornig: Neology and Enlightenment Theology. In: Handbook of the history of dogmas and theology. Edited by Carl Andresen. Volume 3, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989, pp. 125-142.
  4. ↑ In view of the material situation (small fonts that are not consistently and centrally collected), no complete organizational history of the German freethinker associations has yet been written. Previous literature: Horst Groschopp : Dissidents. Free thinking and culture in Germany; Berlin: Dietz, 1997; ISBN 3-320-01936-8 ; 2. verb. Edition Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag, Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8288-2771-4 , Jochen-Christoph Kaiser : Workers' movement and organized criticism of religion. Proletarian Freethinker Associations in the Empire and Weimar Republic, Stuttgart 1981 (= Diss. Phil. Münster 1979), Hartmann Wunderer : workers 'associations and workers' parties. Cultural and mass organizations in the labor movement (1890–1933). Frankfurt a. M. et al. 1980; Freethinking and the labor movement. An overview, in: IWK 16 (1980) 33-57.
  5. ↑ Johannes Müller-Schwefe: Organization and method of the godless movement. In: Zeitwende. 1932, Vol. 2, pp. 169-180.
  6. ↑ Horst Strüning: The History of the German Socialist Freethinker Movement - A Sketch. In: Joachim Kahl, Erich Wernig (ed.): Freidenker. History and present. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1981, pp. 58-61.
  7. ↑ Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3867322744
  8. ↑ http://zerstoerte-vielfalt-humanismus.de/index.html
  9. ↑ Horst Strüning: The History of the German Socialist Freethinker Movement - A Sketch. In: Joachim Kahl, Erich Wernig (ed.): Freidenker. History and present. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1981, p. 63.
  10. ↑ Andreas Fincke: The extended arm of a ruling party: 15 years ago (1989) the GDR freethinkers were brought into being. (No longer available online.) In: www.confessio.de. 2004, archived from the original on June 22, 2016 ; accessed on June 22, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.confessio.de
  11. ↑ REMID : Religions & Weltanschauung Communities in Germany: Membership Numbers
  12. ^ HVD Berlin-Brandenburg
  13. ↑ Paul Tillich defined this peculiar appearance of the secular and political movements of his time as quasi-religious; so in: The question of the unconditional. Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1964.
  14. ↑ Horst Strüning: The History of the German Socialist Freethinker Movement - A Sketch. In: Joachim Kahl, Erich Wernig (ed.): Freidenker. History and present. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1981, p. 44 ff.
  15. ^ Klaus Dirschauer: The socialist burial. In: Buried with words: Designing and creating funeral speeches. Donat Verlag, Bremen 2012, p. 33 f.
  16. ↑ Albert Dulk: Down with the atheists! Selected writings critical of religion from the early free-thinker movement. Edited by Heiner Jestrabek, IBDK Verlag, Aschaffenburg / Berlin 1995.