Heinrich Leo

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Heinrich Leo

Heinrich Leo (born March 19, 1799 in Rudolstadt , † April 24, 1878 in Halle ) was a German historian and Prussian politician .

Life

At the age of 17 Leo began to study medicine in Breslau in 1816 and became active in Corps Teutonia I in 1816 . Through his acquaintance with gymnastics father Jahn and Karl Wilhelm Göttling , Leo switched to the University of Jena in the summer of 1817 to study philology there. With the original fraternity of which he had become a member in 1817, he took part in the Wartburg Festival on October 18, 1817 . Bareheaded, he carried the German flag from Jena to Eisenach (see Black-Red-Gold ).

After the murder of the writer August von Kotzebue on March 23, 1819 by Karl Ludwig Sand , Leo moved to the University of Göttingen . According to his own admission, he was mainly influenced by Karl Friedrich Eichhorn , Gustav von Hugo and Barthold Georg Niebuhr . In Göttingen Leo story began to study and could this study at the University of Erlangen with his dissertation the Constitution of the Lombard cities over 1,820 successfully quit. In 1820 he became a member of the Erlangen fraternity .

As a private lecturer , Leo broke the political ties of his student days and from then on also appeared as an opponent of these “demagogic activities”. In 1822 he settled in Berlin and began to study philosophy with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel .

With his theories, he tried to place historical processes in a metaphysical context . However, he later rejected the Hegelian system just as consistently as he had changed his political outlook.

To study the history of Italian municipalities in the Middle Ages on the spot, Leo stayed in Italy between 1823 and 1824; generously supported by the Princess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt . Then the end of 1824 his was in Berlin from the results of this research Habilitation -Schrift The development of the Constitution of the Lombard cities .

A short time later, Leo received a call to the University of Dorpat in Livonia , which he refused. Until 1827 he stayed at the Berlin University as an “associate professor for history”.

In that year Leo resigned his offices and retired to his home town Rudolstadt. But already in the following year he accepted a call to the University of Halle and was awarded the title “o. Prof. for History ”appointed. From this time on, there was also a radical change in his religious views. At first he advocated rationalism , but later he could be seen more and more often as a representative of obscurantism and political reaction .

In addition to his teaching activity, Leo also published numerous articles in various newspapers; u. a. in the Berlin political weekly paper , the Protestant church newspaper or the Hallesches Wochenblatt . Here Leo polemicized, often very drastically, against the prevailing zeitgeist . But also his pamphlets , such as B. Dr. Diesterweg and the German universities (against Adolph Diesterweg ) or Die Hegelingen (against Arnold Ruge ), were controversially discussed by contemporaries.

In his other publications, such as B. lectures on the history of the German people and empire , he drew the last consequences of his reactionary political and ecclesiastical views. Leo was almost completely against any innovation and feuded a whole generation.

Leo vehemently opposed the emancipation efforts of the German Jews in the 1840s. He raved about the purity of the blood and warned of the supposedly negative consequences of any kind of "racial mixture".

Nevertheless, Leo cannot be classified as a racist or an anti-Semite in today's sense, since he basically stayed away from any naturalism. Christoph v. Maltzahn expresses it as follows: Precisely because the Jews have retained their distinct peculiarity despite their dispersion, there must be no emancipation of the Jews. Everyone is allowed to surrender what is theirs, but not what the popular way of doing things is inherited and passed on as “family property”. For this he is merely the administrator of goods that “mix, neglect, squander, sell is a theft of holy things.” Leo does not value the “moral education” of the Jews as lower than, say, the German, but only as different strange. The peculiarities, however, perish in a mixture brought about by emancipation: "The question of the permissibility of suicide and that of the emancipation of the Jews are on the same hinges."

In the political turmoil of the March Revolution in Prussia , Leo was just as politically active as he was afterwards in the time of reaction . After 1850 Leo became an employee of the Kreuzzeitung in Prussia and soon exerted a not insignificant influence there. He did not shy away from conflict in his articles; He fought against all German unity efforts and also took part in negotiations by the strict Lutherans about a union with the Catholic Church.

Effective November 20, 1863, Leo became a member of the Prussian mansion for life. There he hardly took part in debates or discussions and soon withdrew from the political stage in resignation; soon afterwards he also resigned from his duties and offices at the university. The last years of his life Leo was "brain-suffering" and died five weeks after his 79th birthday on April 24, 1878 in Halle.

Two years after his death, the first part (until 1822) of his autobiography From My Adolescence was published ; a vivid description of German university life at that time.

reception

In addition to his research in history and legal history, Leo's works in literature and literary history deserve special mention; z. B. Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon language samples or Beowulf . He had also made important contributions about the Celtic language . One of his last publications was his Anglo-Saxon Glossary in 1872/77 .

Works (selection)

  • On the constitution of the Lombard cities (1820, dissertation)
  • The development of the constitution of the Lombard cities . Hamburg 1824 (habilitation)
  • Lectures on the history of the Jewish state . Berlin 1828.
  • Handbook of the history of the Middle Ages . Hall 1830.
  • Twelve books of Dutch stories . Hall 1832/35 (2 volumes)
  • History of the Italian States . Hamburg 1829/30 (5 vol.)
  • Dr. Diesterweg and the German universities . Leipzig 1836.
  • About castles and castle construction in Germany from the 11th to the 14th century . In: Historisches Taschenbuch (Ed. Friedrich von Raumer), 8th year, Leipzig 1837, pp. 165–245.
  • The Hegelingen . Hall 1839.
  • Letter to J. Görres . Hall 1838.
  • Signatura temporis . Hall 1849.
  • Universal History Textbook . Hall 1849/56
  • Guide to Teaching Universal History . Hall 1838/40 (4 volumes)
  • Lectures on the history of the German people and empire . Hall 1854/67 (5 vol.)
  • Studies and sketches for a natural history of the state . Hall 1833.
  • Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon language samples . Hall 1838.
  • Beowulf . Hall 1842/45 (2 volumes)
  • Rectitudines singularum personarum . Hall 1842.
  • The Malbergic gloss . Berlin 1842/45 (2 vol.)
  • Holiday writings . Hall 1847/52 (5 vols.)
  • Anglo-Saxon glossary . Hall 1872/77 (2 volumes)
  • From my youth . Gotha 1880 (posthumous)

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Heinrich Leo  - Sources and full texts

References and comments

  1. ^ Kösener corps lists 1910, 36 , 21
  2. ^ Peter Kaupp (edit.): Stamm-Buch of the Jenaische Burschenschaft. The members of the original fraternity 1815-1819 (= treatises on student and higher education. Vol. 14). SH-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-89498-156-3 , p. 94.
  3. ↑ Ernst Höhne: The Bubenreuther. History of a German fraternity. II., Erlangen 1936, p. 56.
  4. ↑ Hans Engelmann: The Development of Anti-Semitism in the 19th Century and Adolf Stoecker's “Anti-Jewish Movement” . Theol. Dissertation, Erlangen 1953, p. 117 ff.
  5. ↑ Christoph von Malzahn: Heinrich Leo (1799–1878) . Hist. Dissertation, Munich 1977, p. 139 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Leo, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and Prussian politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Rudolstadt
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1878
Place of death Hall