Heinrich Schmidt (philosopher)

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Heinrich Schmidt (born December 18, 1874 in Heubach , Thuringia, † May 2, 1935 in Jena ) was a German archivist and philosopher .

Life

Heinrich Schmidt attended a teacher training college in Hildburghausen from 1890 to 1894 and initially worked as a primary school teacher. In 1897 he moved to Jena for further scientific training. From 1899 he studied there with financial support from Ernst Haeckel's natural sciences and in 1900 became his private secretary. Since Schmidt did not have a high school diploma, Haeckel sent him to Zurich to his former student Arnold Lang, where he became a Dr. phil. received his doctorate. From 1912 he was archivist in the Phyletic Archive , from 1916 he headed the Haeckel Archive. In 1918 Schmidt published his history of evolution . Schmidt describes his "honored master and friend, ... Ernst Haeckel" as the intellectual author. On a good 540 pages, he drafts a synopsis rich in quotations on the development of the history of the individual, predominantly natural science disciplines from their respective beginnings to the present day. It begins with the history of the concept of development in philosophy and ends with the presentation of the incarnation (anthropogeny) from v. a. paleological point of view; an evaluative or otherwise distinctive racial biological aspect is not expressed by Schmidt at this point. In 1919 he was awarded the title of professor.

After Haeckel's death in 1919, Schmidt became his estate administrator; From 1920 until his death he was director of the Ernst Haeckel House , which in 1945 was attached to the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena . Like Haeckel, Schmidt was a member of the German Monist Association . From 1919 to 1920 he was its chairman and, until his death in 1935, a decisive advocate of Haeckel's monism and his interpretation of Darwin's theory of development . He was also the editor of the “Monist Monthly Books” . After this magazine was banned by the National Socialists in 1933, Schmidt founded the magazine “Natur und Geist, monthly magazines for science, worldview and shaping the world” .

In the years shortly after Haeckel's death, archival preservation and the preparation of his estate were at the forefront of his work. Schmidt's previously more social democratic stance increasingly gave way to a radical nationalist one. In this context, he resorted to racist and nationalist arguments, which in their radicalism far exceeded the opinions of his colleagues Ludwig Plate or Hans FK Günther . His attempt to redesign or reinterpret the Ernst Haeckel House and the person of Haeckel in the National Socialist sense ultimately failed. Only through the detour of the magazine “Natur und Geist” did one of his publication organ, standing in the monistic tradition, comment on the “standard work on human heredity and racial hygiene” by Erwin Baur , Eugen Fischer and Fritz Lenz .

Quotes about Heinrich Schmidt

Julius Schaxel on Heinrich Schmidt: “Therefore, now is the right time to point out the viable part of humanity, the class-conscious proletariat, of the power of natural facts. Professor Heinrich Schmidt, the Haeckel-Schmidt, as trustee of the materialistic natural scientist and tireless enlightener Ernst Haeckel, is the person called to show the historical connection to nature of man at the current state of research. "(From the epilogue to man and monkey 1932)

Publications (selection)

  • Haeckel's embryo images. Documents on the struggle for worldview in the present , Frankfurt a. M. 1909.
  • What we owe to Ernst Haeckel. A book of adoration and gratitude . First volume, UNESMA, Leipzig 1914 ( digitized version )
  • What we owe to Ernst Haeckel. A book of adoration and gratitude . Second volume, UNESMA, Leipzig 1914 ( digitized version )
  • History of development theory , Leipzig: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1918.
  • Epicurus philosophy of joie de vivre. Leipzig 1927 (= Kröner TB. Volume 11).
  • Fertility and Multiplication , 1927/28 Urania.
  • The struggle for existence , 1930 Urania.
  • Man and Ape , 1932 Urania.
  • Philosophical dictionary , (founder) ( Kröner's pocket edition 13), first 1912.
  • Ernst Haeckel. Monument to a great life , Jena 1934.

swell

  1. ^ Foreword, in: Heinrich Schmidt: History of Development. Leipzig: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1918, S. V
  2. ↑ Chapter 22: Anthropogenesis. The development of the human being, in: Heinrich Schmidt: Geschichte der Entwicklungslehre. Leipzig: Alfred Kröner Verlag, 1918, pp. 522 to 542, especially from page 539.
  3. ↑ Uwe Hoßfeld, Haeckel's "Eckermann": Heinrich Schmidt (1874-1935) , In: Matthias Steinbach & Stefan Gerber (eds.), Classical University and Academic Province: The University of Jena from the middle of the 19th to the 30s of the 20th century. Jena: Bussert & Stadeler, 2005, p. 282
  4. ↑ a b Uwe Hoßfeld, Haeckel's "Eckermann": Heinrich Schmidt (1874-1935) , In: Matthias Steinbach & Stefan Gerber (eds.), Classical University and Academic Province: The University of Jena from the mid-19th to the 30s Years of the 20th century. Jena: Bussert & Stadeler, 2005, p. 284
  5. ↑ Heiner Fangerau, The standard work on human heredity and racial hygiene by Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer and Fritz Lenz in the mirror of contemporary review literature 1921–1941, dissertation, Ruhr University Bochum, Faculty of Medicine, 2000, p. 66

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archivist and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Heubach
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1935
Place of death Jena