Heinrich Schwerdt

Heinrich Schwerdt

Johann Georg Heinrich Christian Schwerdt (born January 7, 1810 in Neukirchen , † September 2, 1888 in Waltershausen ) was a German pastor , educator , politician and writer .

Life

Heinrich Schwerdt was the son of a pastor. He attended elementary school in Neukirchen and also received private lessons in Latin in Eisenach . His further education took place at the grammar schools in Gotha and Eisenach. After graduating from high school, he began studying theology at the University of Jena in 1828 , which he continued in Leipzig in 1830/31 and graduated in Gotha in 1833 with the Examina pro ministerio . During his studies he was a member of the Jena fraternity from 1828 to 1830 .

In November 1834 he was introduced to the parish service at the branch churches in Stregda and Hötzelsroda . After his first wife Marie Henriette, with whom he had two children, died in 1835 at the age of 26, he married Marie Caroline Christiane, born on September 26, 1837. Hentsch, daughter of a merchant from Waltershausen . He had eight children with her.

After the death of his father in 1842, Schwerdt took over the office of pastor in Neukirchen, which he held until he was transferred to the Tonna community in 1860. In August 1872 he moved to Waltershausen to the position of superintendent of the Ephorie Tenneberg with responsibility for 13 parishes, where he worked until his death.

He was buried in the Waltershausen cemetery. A tomb in the cemetery and a street named after him in Waltershausen remind of him.

Services

As a pastor in Neukirchen, he initiated various measures to raise the level of education in his community. In 1838 he founded what was probably the first public library in Thuringia, followed in 1839 by a Sunday school for boys and a home economics school for girls.

In 1847 he headed the Thuringian Singing Festival at the Wartburg , in which Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy also took part, who set Schwerdt's poem Morgengruß of the Thuringian Singing Association to music in honor of the festival .

Schwerdt was a member of the Gotha State Parliament from 1848 to 1850 and from 1865 to 1869, where he was involved a. a. for the introduction of a church constitution, for the construction of the railway from Eisenach to Gerstungen , for the establishment of educational institutions and for the provision of funds for the job creation of the unemployed.

His activity as an author produced more than 80 writings. He worked on various magazines (including the Dresdner Abendzeitung , the Allgemeine Schulzeitung ) and was partly a co-editor ( Allgemeine Volksblatt der Deutschen ). He wrote for various educational magazines of his time, so u. a. for Des Knaben Lust und Studium: Leaflets for entertainment and instruction for boys between the ages of 10 and 16 and After School: Illustrated magazine for the entertainment and instructional occupation of young people .

During his lifetime he received numerous honors and dignities. The Gotha geographer August Petermann named a glacier on Edgeøya after him in 1871 . On the occasion of his 50th anniversary in service, Duke Ernst II appointed him to church council and received an honorary doctorate from the theological faculty of the University of Jena . Schwerdt was also an honorary member of the General German Writers' Association and the Society for the Dissemination of Popular Education in Berlin.

In 1991 a street in Waltershausen was named after him in his honor .

Works

Poems

• Poems. In: Cahlaisches Nachrichtensblatt. by 1830.
• Homeland. In: Heimatblätter for the Eisenach district. District (editor) Eisenach 1936 (4), p. 75.

Texts set to music

• The Holy Night: Oratorio (composer: Friedrich Nohr)
• Morning greeting from the Thuringian Singers Association (composer: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy)

Books and writings

• Wanderings through part of Europe, Asia and Africa , Eisenach 1837
• From the old days. Two Wartburg stories: "Saint Elisabeth" and "Martin Luther" , Leipzig 1858
• Home is home after all: North American pictures from the mouths of German emigrants, Ein Volksbuch , Leipzig 1858, ISBN 3-628-40707-9
• Album of the Thuringian Forest , Leipzig 1859, ISBN 3-910147-12-7
• Schiller's birthday or "I lived and loved", biographical story , Leipzig 1859
• Thuringian village stories: The bird shooting spinning room , Leipzig 1859
• Latest travel guide for Thuringia , Hildburghausen 1864
• Eisenach and the Wartburg with their peculiarities and surroundings. , together with Hermann Jäger , Bachmeister, Eisenach 1871
• Martin Luther in Eisenach: Stories from the Reformation period. , Eisenach 1911
• Ortschronik von Neukirchen (reporting period 1853–1860). Neukirchen (location: Eisenach, regional church archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Jauernig files, volume 1, pages 135-137).
• Volume 1 - Battle of Langensalza 1866, The Hanoverians in Thuringia and the Battle of Langensalza 1866 . Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza, Reprint 1866/2001, ISBN 3-934748-57-0 .
• The battle of Langensalza . In: The Gazebo . Issue 28 and 29, 1866, pp. 441-446, 457-460 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
• Once more from the Langensalza battlefield . In: The Gazebo . Issue 31/32, 1866, pp. 499-503 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

literature

• Urania Culture and Education Association Gotha e. V. (Ed.): Eisenach personalities. A biographical lexicon. RhinoVerlag, Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-932081-45-5 , p. 126 .
• Albert Schumann :  Schwerdt, Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 33, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, p. 417.
• Hartmut Felsberg:  Heinrich Schwerdt. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 30, Bautz, Nordhausen 2009, ISBN 978-3-88309-478-6 , Sp. 1369-1383.
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 8: Supplement L – Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6051-1 , pp. 278-280.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Schwerdt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Heinrich Schwerdt in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Choral notes for the "Morning Greeting of the Thuringian Singers Association". (PDF) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 19, 2009 ; Retrieved February 25, 2009 . 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.  
2. ↑ 800-jahre-waltershausen.de ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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.