Helfrich Peter Sturz

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Helfrich Peter Sturz

Helfrich Peter Sturz , even Helferich or Helfrecht , Sturtz or Stortz (* 16th February 1736 in Darmstadt ; † 12. November 1779 in Bremen ) was a German writer of the Enlightenment .

Life

Helfrich Peter Sturz was born as the son of the princely cabinet cashier Johann Peter Friedrich Sturz († 1741) in Darmstadt. After attending the Pädagogium Darmstadtinum (today: Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium ), he began studying law in Jena in May 1753 . Here he was accepted into the league of freemasons . In March 1755 Sturz moved to the University of Göttingen and in May 1756 to the University of Gießen . In Giessen he met his childhood friend Johann Heinrich Merck .

Friedrich Karl von Moser tried in vain to recommend the overthrow of Ludwig VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt as tutor to the Hereditary Prince. In 1759 he worked in Munich as secretary to the imperial ambassador Johann Wenzel von Widmann (1700–1772) and in 1760 he entered the service of Friedrich von Eyben (1699–1787), who headed the government chancellery for the royal portion of Holstein in Glückstadt . On the occasion of a diplomatic trip to Vienna in 1762 he received the title of Princely Bernburg Council .

Prince Friedrich Albrecht von Anhalt-Bernburg introduced him to the Danish Chamberlain Reichsgraf Schack Carl von Rantzau (1717–1789) in 1764 , who gave him a job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Copenhagen . In 1765 he was promoted to the real chancellery . He was also the private secretary of the Danish Foreign Minister Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff , through whom he got access to the north German literary circle around Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg in Copenhagen. Sturz wrote papers on civic issues. In 1767 he published the satirical " Die Menechmen " and the tragedy "Julie" . In the same year he met Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Hamburg , whose views on the reform of German stage poetry he shared.

From April 1768 to January 1769 Sturz accompanied Christian VII as Legation Councilor on his Grand Tour to England and France. Another important companion was Johann Friedrich Struensee , who later became the monarch's personal physician . Helfrich Peter Sturz made friendly contacts in London with the painter Angelika Kauffmann and the actor David Garrick , in Paris with the philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius , the encyclopedists Denis Diderot and Jean Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert, and the writer and diplomat Friedrich Melchior Grimm .

At the end of 1770 Johann Friedrich Struensee succeeded Bernstorff, with whom Sturz had a tense relationship. Struensee removed him from his position, but Sturz remained active in various departments for the Danish government. In January 1772, Struensee was overthrown by a national court party that suspected the great influence of the German Enlightenment at the Danish court. Sturz was released on January 22, 1772, arrested at his bride's house that same day, and imprisoned for four months. The charge of complicity with Struensee could not be proven. Still, Sturz was expelled from Copenhagen. From March 1773 he was employed as a councilor in the government of the county of Oldenburg . He made friends with Gerhard Anton von Halem , Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg and Gerhard Anton Gramberg . During a trip to Gotha, Sturz met Heinrich Christian Boie , who persuaded him to work on his literary magazine " Deutsches Museum " . In 1777 Sturz published the only book that appeared during his lifetime, the "Memories from the life of Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorf" . Helfrich Peter Sturz died on November 12, 1779 while on a business trip to Bremen.

meaning

Helfrich Peter Sturz was already celebrated as a knowledgeable and elegant essayist by his contemporaries . He took an active part in the literature and philosophy of his time. He was able to write satirical treatises in the style of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg as well as sensitive articles about Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Fall is considered an important mediator between the older generation of Enlightenment writers and the younger generation of Sturm und Drang . His interest in medieval poetry ( Edda , Heliand ) influenced the authors of the “Geniezeit” and Romanticism .

Work edition

literature

  • Jörg-Ulrich Fechner: Helfrich Peter Sturz (1736–1779). 3 essays. Ges. Hess. Lovers of literature, Darmstadt 1981.
  • Jaikyung Hahn: Helfrich Peter Sturz (1736–1779). The essayist, the artist, the man of the world. Life and works with an edition of the complete correspondence. Dissertation. University of Stuttgart 1975. Academic publishing house, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-88099-028-X .
  • Max Koch: Helferich Peter Sturz. In addition to a treatise on Schleswig's literary letters using handwritten sources. Kaiser, Munich 1879.
  • Max Koch :  Fall, Helferich Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, pp. 59-61.
  • Ludwin Langenfeld: The prose Helferich Peter Sturz '. Dissertation. University of Cologne 1935. Noske, Borna, Leipzig 1935.
  • Adalbert Schmidt : Helferich Peter Sturz. A chapter from the history of literature between the Enlightenment and Sturm und Drang. Habilitation thesis. University of Vienna 1939. Kraus, Reichenberg 1939.
  • Jörg Deuter, Helfrich Peter Sturz. An Oldenburg writer as a pioneer of German classical music, in: Oldenburgische Familienkunde 20, 1978. P. 690–706.

Web links

Wikisource: Helfrich Peter Sturz  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Helfrich Peter Sturz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Already in ADB and more frequently in the following, he was confused with his nephew and successor Adolf Gottlieb von Eyben ; However, in 1760 he was only 19 years old and only became chancellor in Glückstadt in 1780
  2. ^ Julie online  - Internet Archive
personal data
SURNAME Fall, Helfrich Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fall, Helferich Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1736
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1779
Place of death Bremen