Henriette Kohlrausch

Henriette Kohlrausch (* 1781 in Hanover ; † 1842 in Hanover), née Eichmann, was a well-known figure in contemporary Berlin social circles and had contact with Caroline and Wilhelm von Humboldt . The only currently known transcript of the Kosmos lectures that Alexander von Humboldt gave between December 6, 1827 and March 27, 1828 in the house of the Sing-Akademie comes from her .

She was born as the daughter of the Secret Finance Councilor Johann Wilhelm Eichmann (1747-1829) and his wife Male Eichmann in Hanover , but lived for several years in Berlin , where her older sister Charlotte married the publisher Daniel Friedrich Parthey . During this time she lived in the so-called Nicolaihaus at Brüderstraße 13, supported her sister and her husband in bringing up the children Lili and Gustav Parthey , and ran the household for the publisher and bookseller Friedrich Nicolai as an unmarried woman . In 1815 she married the physician Heinrich Kohlrausch , who was the personal physician of Caroline and Wilhelm von Humboldt during their stay in Rome for several years . At the time of the Kosmos lectures in 1827/28 Heinrich Kohlrausch had already died.

Henriette Kohlrausch was considered to be well versed in the natural sciences, especially in botany . Karl Sigismund Kunth , who for years was busy with the publication of the collection of plants that Alexander von Humboldt had brought back from his American research trip, named the genus Kohlrauschia after her .

Grave of Henriette Kohlrausch , née Eichmann , in the old St. Nikolai cemetery in Hanover

Henriette Kohlrausch may have received the much sought-after listener tickets for Humboldt's Kosmos lectures at the Sing-Akademie from Caroline von Humboldt. The postscript, which was kept in the Berlin State Library without an indication of the author, could now be assigned to Henriette Kohlrausch through a comparison of the fonts. As revealing as this material is for research nowadays, says Dorothee Nolte , Alexander von Humboldt herself thought little of such postscripts: "Nothing is more disgusting than to see published what is a mixture of what is heard and what is self-imposed."

In 1837 Kohlrausch moved back to Hanover and became a close confidante of Queen Friederike von Hanover . Her tomb, which is now a listed building, was commissioned by King Ernst August von Hanover to honor the special relationship between Kohlrausch and Queen Friederike.

Works

Henriette Kohlrausch: Physical geography. Presented by Alexander von Humboldt. [Berlin], [1828]. [= Transcript of Alexander von Humboldt's “Kosmos Lectures” in the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin , December 6, 1827– March 27, 1828.] Digitized and full text in the German Text Archive ; printed edition:
- Alexander von Humboldt, Henriette Kohlrausch: The Kosmos lecture at the Berlin Sing-Akademie . Edited by Christian Kendung and Christian Thomas. Berlin: Insel, 2019. ISBN 978-3-458-36419-1 .

Remarks

↑ On this paragraph, cf. in total the biographical information in the foreword by Christian Kassung and Christian Thomas zu Humboldt / Kohlrausch: Kosmos-Vorlesung , 2019, pp. 9–58, especially 31–35. The death of her "beloved husband, the secret senior medical adviser Dr. Heinrich Kohlrausch "reported Henriette Kohlrausch on May 9, 1826 in the" Staats- und schehrten Zeitung des Hamburgischen impartial Correspondents "( available online at Google Books ).
↑ See Kunth, Carl Sigismund: Flora Berolinensis, sive enumeratio plantarum circa Berolinum sponte crescentium secundum familias naturales disposita. 2 vol. Berlin, 1838, vol. 1, p. 108f. ( available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library ) as well as the tropicos.org database, for example .
↑ Quoted from Dorothee Nolte: Very large audience. We know what Humboldt said in his lectures at the Singakademie from a single post. Surprise: it comes from a woman. In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 6, 2019, p. 31.
↑ Alexander von Humboldt and Henriette Kohlrausch: The Kosmos lecture at the Berlin Sing-Akademie. Ed .: Cristian Kassung and Christian Thomas. Insel, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-458-36419-1 , pp. 34 .

personal data
SURNAME	Kohlrausch, Henriette
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Eichmann, Henriette (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German chronicler
DATE OF BIRTH	1781
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hanover
DATE OF DEATH	1842
Place of death	Hanover

[1] On this paragraph, cf. in total the biographical information in the foreword by Christian Kassung and Christian Thomas zu Humboldt / Kohlrausch: Kosmos-Vorlesung , 2019, pp. 9–58, especially 31–35. The death of her "beloved husband, the secret senior medical adviser Dr. Heinrich Kohlrausch "reported Henriette Kohlrausch on May 9, 1826 in the" Staats- und schehrten Zeitung des Hamburgischen impartial Correspondents "( available online at Google Books ).

[2] See Kunth, Carl Sigismund: Flora Berolinensis, sive enumeratio plantarum circa Berolinum sponte crescentium secundum familias naturales disposita. 2 vol. Berlin, 1838, vol. 1, p. 108f. ( available online in the Biodiversity Heritage Library ) as well as the tropicos.org database, for example .

[3] Quoted from Dorothee Nolte: Very large audience. We know what Humboldt said in his lectures at the Singakademie from a single post. Surprise: it comes from a woman. In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 6, 2019, p. 31.

[4] Alexander von Humboldt and Henriette Kohlrausch: The Kosmos lecture at the Berlin Sing-Akademie. Ed .: Cristian Kassung and Christian Thomas. Insel, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-458-36419-1 , pp. 34 .