Hermann Herrigel

Hermann Herrigel (born June 2, 1888 in Monakam / Bad Liebenzell , † October 19, 1973 in Schorndorf ) was a German journalist. He was an editor at the Frankfurter Zeitung until 1935 . The parents were pietistically oriented Protestants , the mother: Pauline, geb. Schairer; the father, Friedrich was a teacher. Eugen Herrigel was a cousin of Hermann Herrigel.

Life

After graduating from high school, he studied in Tübingen and Munich (probably also in Berlin): Hermann Herrigel "should become a philologist" ("Retrospect") and dealt a lot with philosophy. He studied with Erich Adickes , who worked for the "Kant Studies", and was particularly impressed by the neo-Kantian Hans Cornelius . His dissertation "The use of the epithets in Pindar" was rejected by Schmied. Herrigel had never spoken to him about his work - he described himself as a "loner".
In 1912, Hermann Herrigel became an intern in a public library without a degree. After six months of training with Walter Hofmann , he works as a library assistant in Dresden-Plauen and Leipzig. Until 1917 (probably the turn of the year 1916/17) he was, according to Hofmann, director of the "Free Public Library Dresden-Plauen". Herrigel writes that the sense of this work was also questionable for him and that he wrote a fact sheet about popular education, but without talking to Hofmann about it: "So it came to a row, but at the same time the call to Frankfurt came to there to set up an archive at the Frankfurter Zeitung "(review). In May 1917 his first series of articles appeared on questions of popular education and the dispute over the direction of the library system.
Herrigel was later (after Erich Tross, who died in the early 1930s) the head of a supplement for "Hochschule und Jugend", which was published by the Frankfurter Zeitung . The last sheet he edited, "For University and Youth", was dated February 3, 1935.

His successor was Dolf Sternberger .

effect

Jürgen Henningsen , one of the most profound experts on adult education during the Weimar period, writes in his work "On the theory of popular education": "Most people who have an approximate picture of the history of German adult education know next to nothing about Herrigel", and he emphasizes "that any representation that has no place for the decisive impetus emanating from Herrigel is inadmissibly schematized".

With the essay on "The Problems of the People's Library" (1916b) Herrigel intervened in the discussion between the old (or Essen direction with Eugen Sulz ) and the new direction (Hofmann). The main problem for Herrigel lies in the question: "Should the library first ... serve the people or the culture?" (P. 131). The librarians around Sulz had the motto: "The public library cannot do without a reader". Herrigel takes a position: "Hofmann is always absolutely right about Sulz." (P. 141)

In 1916 Herrigel criticized the popular education efforts in his Tatflugschrift, the tone is quite typical of the time:

“This script is also a war script, yes a declaration of war. [...] This war is not first and foremost a battle of arms, but above all a war of the spirit, the war for the metaphysical! It applies to our greatest danger, the English, in our own country. "

The English "arithmetical thinking", this "unmetaphysical people" gave the Germans liberalism, and the "liberating infinity beyond" was no longer seen. "Science [...] took away the spiritual, the metaphysical". After the first sentences, this diction continues until the transition to the topic of popular education:

“Then came [...] the war that redeemed us despite blood and death. Now we can rethink, now the compulsion of the scientific system has been removed from us. Now we are everywhere putting the metaphysical back into its place. This work undertakes to give the popular education concept of public libraries that horizon of infinity again. She contradicts the foundations of the modern popular education movement: against the use of words that denote spiritual things for things that have nothing to do with them; Its task should be to arouse concerns about the ideals of popular education, even to draw attention to the danger associated with the unspiritual, liberal prerequisites of popular education. Either it is about education and entertainment, then one shouldn't talk about education; or if it is about education, then one should definitely take its fundamental opposition to mere enlightenment seriously. "

Contrary to the prerequisite of the popular education movement that there are "strong, true educational interests" and that "the people could become spiritual" (p. 3), Herrigel emphasizes the "fundamental contrast between the people and the individual, truly capable of education" (P. 4).
With emphasis on the "fundamental, original inequality of human beings", he refers to the opposition, which for him is "what is actually human-essential", namely "being subject or object", "being hammer or anvil". (P. 5) The "personal disposition, outstanding above equality and average, is [...] the fundamental possibility of all education" (p. 8).

After a few articles about the public library and adult education center in the FZ, the essay "Experience and naivety and the problem of popular education" appears in the "highly respected monthly" Die neue Rundschau , which "attracts the attention of all responsible persons" such as Wilhelm Flitner , Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Werner Picht forced it.

Finally, Hermann Herrigel accompanied the Hohenrodter Bund from its creation in 1923 to its end in 1930 with annual articles in the Frankfurter Zeitung. These reports "were almost the only source from which those interested could learn anything about the federal government." The Hohenrodter Bund was an association of practitioners and theorists of the New Direction , which significantly influenced adult education during the Weimar period.

Fonts (selection)

• 1916a: Via the open access library. From: Sheets for public libraries and reading rooms. Vol. 17, pp. 18-20.
• 1916b: The problem of the public library. From: Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen Vol. 15, pp. 129–143.
• 1916c: Popular education and public library. A settlement. Tat pamphlets 14. Jena: Diederichs.
• 1917: The Central Office for Popular Libraries in Leipzig. Frankfurter Zeitung of May 5, 1917
• 1918a: About the loss of tradition. From: Die Rheinlande vol. 18, p. 114ff.
• 1918b: idealism. From: Die Rheinlande Vol. 18, pp. 185ff.
• 1918c: The Conflict of Modern Culture (Simmel). From: Die Rheinlande vol. 18, p. 243ff.
• 1919a: The revolutionary decision. From: The new Rundschau. 30th year of the free stage. Pp. 688-694.
• 1919b: Experience and naivety and the problem of popular education. From: The new Rundschau. 30th year of the free stage. Pp. 1303-1316.
• 1919c: Today's education and the adult education center. In: Tietgens 1969, pp. 116-123. Originally from the Frankfurter Zeitung from 12. u. December 13, 1919.
• 1921a: On the criticism of idealistic popular education. From: Volksbildungsarchiv 8, pp. 237–267.
• 1921b: People and State. From: Die Tat vol. 13, pp. 256–262.
• 1921c: Politics and Idealism. From: Kant studies 26, pp. 52–73. Reprinted in: Ders. 1928b: The new way of thinking.
• 1922b: Education for priests and laypeople. From: Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vol. 4, pp. 10-19.
• 1927: Science and Life (elaboration of the report from the conference of the Hohenrodter Bund in 1925). From: Die Erziehungs vol. 2, pp. 434–455 u. 524-536.
• 1928a: Weltanschauung and adult education. From: Der Kunstwart vol. 41, p. 262ff.
• 1928b: The new way of thinking. Berlin: Lambert Schneider.
• 1930b: Between question and answer. Thoughts on the cultural crisis. Berlin: Lambert Schneider.

literature

• Wolfgang Bähner: Hermann Herrigel and the "New Direction". For adult education in the Weimar Republic . Diploma thesis, Düsseldorf 1994
• Jürgen Henningsen : On the theory of popular education . 1959
• Hermann Herrigel o. J. Retrospect (I have a short biography written by Hermann Herrigel himself, which Mrs. Marianne Pfleiderer, Hermann Herrigel's daughter, made available to me.
• Fritz Laack : The interlude of free adult education . Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 1984, ISBN 3-7815-0543-X .
• Ursula Schulz: Hermann Herrigel, the thinker and German adult education. A bibliography of his writings for his 80th birthday , Bremen: Bremer Volkshochschule 1969 (Bremen contributions to free popular education; 12).
• Hans Tietgens : Adult Education Between Romanticism and Enlightenment , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1969, ISBN 3-534-07991-4
• Ingeborg Wirth (Ed.): Concise dictionary of adult education. Schöningh, Paderborn 1978, ISBN 3-506-73441-5 .

References and comments

1. ↑ For the content see also: New direction
2. ↑ Henningsen 1959, p. 24.
3. ↑ Ladewig; see. Herrigel, 131
4. ↑ ^{a b} Herrigel 1916c, p. 1 f.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Henningsen 1959, p. 25.