Hermann Noack (philosopher)

Hermann Noack (born February 23, 1895 in Hamburg ; † November 19, 1977 in Hamburg) was a German philosopher who adapted to the system during the Nazi era to secure his career.

Life

Noack came from a Hamburg merchant family and after graduating from high school in 1914 began studying architecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart . As a volunteer in World War I , he was deployed on the Western Front and promoted to lieutenant . He took part in the battles on the Somme and around Arras and was taken prisoner by the British in 1917. After his release in 1919, he began studying philosophy in Hamburg in 1920 . He spent two semesters in Freiburg , where he heard Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl . He wrote his dissertation with Ernst Cassirer and Albert Görland and received his doctorate in 1923. This was followed by his habilitation in 1926. In a criticism of the intellectual fragmentation of the sciences, of historicism and relativism , Noack called for unity and wholeness in a “community of Understanding ”, through which the“ real human existence ”comes to light. Noack then worked as a private lecturer at the Philosophical Seminar and as a teacher at the Hamburg Adult Education Center and at the “Fichte University”. During this time, Noack worked with Joachim Ritter , Siegfried Landshut and Ludwig Landgrebe on the Paris manuscripts of Karl Marx , which Landshut had discovered in the SPD archives . In December 1932 he was appointed as a non-civil servant associate professor.

As Cassirer after the " seizure of power " by the Nazis resigned immediately from his position in 1933, Noack expressed on a private farewell event to also want to drop out of the university. Thereupon both Cassirer and Görland, who was also present, persuaded him to remain in the service in order to use philosophy to counterbalance the worldview of National Socialism. Neither of them had expected the drastic change in Noack's attitude. Tony Cassirer, Ernst Cassirer's widow, said after the war that he had fallen down like a knight like a “ tin soldier ”. Even if not an outspoken Nazi , he was a “patient follower ” who made a career during the time of National Socialism . Noack joined the SA as early as November 1933 and signed the " Commitment of the professors at German universities and colleges to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist state ".

As a result, Noack became an SA trainer and even appeared at the university in SA uniform. Other memberships in NS organizations were NSDDB , NSV , NSLB , NS-Altherrenbund and NS-Reichskriegerbund . He also visited SA and lecturer camps, became SA comradeship leader and deputy trainer of his SA standard. In 1935 Noack was proposed by the faculty for the succession of Görland to an extraordinary position. The reasoning stated that he had turned to the “new tasks of philosophy in National Socialist Germany with seriousness and dedication”. This can be seen, for example, in his work as an SA member, as an employee in the political specialist community of the faculty and as a course director at the Gauführerschule Rissen . After a visit by a department head of the Reich Ministry of Education , the latter had spoken out in favor of Noack's appointment. In addition to the Hamburg Lecturer Association, however, Alfred Baeumler in particular opposed an appointment:

“The work by Hermann Noack-Hamburg is presented 'History and System of Philosophy' (1928). The book was published in a collection edited by Ernst Cassirer, Albert Görland and Hermann Noack. The method and result of the book agree with the tendencies of the Marburg direction of Neo-Kantianism founded by Hermann Cohen . The work is a pure work of the school mentioned. It shares the sterile formalism of direction and the problem converging on the concept of unity. Only the Jewish authors of the Marburg School are quoted. Any independence or originality cannot be recognized. The work must be completely rejected as a fruitless product of a school of thought that was overtaken by the events and once spread unduly at universities. "

Baeumler had made no reference to Noack's new book ( Symbol and Existence of Science , 1936). This "foundation of a philosophical science theory" was now formulated entirely in the National Socialist sense. Instead of the Neo-Kantians, Noack cited Houston Stewart Chamberlain , Lagarde , Krieck , Bäumler or Frank (especially 220-227). The “concrete idea of ​​the natural, racial human being” is said to be stronger than the “rationalistic idol of abstract humanity” (213/221). The “community of understanding” became the national community , which science had to serve. The task of science is to “educate a new academic type” and to establish a “political university” (2). In 1937 Noack was finally appointed, who for the first time had a job with a secure, adequate income. In 1938 he was after the abolition of special tab retroactive to May 1, 1937 member of the NSDAP .

Noack was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a captain at the beginning of the Second World War and deployed on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. Here, among other things, he gave lectures on “the German historical consciousness” or “the national-socialist worldview”. From 1942 he was a member of the "Sonderkommando Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg " (ERR) and was deployed in Paris from June 1942 to July 1943 . The tasks of the EER included the seizure of art and cultural property. At the beginning of 1944 Noack worked for the ERR in Pless and Ratibor , where books from Jewish and state property were specifically put together into libraries. "Noack's tasks were presumably primarily in the areas of evaluating the stolen books and archival material or in the collection of working materials on 'ideological opponents' that were compiled from the stolen property for National Socialist cultural propaganda." In August 1944 he was appointed to the office Rosenberg made indispensable and resumed teaching in the winter semester of 1944/45. At the same time he continued to work for the office and worked in a “ Working Group for Research into the Bolshevik World Danger ” coordinated by the historian Erwin Hölzle . The topics of the lecture were “Causes and Foundations of British Imperialism” or “Concept and Function of Practice in Historical Materialism ”.

After the end of the war, Noack was dismissed from university. As an “activist, he stood up for National Socialism in such a strikingly clear and consistent manner” that he could no longer be employed. The positive assessment by Albert Görland did not help either. In his denazification process , he was initially classified in Category IV (fellow traveler), then in 1949/50 he was able to achieve a new classification in Category V, which would have made reinstatement possible. After his way to the university was blocked, he was able to find a job in 1952 as head of studies at the Evangelical Academy of Kurhessen and Waldeck ( Guntershausen ) and later the Evangelical Academy of Kurhessen and Waldeck ( Hofgeismar ). In 1956 he was finally given the opportunity to hold lectures as an emeritus and exempt associate professor. Philosophically, Noack worked mainly in the history of philosophy after the war .

Noack was co-editor of the Evangelical Church Lexicon .

Fonts

Selection:

• The systematic and methodical meaning of the concept of style . Phil. Diss. (Ms.), Hamburg 1923.
• The essence of style . In: Die Akademie , No. 2, pp. 117–182; Issue 4, pp. 63-114.
• History and system of philosophy. Studies on the justifiability of their unity in the critical-idealistic concept of systematics itself , Hamburg 1928.
• Ludwig Klages as accuser of the spirit . In: Zeitwende , Volume 11, 1934/35, pp. 193-204.
• The fate of German idealism as a problem of the German present . In: New Yearbooks for Science and Youth Education (NJWJk), Volume 11, 1935, pp. 1–14.
• Symbol and existence of science. Investigations on the foundation of a philosophical science theory , Halle 1936.
• Rosenberg and the future task of German philosophy . In: Hansische Hochschulzeitung (HHZ) 19, 1937/38, issue 10, pp. 1–8.
• The historical growth of the general European consciousness . In: Foreign Policy. Monthly issues of the German Institute for Foreign Policy Research, Berlin and the Hamburg Institute for Foreign Policy , Volume 11, 1944, pp. 277–287.
• Language and Revelation , Gütersloh 1960.
• The Philosophy of Western Europe in the 20th Century , 1962, 4th edition Darmstadt 1976.
• Deutsche Geisteswelt , 2 volumes, Hanau 1986 (Volume 1: 1953).
• General introduction to philosophy. Problems of their current interpretation , 1972, 4th ed. 1991.

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Josef Meran: The teachers at the philosophical seminar of the Hamburg University during the time of National Socialism , in: Eckart Krause, Ludwig Huber, Holger Fischer (eds.): University life in the "Third Reich". The Hamburg University 1933-1945, Part II. Philosophical Faculty. Faculty of Law and Political Science, Reimer, Berlin-Hamburg 1991, 459–482, ISBN 3-496-00867-9 .
• Jens Thiel: Academic “tin soldiers”? Careers of German humanities scholars between occupation and calling (1933/1945) , in: Rüdiger Vom Bruch, Uta Gerhardt, Aleksandra Pawliczek (eds.): Continuities and discontinuities in the history of science in the 20th century, Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, 167–194, ISBN 978-3-515089654 .
• Jens Thiel: About "annoying externals" and "internally untouched". Hermann Noack in the 'Third Reich' , in: Hans-Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism, Meiner, Hamburg 2009, 253–269, ISBN 978-3-7873-1937-4 .
• Christian Tilitzki : The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich , Academy, Berlin 2002, ISBN 978-3-050036472 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Hermann Noack in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A folk-conservative-oriented institution for adult education similar to a home folk college , Josef Olbrich, Horst Siebert: History of adult education in Germany, VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, 169; See also Emil Engelhardt : The Fichte University in Hamburg: Structure, administration and work 1917 to 1919. German Volkstum, Hamburg 1919.
2. ↑ Toni Cassirer: My life with Ernst Cassirer. Meiner, Hamburg 2004, 204–205.
3. ↑ Jens Thiel: About "angry externals" and "internally untouched". Hermann Noack in the 'Third Reich', in: Hans-Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism, Meiner, Hamburg 2009, 253–269, 256.
4. ^ Christian Tilitzki: The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich , Academy, Berlin 2002, 681.
5. ^ Alfred Bäumler to the expert of the Reich Ministry of Education Mattiat of April 4, 1936, quoted from: Christian Tilitzki: The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in National Socialism , Academy, Berlin 2002, 682.
6. ↑ An example of the activities of the ERR is the “Report on the activities of the task force of the office of Reichsleiter Rosenberg in the western occupied territories and the Netherlands. Working Group Netherlands "from 1940, in: Leon Poliakov, Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its Thinkers, Arand, Berlin 1959, 156–158.
7. ↑ Jens Thiel: About "angry externals" and "internally untouched". Hermann Noack in the 'Third Reich' , in: Hans-Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism, Meiner, Hamburg 2009, 253–269, 260.
8. ^ Opinion of the Senate of the University of Hamburg in the matter of Professor Hermann Noack, undated (1949), StA HH, lecturer and personnel files IV 1192, vol. 3; quoted from Jens Thiel: Of “angry externalities” and “internal untouchedness”. Hermann Noack in the 'Third Reich' , in: Hans-Jörg Sandkühler (Ed.): Philosophy in National Socialism, Meiner, Hamburg 2009, 253–269, 263.
9. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 437.