To each his own
To each his own , Latin suum cuique , is a since ancient philosophical theories of morality and politics for the version of terms of the law and justice , particularly the equity , often accommodated into play principle (see also principle of distribution ). It says that every citizen of a community is allocated (or should be) what is due to him, for example through the fair distribution of goods. Depending on the political theory or practical reference, various clarifications are proposed. The status of such a principle is assessed differently. In Germany , the saying is particularly well known for the inscription on the gate of the National Socialist Buchenwald concentration camp .
history
Antiquity
Suum cuique goes back as a principle to ancient Greece . In the Politeia , Plato stated that justice exists “if one does what is his own and does not do many things” (τὸ τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν καὶ μὴ πολυπραγμονεῖν δικαιοσύνyne, στί , to ta haut meik prattein, 43einai esti meik prattein IV). Everyone should do his own thing, in the way and extent that corresponds to his nature, his possibilities and the individual circumstances ( Idiopragic formula ). In addition, Plato declared that everyone should get their own and that nobody should be deprived of their own (433e).
In Book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle expresses himself in detail about this distributive justice, which underlies wages and thus also property . As he explains, these are proportional relationships in which four terms are related to each other. So that everyone receives what is due to them, person A must behave towards person B as C (what is assigned to person A) to D (what is assigned to person B). "The connection of A with C and that of B with D is distributive justice." According to this definition, injustice and injustice are too much or too little for the individual. Aristotle is aware of the problem of which criterion should apply to the determination of this proportion between A and B: “It is generally recognized that justice must be done in allocation according to a value; But not all of them designate this value as this, but rather the democrats refer to freedom, the oligarchs to wealth, others to high-born, still others to efficiency. "
In the political and legal sense of "giving everyone his own", the formula is used in Cicero , De legibus 1, 6 19, among others , which is based on the derivation of the Greek noun νόμος ( nómos , law) from the word νέμειν ( némein , allocate) remembers: “ Eamque rem (meant: legem) illi Graeco putant nomine a suum cuique tribuendo appellatam ” - “And this thing (the law) is, as they believe, named with its Greek name after 'giving each his own' ".
Also in Cicero, De officiis I, 15, the expression: "[...] in hominum societate tuenda tribuendoque suum cuique et rerum contractarum fide" ("[...] in the maintenance of the society of the people, therein, each his own as well as in the reliability of contractual agreements ”).
In the institutions of Emperor Justinian at the very beginning, in the first part of the Corpus Iuris Civilis : iuris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere . - The commandments of the law are these: live honorably, do not hurt others, grant each his own (Inst. 1,1,3). In Ulpian's Corpus Iuris Civilis, Digest 1, 1, 10, it says: Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi (“Justice is the constant and permanent will to grant everyone his right”). This sentence was then placed at the beginning of the entire work by the author of the institutions, Tribonian , as a definition (Inst. 1,1,1).
enlightenment
Hugo Grotius , a legal philosopher and pioneer of the Enlightenment , used the term in his property theory .
Prussia
In the Latin version, the phrase is the motto of the Order of the Order of the Black Eagle , founded by Friedrich I in 1701 (probably meaning "to each according to his merit").
Church music
Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata BWV 163 from 1715 is titled Just For Each His Own . The text comes from Salomon Franck and addresses (according to Mt 22,21 EU ) the conflict in the loyalties of man and to God.
Poetry
The writer and silhouette artist Johanna Beckmann used it as a pedagogical motto for the development of the child's disposition and interests for her book of the same name, Jedem das seine: “Not all the one / keep that! / To each his own. It's fun. ”A joking poem by Eduard Mörike from 1862 also bears the title Each his own . It was set to music as a choral piece by Hugo Distler in 1939 .
time of the nationalsocialism
In 1937, the National Socialists built the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar . The saying “To each his own” (meaning “each what he deserves”) is readable from the inside above the main gate. He addressed himself directly to the camp inmates. This is a special feature compared to the other concentration camps, whose gate sayings with their outward-facing fronts were primarily addressed to the population outside the camps, such as “ Arbeit macht frei ” in Auschwitz , Dachau , Groß-Rosen , Sachsenhausen or Theresienstadt .
Post-war literature
For decades, the motto “To each his own” did not cause general offense and, with its classic meaning, found widespread use in literature and the media.
The film To each his own came to Germany in 1946 under the title mother's heart out, but was in the press as each his own known. A volume of poetry by Karl Schnog was published under this title in 1947, as was the German edition of Louis Bromfield's entertainment novel McLeod's Folly (You Get What You Give) .
In 1966 Leonardo Sciascia published the political novel A ciascuno il suo ( To each his own ) , which was filmed in 1967 by Elio Petri . In it, an intellectual is murdered after a Mafia murder is discovered because he has taken care of things that supposedly did not concern him.
In the 1970s, the comedy Everyone was played his own , an adaptation of the play Fringe Benefits by Peter Yeldham and Donald Churchill.
Usage today
In courthouses
The Latin form suum cuique is still part of the justice formula affixed to the ceilings of courthouses.
In the Vatican
Unicuique suum has been the first of the two mottos of the papal newspaper L'Osservatore Romano since it was founded in 1861 .
In the Bundeswehr
Derived from the motto of the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle , Suum cuique is the motto of the Feldjägertruppe of the German Bundeswehr , it was also included in the association badge of the Airborne Support Battalion 262 ; the battalion was disbanded on March 31, 2015.
Disputes since 1990
In the 1990s, a critical approach set in, which, among other things , had its origin in the dispute about Trutz Hardo's 1996 novel Jedem ist seine . In the novel, Hardo justifies the Holocaust by interpreting it as the enforcement of the "karma law"; every inmate of Buchenwald is "assigned in a concentrated manner the fate that is due to him based on karmic law, in order to work off his debts and thereby become free." Neuwied sentenced Hardo to a fine on May 4, 1998 for "incitement to hatred in unity with insult and disparaging the memory of the deceased" and prohibited the book from being distributed. This also made it officially clear that the legitimation of the Buchenwald meaning of "each his own" in the Federal Republic violates applicable law.
The debate intensified in the late 1990s when the use of the motto in German as a slogan in isolated advertising and political campaigns led to protests, whereupon some of these advertising campaigns were withdrawn. Henryk M. Broder took the case of a discontinued Nokia advertising campaign in 1999 in the book "Jedem das Seine" as an opportunity to describe alleged absurdities in the way Germans deal with Jews.
In March 2007 at the Klagenfurt City Theater a so-called “Volksoperetta” by the authors Peter Turrini and Silke Hassler was premiered with the title Every His Own. The play is about a death march of Hungarian Jews in the last days of World War II. It was filmed in 2009/2010 with the title Maybe in Another Life .
The on the Berlinale 2009 listed film To Each His Own by Stefan Schaller discusses the different development of two Roma -Brüder from the former Yugoslavia.
The demand for the renunciation of thoughtless use of the expression due to its use by the National Socialists is opposed to the position that "each his own" was mostly used in an honorable sense, unlike, for example, " work makes you free ".
In court proceedings against a man who is also a member of the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party , the district court of Oranienburg, in November 2016 the district court in Neuruppin and in April 2017 the higher regional court Brandenburg ruled that a tattoo , an Auschwitz watchtower and the beech forest -Logo "each has his own", as approving the mass murder of Jews in the Third Reich is punishable under criminal law if it is shown publicly in a swimming pool. In the specific case, a prison sentence of eight months was imposed.
literature
- Frank Brunssen: To each his own. For processing the lexical heritage. In: http://www.bpb.de/politik/grundfragen/sprache-und-politik/42761/jedem-das-seine?p=all
- Karin Doerr : 'To Each His Own': The (Mis-) Use of German Proverbs in Concentration Camps and Beyond . In Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship . Vol. 17. University of Vermont: 2000 (71-90).
- Robert John Araujo: International Law Clients: The Wisdom of Natural Law . Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol 28, Issue 6, 2000, pp. 1751-1770.
Web links
- Matthias Heyl : Background information on the word »Everyone has their own« (research and work center »Education after / about Auschwitz« in Hamburg) (PDF; 110 kB)
- Hermann Klenner : To each his own! History of a Subject Heading (Comprehensive History of Expression)
- Govaert CJJ van den Bergh: To each his own in: Forum historiae iuris March 8, 2005. (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1131
- ↑ ἔστιν ἄρα τὸ δίκαιον ἀνάλογόν τι ( So justice is something proportional )
- ↑ κατ 'ἀξίαν τινά according to any value / worthiness
- ↑ meant: the fellow human being in his rights
- ↑ Julian Mincham: Chapter 25 BWV 163 Only to each his own . The Cantatas of Johan Sebastian Bach. A student and listeners guide.
- ↑ Johanna Beckmann: To each his own. Black images and sayings . Martin Warneck, Berlin 1906.
- ↑ Eduard Mörike : Each his own in poems by Eduard Mörike (4th edition), JG Cotta, Stuttgart 1867
- ^ Hermann Grabner : Hugo Distler . Composers in Bavaria Volume 20, Hans Schneider, Tutzing 1990, p. 92
- ↑ Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial: To each his own . In: Deutschlandradio Kultur on May 20, 2014, accessed on January 13, 2015
- ↑ a b Frank Brunssen: "Each his own" - on the processing of the lexical Nazi legacy . From politics and contemporary history (APuZ 8/2010), Federal Agency for Civic Education
- ↑ Nazi slogan: CDU stops campaign “Everyone has their own” , Spiegel Online, March 11, 2009 (Campaign of the student union in North Rhine-Westphalia)
- ↑ Rebecca Sandbichler: Advertising wording: Direct flight to the Nazi trap , derStandard.at, 23 September 2009 (Austrian Airlines withdraws subject)
- ↑ Jörg Leopold: Advertising with a Nazi slogan: Yahoo grips beside , Der Tagesspiegel, December 16, 2009 (new Yahoo home page)
- ↑ “To each his own”: Premiere , ORF.at, March 5, 2007
- ^ Turrini-Hassler-play great success , ORF.at, March 9, 2007
- ↑ Berlinale Filmarchiv: Information on the film Each his own (PDF; 71 kB)
- ↑ Stuart Winer: German court upholds politician's sentence for Nazi ink . The Times of Israel , April 20, 2017, accessed April 28, 2017