Johann Georg Albrecht Höpfner

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Johann Georg Albrecht Höpfner (born January 20, 1759 in Bern ; † January 16, 1813 there ) was a Swiss pharmacist , journalist and writer .

life and work

Höpfner was the son of the Münzesheim pharmacist Johann Georg. He emigrated to Biel and married Catharina, née Jersing († September 14, 1792). Three years after the naturalization , the family moved from Biel to Bern. Here they lived in Bartholomäus Knecht's apothecary house on Judengasse. The coin engraver Johann Kaspar Mörikofer (1733–1803), who lives in the same house, was Höpfner's godfather.

In 1766 the father Höpfner was given permission to send his son "to the Latin schools here". In 1776 Höpfner lived in Lausanne , learned the French language and studied chemistry. He then studied for a few semesters in Langensalza with Johann Christian Wiegleb . Further studies followed in Tübingen , Ludwigsburg and Saxony . In 1781 Höpfner received his doctorate in Leipzig . Back in Bern he worked in his father's business and after his death in 1785 took over the pharmacy. When the Natural Research Society was founded in Bern in 1786 , he was one of its founding members.

In 1788 he married Margaritha Elisabetha, nee Graf. They had their daughter Elisabetha Margaritha Catharina and Elisabetha Margaritha Johanna, who died at the age of one.

Höpfner had to give up the pharmacy in 1800 due to bankruptcy. His property in Bern and his house on Schmiedgasse in Biel were auctioned off. With the remaining property, the family set up shop on Weibermarkt and later on Kesslergasse and other places in the city of Bern.

Since Höpfner could no longer work as a pharmacist, he turned to writing. In his endeavors to spread education, Höpfner opened a "reading room" opposite the Hôtel de Musique in 1802 with books on loan, combined with a public room equipped for reading. Dictionaries, maps and writing materials were also available there. Anyone who paid ten "chunks" could spend the whole day in the reading room. As a result, the place became a center of conviviality, especially for the politicizing population of the city of Bern. Höpfner wanted the best journals in German and French to be accessible in his lending library. The selection of the fonts displayed was primarily guided by Höpfner's interests, and secondarily by the public's demand for daily political news, perhaps also by a moderate need for beauty and a little bit by the fashionable conscience of the better-dressed. He also published the “Magazin für die Naturkunde Helvetiens”, the influential “Helvetic Monthly Magazine” and, from 1801, the “Gemeinnützige Schweizerische Nachrichten”. The Bernese councilor Benoit from the censorship commission wanted to close the reading room in 1811 because of apparently immoral reading, but he did not succeed.

Höpfner combined his conviction of the need for a unified state constitution with his deep aversion to democracy. He was for the former centralization of the aristocratic cantons and was involved as a conservative-aristocratic-minded enlightener during the Helvetic period against the Unitarians from the countryside.

The general suppression of «Helvetia» was preceded by the suppression of Biel in 1798 when it became part of the First French Republic . So Höpfner demanded the restitution of Biel and tried to interest public opinion in the matter, which brought Höpfner a short-term arrest.

Höpfner died after a short illness. He found his final resting place in the “Werkhofgottesacker” in Bern. His wife died thirteen years later on November 28, 1826 of tuberculosis .

Höpfner was a member of many learned societies in Switzerland, as well as the Electoral Mainz Academy and those in Berlin and Mannheim . He was also a member of the Society for Mining People in Halle and was a correspondent for the Göttingen Academy .

literature

  • Alfred Fankhauser : Johann Georg Albrecht Höpfner, a Bernese journalist (1759-1813). In: Blätter für Bernische Geschichte, Kunst und Altertumskunde , Vol. 16, Issue 2, 1920, pp. 139–190. ( Digitized version )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marie-Alix Roesle: Johann Kaspar Mörikofer (1733-1803). In: Historisches Lexikonder Schweiz.
personal data
SURNAME Höpfner, Johann Georg Albrecht
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pharmacist, journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1759
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1813
Place of death Bern