Johannes Hesse

This article deals with the missionary and publishing director Johannes Hesse. For other people see Johann Hesse .

Carl Otto Johannes Hesse (born June 2, ^jul. / 14. June  1847 ^greg. In White Stone / Paide , Governorate of Estonia , Russian Empire , † 8. March 1916 in Korntal , Baden-Württemberg ) was a German Protestant missionary and director of Calwer Publishing association . He was the father of the writer Hermann Hesse .

Life

Johannes Hesse was born as the fifth child of the German Baltic doctor Carl Hermann Hesse (born February 16, 1802 Dorpat; † November 8, 1896 Weißenstein).

After graduating from the Knights and Cathedral School in Reval ( Tallinn ), he was trained as a missionary in Basel ( Basel Mission ) and went to India in 1869 . Since it proved to be unable to cope with the tropical climate, it had to return to Germany in 1873. He visited his homeland Estonia to strengthen and recuperate.

On November 22, 1874, he married Marie Gundert , the daughter of the missionary Hermann Gundert and widow of the missionary Charles Isenberg, in Calw . The second of six children together was the future writer Hermann Hesse .

After he had been trained by his father-in-law at Calwer Missionsverlag, he became head of Calwer Verlag and editor of the Missionsmagazin in Basel. He wrote several books on evangelical missionary work.

He was the uncle of Carl Immanuel Philipp Hesse, born in 1875 .

Johannes Hesse always remained a stranger in both Calw and Basel due to his deeply internalized (German) Baltic nature. He loved living in memories of the great times of his life in Estonia and India. Above all, he could never tell his children enough about his childhood in Estonia: the vigorous life in Weißenstein (Estonian Paide) and on the estates of knightly-generous Balts, with wonderful celebrations, trips by covered wagon and impressive experiences on the Baltic Sea and on the islands . An extremely cheerful, paradisiacal, colorful, lively and funny world came to light.

One or the other then typical Baltic there were in the Calwer and Basler times in the home Hesse: a few words like "Marulla" (as he called his little daughter) and "Humpty Dumpty" (frothy beaten with sugar egg), a samovar , a Image of Tsar Alexander and some games from Estonia, such as Easter egg rolling in particular (sweets are distributed on the floor of the living room and each player lets his hard-boiled Easter egg across the floor using a sloping wood in which there is a slight guide groove roll: any candy that touches a player's egg is now theirs).

Influences on Hermann Hesse

When Hermann Hesse said that he “had the best of everything to thank these two (parents)”, then they often only looked at what Hermann Hesse could not accept: the “ pietistic parental home”.

The deeper human qualities of his father Johannes Hesse, which for Hermann represented "the best of everything" and which contributed to the way his work works all over the world today, have their cultural roots more in the Estonian Baltic German of the 19th century with his special love of nature, people and homeland, than from Pietism.

The uncle Hermann from the book My uncle Hermann of Monika Hunnius was an unusually fun-loving doctor and the father of John Hesse. In the preface to the book, Hermann Hesse et al. a .: “The most beautiful stories I heard as a child were the ones my father told us about him (the grandfather) and his home town Weißenstein. I have never seen grandfather, his town and his house, his garden with the maple tree (...) with my own eyes, but I know them better than many cities and countries that I have actually seen. (... so) this splendid grandfather has always been a very close person to me. (...) a rare, radiant and good person, as there were few back then. "

Works

• The mission in the pulpit. A mission homily help book. Association bookstore, Calw 1889
• The Mission Century. Features from the missionary life of the present. Association bookstore, Calw 1893 ( Calwer family library, vol. 29).
• From Dr. Hermann Gundert's life. ( Calwer Familienbibliothek Vol. 34) Reprint of the edition from 1894. Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7668-3233-6
• The blessing of the Bible through the heathen world. Association bookstore, Calw and Stuttgart 1910
• The Bible as a book of war. Evangelical Society, Stuttgart 1916
• Korntal then and now. Publishing house D. Gundert, Stuttgart 1910

literature

• Hermann Hesse, Adele Hesse: In memory of our father. R. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1930
• Adele Gundert: Marie Hesse. A picture of life in letters and diaries. Gundert, Stuttgart 1934.
• Matthias Hilbert: Hermann Hesse and his parents' house - between rebellion and love. A biographical search for traces. Calwer, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-7668-3972-1 , publisher page
• Monika Hunnius: My Uncle Hermann - memories of old Estonia. With a foreword by Hermann Hesse. Eugen Salzer Verlag, Heilbronn 1953, Copyright 1923.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Hesse, Johannes. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 787-788.

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Hesse in the catalog of the German National Library
• Picture and short biography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry in the baptismal register of the community Weißenstein (Estonian: Paide kogudus)