Johannes Hoffmeister (philosopher)

Johannes Hoffmeister (born December 17, 1907 in Heldrungen ; † October 19, 1955 in Bonn ) was a German philosopher and Germanist .

Live and act

Hoffmeister received his doctorate on Caspar von Barth under Friedrich Gundolf in Heidelberg in 1929 and soon afterwards began his editorial work on Hegel . The publisher Felix Meiner assigned him the task of deciphering the previously unpublished manuscripts on the “Jenenser Realphilosophie” (lectures 1803/04) stored in the Berlin State Library. The Moses Mendelssohn Foundation (Berlin) financed this work for two years, following a proposal by Richard Kroner , President of the International Hegel Congress. In competition with the leading Hegel editor Georg Lasson and in constant collaboration with him, “it finally succeeded in deciphering the barely legible drafts and writings which, as a result of Hegel's continued corrections and additions, seemed to be devoid of any meaning.” The edition appeared 1931 and 1932 within the Lasson "Complete Works" edition.

From 1932 Hoffmeister was tutor and lecturer at Felix Meiner in Leipzig. Funded by the “German Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Research”, the forerunner of the German Research Foundation (DFG) , he has published various Hegel editions since 1933. In January 1936 he became an assistant at the University's Philosophical Institute. After he had to give up this position due to personal differences with Hermann Glockner in February 1938, he took a position as lexicon editor at Brockhaus Verlag .

During the Nazi regime , Hoffmeister belonged to several National Socialist associations. On November 1, 1936, he joined the SA in Leipzig . From January 1, 1939 to March 31, 1941 he was supported by the NSDDB's youth development program. In March 1939 he took part in a "Philosophical Working Conference " of the Rosenberg Office at Buderose Castle . The NSDAP he joined on 1 January 1940, ( membership number 7939387).

The continuation of his academic career goals was made possible for him in February 1939 when he became a “volunteer assistant” at the Philosophical Institute in Leipzig. In the spring of 1941 he qualified as a professor for modern German literature at the University of Bonn.

From March to October 1941 Hoffmeister was a soldier. From 1942 to 1944 he taught as a lecturer in German literature at the Sorbonne University in occupied Paris. Until the summer of 1945 he was interned in an American prisoner-of-war camp in north-western France . Released from captivity due to illness, he taught again at Bonn University from 1946, where he was appointed adjunct professor for modern German language and literature in 1948. In addition to his lectures on Renaissance and Baroque literature, Romanticism, Hölderlin and other topics, he has directed a "New Critical Hegel Edition" founded by him and again supported by the DFG since 1953 .

His students included the two Hegel researchers Otto Pöggeler and Friedhelm Nicolin, Richard Müller, Karl Otto Brogsitter and Kurt Müller-Vollmer.

meaning

Hoffmeister provided his Hegel editions (writings, lectures) with high critical standards. In many cases they are opening up the texts for the first time. Even if they no longer meet the requirements of a critical presentation in every way, they often still form the basis of Hegel's studies. His editions of Hegel's correspondence (“Letters from and to Hegel”) as well as testimonies to Hegel's life and impact are still outdated. The editions of the lectures on the history of philosophy (the volume with Hegel's “Introduction” appeared in 1940, in it: “On the method of the edition of Hegelian lectures”) and the Berlin writings 1818–1831 (1956) are also of great importance for the history of Hegelian philology ). The "New Critical Complete Edition" initiated by Hoffmeister was not continued after his death, but it is an important step on the way to the "Collected Works" that have been published since 1968.

In 1955 Johannes Hoffmeister published a second edition of the comprehensively edited dictionary of philosophical terms . The first edition, for which Hans Leisegang had done preparatory work, appeared in 1944. This edition was based on Friedrich Kirchner's dictionary of basic philosophical terms . Hoffmeister had already begun a revision in the 1930s - however, it contains a large number of problematic political and ideological judgments, since "in parts it had to take into account the rule of National Socialism in order to be able to appear at all." anonymously published volume Hegel heute. A selection from Hegel's political thoughts .

Although he was only 47 years old when he died and had devoted his energies mainly to Hegel research, Hoffmeister also made important contributions in other areas of Goethe's research. This includes an interpretation of Goethean “fairy tale”. A long book on Holderlin remained unfinished, the plan for a biography of Hegel remained unfulfilled. The book "Heimkehr des Geistes" (1946) contains a collection of lectures (held in the prisoner of war camp) on Meister Eckhart, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel and Hölderlin.

Works

Fonts

• Goethe and German Idealism. Leipzig 1932.
• Hölderlin and philosophy. Habilitation. Leipzig 1932.
• Friedrich Hölderlin, 1770–1843. Institut Allemand, Paris 1943.
• Goethe's “Urworte-Orphisch”. An interpretation. Tubingen 1930.

Hegel editions

• All of Hegel's works. 18 volumes. 1905- (publisher succeeding Georg Lasson );
  • therein: Jenenser Realphilosophie. From the manuscript ed. by Johannes Hoffmeister. Meiner, Leipzig 1931–1932 (Hegel: Complete Works; 19. 20 / Philosophical Library  ; [New Edition] 66 from 67: [much. C!]).
• Hegel. New critical edition as part of the Philosophical Library by Felix Meiner, Hamburg, from 1953.
• Letters from and to Hegel. Vols 1-3, 1951-1954.
• Documents on Hegel's development. Stuttgart 1936.

Further editions

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : The elective affinities. Conversations with German emigrants. The tale. The good women. Novella. Journey of the Sons Megaprazons. Fragment of a novel in letters. Edited by Joh. Hoffmeister. Mainz Press, Mainz / Weimar 1932 / Insel, Leipzig 1939 (World Goethe Edition).
• Johann Wolfgang Goethe: The fairy tale. With introduction and appendix. Iserlohn 1948.
• Heinrich von Kleist : The broken jug. School edition. Cologne 1950.

dictionary

• as Ed .: Dictionary of Philosophical Terms. (= Philosophical Library. Volume 225). Founded by Friedrich Kirchner . Completely reworked. Meiner, Hamburg 1944, DNB 580216144 .
• as Ed .: Dictionary of Philosophical Terms. (= Philosophical Library. Volume 225). 2nd Edition. Published by Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1955, DNB 452069270 .

literature

• Friedhelm Nicolin, Otto Pöggeler (Ed.): Johannes Hoffmeister to the memory. Felix Meiner Verlag , Hamburg 1956, DNB 452230233 . (with bibliography)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Felix Meiner: Encounters with Johannes Hoffmeister. In: Johannes Hoffmeister in memory. P. 48.
2. ↑ This information according to George Leaman: Heidegger in context. Complete overview of the Nazi involvement of university philosophers. Hamburg 1993, pp. 90f. with reference to documents in the Berlin Document Center (personal file), Federal Archives Koblenz (file R21 appendix no. 4359) and in the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (MA 609 and MA 612).
3. ^ Dictionary of Philosophical Terms. Meiner, Hamburg 1955, foreword, SV
4. ^ Felix Meiner: Encounters with Johannes Hoffmeister. In: Johannes Hoffmeister in memory. P. 53.

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Hoffmeister in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dictionary of Philosophical Terms (Jürgen Weber)