Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg

Johannes Lehmann (later Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg ) (born April 11, 1851 in Königsberg ; † April 12, 1925 in Weimar ) was a German geologist who was a full professor of mineralogy and geology in Kiel from 1886 to 1903, and in 1894 Kiel's newest Nachrichten (today Kieler Nachrichten ), became the publisher of the magazine Rechtshort in Weimar in 1904 and developed from a politically uninterested scientist to a sectarian German- völkisch cultural and legal reformer.

Family and education

After studying natural sciences in Bonn , Lehmann joined the geological regional service Saxony Dresden as a section geologist.

In 1877 he married Anna Cäcilie Leo, the daughter of a very wealthy spinning mill owner from Arnsdorf . The marriage produced six children: Albrecht, Walther, Erich, Irmgard, Ortrud and Elsbeth (who married the painter Fidus ). The fortune of his wife allowed Lehmann to buy a house in Kiel- Düsternbrook behind the Pauluskirche - "Haus Hohenberg" - and to have it extensively rebuilt by the architect Heinrich Moldenschardt and provided with wood carvings by the Flensburg artist Heinrich Sauermann . To distinguish itself from numerous namesakes, Lehmann called itself Lehmann-Hohenberg from then on .

In 1879 he temporarily returned to Bonn, where he completed his habilitation in 1880 with investigations into the formation of old crystalline slate with special reference to the Saxon Granulite Mountains, Ore Mountains, Fichtel Mountains and Bavarian-Bohemian Border Mountains . In 1884 he was an assistant professorship appointed to Breslau, 1886, he was followed by Hugo Laspeyres at the Kiel Institute of Mineralogy of. In 1887 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Activity and research

The teaching situation in Kiel was unsatisfactory, as for years only one rented apartment on Brunswiker Strasse had been available for teaching purposes, while the collections were packed in boxes in the basement of the university building. His predecessors had already unsuccessfully pointed out the need for their own institute and museum building. Lehmann, who had become wealthy through his marriage, gave the university a suitable piece of land and ensured that the spacious and well-equipped institute on Schwanenweg was built according to his plans and wishes. Another gift from Lehmann were granite columns and stone stairs in the museum rooms. A meter-high marble statue Psyche by a sculptor from the artist family Cauer completed the furnishings.

The new building was completed in 1891. However, the official opening of the Institute and Museum for Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology was delayed until 1896 because a fire broke out in the carpentry shop that produced museum furniture.

Social and social reform work

After several years of academic activity, Lehmann's interest increasingly shifted to socio-political problems. At first he supported Moritz von Egidy's efforts to renew religion by contributing funds to the publication of the journal Einiges Christenthum and soon his own articles such as: “On the obligation of natural scientists to work on solving religious and social questions” or: “University reform! Uniform structure of the entire state and social life on the knowledge of nature of the present. ”Published. Since the magazine only reached a small readership, Lehmann founded the daily Kieler Latest Nachrichten in 1894 to continue his reform efforts , whose editors included Wilhelm Schwaner and - later - Adolf Damaschke . The acquaintance with lawyer Bleick Bleicken , who campaigned strongly for the reform of the German legal system, prompted Lehmann in 1895 to the founding of the German People's Federal , which in the 1901 German Law Association was converted, and for publication of the "Journal of Public Defender ."

These and other activities not only led to the complete neglect of the duties associated with his professorship, but ultimately also to financial ruin. His wife, who followed this development fearfully, once said to Damaschke: “The happiest hours of my life were when we were still living on our modest salary and my husband and I moved out and I collected the stones in our apron, which he then examined . "

Legal and judicial criticism

In 1902, the publication of an “open letter to his Excellency, the Chancellor of the German Reich, Mr. Count von Bülow, regarding the inadequacy of our state system” led to the initiation of disciplinary proceedings that were due to “serious public insult to high-ranking officials, namely the Minister of War, the Mr. Justice Minister, as well as the jurists of the German Reich ”led to the dismissal of Lehmann and the loss of his salary and his title. The State Ministry upheld this judgment in January 1904 with the mitigation that three quarters of the salary was to be granted for life.

In 1904 Lehmann moved to Weimar and continued his struggle with his new magazine Rechtshort undeterred.

In 1914 he was sentenced to 12 months in prison for “insulting lawyers and experts” after the publication of another pamphlet in which he described a public prosecutor as a “unscrupulous admirer”. He evaded arrest through study trips to Germany and was wanted on a wanted list. In 1917 he was recognized by a police officer on the street in Stuttgart and had to serve 12 months in prison.

After 1918 Lehmann believed he had finally found the party in the Volkish German Socialist Party to eliminate Roman law . In 1920, at the Leipzig party congress of the DSP, its legal policy proposals for a “new German people's law” were adopted instead of Roman law . According to Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen, Lehmann's “obscure and sectarian hodgepodge of arguments for a national legal reform” can at best be compared with Helmut Nicolai's “racial legal theory” or corresponding omissions by Alfred Rosenberg . The sectarian reformer and lone fighter for a German-ethnic cultural and legal reform combined social Darwinist , anti-Catholic, German-ethnic and anti-Semitic ideas.

Remarks

1. ↑ The museum was destroyed in World War II and only reopened in 1970 on the university's Westring campus.
2. ↑ http://www.ifg.uni-kiel.de/eckenundkanten/hk-01_de.html
3. ↑ Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen: On the development of völkisch legal thought. Early right-wing extremist programs and bourgeois law. In: Hans Jochen Vogel, Helmut Simon and Adalbert Podlech (eds.). The freedom of the other. Festschrift for Martin Hirsch. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1981, ISBN 3789006998 , pp. 86-89.

Works

• Investigations into the formation of the old crystalline slate rocks with special reference to the Saxon Granulite Mountains, Ore Mountains, Fichtel Mountains and Bavarian-Bohemian Border Mountains. Bonn 1884.
• Bismarck's legacy: Lot of Rome, good German always! : a wake-up call to the German people for the completion of the German Reformation. 1899.
• University reform !, Uniform structure of the entire state and social life on the knowledge of nature of the present. Leipzig 1900.
• Law or violence? : on the way to corruption! : Appeal to the entire German people against the verdict of the supreme king, which was dismissed from office. Prussian Disciplinary Court in Berlin on Dec. 1902. 1903
• My struggle for justice is not ended by my removal from office, but promoted! 1904.
• Science and the Bible. Contributions to further education in religion. A scientific answer to the creed of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Jena 1904
• The importance of the middle class movement and its cultural goal: a lecture with additions. 1908.

literature

• Claudia Nerius: Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg (1851-1925). A study on the national legal and judicial criticism in the German Empire . Lang-Verlag Frankfurt 2000, ISBN 3-631-36063-0 .
• Kai Detlev Sievers: A dazzling life as a professor in Kiel. Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg, recognized scientist and national reformist. In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Kieler Stadtgeschichte, Vol. 89, Issue 5, 2017, pp. 150–160.

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Horst Küppers: The Mineralogical Institute and Museum, Gustav Karsten and Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg
• The history of mineralogy in Kiel ( PDF file)