Johannes Weitzel

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Johannes Weitzel (born October 24, 1771 in Johannisberg , † January 10, 1837 in Wiesbaden ) was a German writer, publisher and librarian.

Life

Johannes Weitzel was born as the son of Johannes Weitzel, a winery owner and winemaker, and his wife Maria Juliana ( also Justina ), geb. Schrauter, born; he had three sisters. His father died on May 24, 1776 and because his mother was unable to run the winery on her own, the family soon became impoverished.

He attended the local village school and was supported by the schoolmaster in his desire to study theology; the schoolmaster gave him additional lessons free of charge. At the age of twelve he came to the Karmeliter-Gymnasium Kreuznach in 1783 , but the following year he switched to the Electoral Mainz Emmerizian Gymnasium in Mainz , because the lessons there were more progressive. As a private teacher, he financed his living and the four-year repetition . Through translations he made closer acquaintance with Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Claude Adrien Helvétius , David Hume , Voltaire and Baruch de Spinoza . After five years he finished high school in 1789 and began studying at the University of Mainz . During his school and university days he made friends with the later privy councilor Johann Ludwig Koch .

When the French moved into Mainz under Adam-Philippe de Custine in 1792 , Weitzel interrupted his studies and retired to the Rheingau . However, he had to flee to the left bank of the Rhine before an imminent arrest , because in Rüdesheim, in the presence of an officer of the Prussian troops lying there, he had aroused the suspicion through statements that he was a Mainz clubist .

In the summer of 1795, his first writing, Geist der Frankish Revolution, appeared . 1795 traveled Weitzel to the University of Jena to Friedrich Schiller and Johann Gottlieb Fichte heard and critical theory to study. Shortly afterwards he switched to positive philosophy at the University of Göttingen . He heard lectures from August Ludwig von Schlözer and Spittler, but gave up his academic career after a short time and returned to his parents' house in 1796.

The occupied lands on the left bank of the Rhine were reorganized according to the French system, and on the recommendation of his former Mainz professor Andreas Joseph Hofmann , Johannes Weitzel was given a position as commissioner of the executive committee of the canton of Otterberg near Kaiserslautern . At the beginning of 1799 he was given the vacant position of district commissioner in the municipal administration of the canton of Germersheim . During the reorganization of the administrative structures of the country, he lost his position as a public official in 1800 and therefore returned to Mainz with his wife Margarethe, whom he had meanwhile married.

In 1801 Johannes Weitzel began to work as a writer. At first he edited the magazine Egeria (monthly for friends of history, legislation and politics) , in which Ernestine von Krosigk (1767-1843) also published, and at the same time took over the editing of a newspaper that was owned by the Mainz orphanage and later under the name Mainzer Zeitung appeared. Some articles in the Mainzer Zeitung were claimed from Paris, whereupon the prefect of Mainz, Jeanbon St. André , increasingly took his protective hand from Weitzel. After several warnings, his license for the newspaper was revoked. At the mediation of friends, Weitzel received a professorship for lectures on history at the Grande école , which had replaced the University of Mainz, which was closed in 1798. It was an École spéciale de médecine , with lectures only at the medical faculty.

In 1806, the future Duke Anne-Jean-Marie-René Savary, duc de Rovigo , invited Wenzel to stay in Mainz in order to win him over as an informant for moods and attitudes in Germany, which Weitzel refused. In 1807 Weitzel joined the editorial team of the European State Relations , which Nicolaus Vogt , his former teacher at the University of Mainz, had published in Frankfurt am Main since 1804. In 1810 the European State Relations became the Rhenish Archive for History and Literature , which came out as a monthly. Together with Nicolaus Vogt, he remained at the head of the editorial team. In 1813/14 Weitzel received another position as professor at the grammar school, which had been set up as the successor to the Mainz high school.

In 1816 Carl Friedrich Emil von Ibell , district president of the newly founded Duchy of Nassau , won Weitzel to install his first own press organ to represent the political views of the Nassau government. Weitzel moved to Wiesbaden and received the post of auditor at the Chamber of Accounts with a salary of 1200 guilders. On July 2, 1816, the first edition of the Rheinische Blätter appeared under Weitzel's editorship, which were subsequently published four days a week. The newspaper was first produced in Ludwig Schellenberg's printing house , and later in the Frank printing house. After the Carlsbad resolutions and the appointment of a censor on October 6, 1819, Weitzel resigned from editing the Rheinische Blätter on October 12, 1819 . The paper had already lost a considerable number of readers, which is attributed to its proximity to the increasingly restorative government and the increasingly Prussian-friendly course at the instigation of the government. The paper ceased to appear on September 30, 1820.

In 1820 he was appointed state librarian as director of the Ducal Nassau Public Library and at the same time was appointed court advisor.

Johannes Weitzel was married to Margarethe Dietrich, daughter of a rich timber merchant in Germersheim, from 1799. Together with his wife, he had a daughter who was married to Major von Ahlefeldt from the ducal Nassau.

Honors

  • In 1811 the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Marburg awarded Johannes Weitzel an honorary doctorate " ... in recognition of his efforts to spread humane attitudes and to promote real wisdom. "
  • In 1812 the Paris University appointed him "Bachelier de Lettres".

Political positions

Weitzel took liberal views. On the German question , he advocated preservation of the sovereignty of the individual states, each with their own constitutions, but at the same time an association and representation of the people at national level. In particular, Weitzel advocated an education to promote the German concept of unity. He assessed the legal achievements of the French Revolution as positively as Napoleon Bonaparte , who, in Weitzel's view, had eliminated the degeneracies of the revolution. He opposed the restoration in journalistic terms .

Fonts (selection)

He also published numerous articles in the journal Didaskalia .

literature

  • Wolf-Heino Struck : The pursuit of civil liberty and national unity from the point of view of the Duchy of Nassau . In: Nassauische Annalen , 77th Volume, 1966. pp. 142-216.
  • B. Stein: The history of the Wiesbaden newspaper industry from its beginnings to the present. Typescript [without place and year, probably Wiesbaden 1943], found in March 2002 in the Wiesbadener Tagblatt archive (as a carbon copy). Download PDF

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Nekrolog der Deutschen, Volume 15, 1837, Part 1, pp. 67–83 . BF Voigt, 1839 ( google.de [accessed January 19, 2018]).
  2. ^ ADB: Weitzel, Johannes - Wikisource. Retrieved June 16, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Johannes Weitzel. Retrieved June 16, 2018 .
  4. ^ Rhenish Archives for History and Literature . Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10716826-1 ( digital-sammlungen.de [accessed on February 1, 2019] First edition: Schellenberg, Wiesbaden 1810).
  5. ↑ Rheinische Blätter . Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10502380-0 ( digital-sammlungen.de [accessed on February 1, 2019] First edition: Schellenberg, Wiesbaden 1816).
  6. ↑ Martin Mulsow, Lothar Kreimendahl , Friedrich Vollhardt, Guido Naschert: Radical late enlightenment in Germany, p. 334 . Felix Meiner Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7873-2451-4 ( google.de [accessed June 17, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Weitzel, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weitzel, J .; Weitzel, Joh .; Weitzel, Johann; Weitzel, Johannes I .; Weitzel, Josef; Weitzel, Johann J .; Weitzel, Johann Ignaz; Weitzel, Johannes Ignaz; Weitzel, Johannes Ignatz; Weitzel, Johann Ignatz; Weitzel, Johann Joseph; Weitzel, Johann Josef; Weitzel, Joseph; Weitzel, B.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, publisher and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1771
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannisberg
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1837
Place of death Wiesbaden