Johannes Werner Klein

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Johannes Werner Klein , also Werner Klein (born June 24, 1898 in Düsseldorf , † March 9, 1984 in Hamburg ) was a German philosopher . He was one of the founders of the anthroposophically oriented Christian community , with which he broke in 1929. He then turned to National Socialism . From 1945 he worked as a freelance philosophical-religious writer and lecturer.

Life

Johannes Werner Klein was the son of a Düsseldorf lawyer and a pastor's daughter. When he was 17, he volunteered as a soldier. He was trained as an officer and fought in Russia and on the French front. Lying in the military hospital near Sedan , he had to realize in the spring of 1918 that the war was lost. The defeat of Germany threw him into a serious life crisis. Only after the conclusion of the Versailles Peace Treaty in the summer of 1919 did he first decide to study Protestant theology at the University of Marburg and went to see Friedrich Rittelmeyer to discuss the curriculum with him. From 1920 he switched to philosophy , as a student of Nicolai Hartmann .

In February 1920, Klein traveled to Dornach with his college friend Martin Borchart to hear lectures by Rudolf Steiner . After the first lecture he asked Steiner whether it would be possible to establish a “third church” (in the sense of Schelling ) that led beyond Catholicism and Protestantism . Steiner replied in the affirmative, gave him practical advice and asked him whether he could inspire a sufficient number of his peers to do so. Klein initially took this as a personal assignment to work out the foundations for a new cult on his own, and did not tell anyone about this conversation.

At Easter 1921 he met Gertrud Spörri , a Swiss theology student, at Steiner's anthroposophical university course in Dornach , who told him about Steiner's answer to her similarly directed question. It was then that Klein realized that it was a matter of finding like-minded students to discuss how to proceed together. They did this in Berlin, where they met Emil Bock , in Marburg and in Tübingen. In May they formulated their questions in a letter to Steiner, which Steiner answered with the appointment of a first course for theologians (June 12-16, 1921) in Stuttgart.

With this course (held for 18 theology students) the decisive course was set that led to the foundation of the Christian community in 1922. There Klein worked as a pastor in Bremen and Hamburg. In addition, he assumed a leadership role as top link from the start , which was then passed on to Gertrud Spörri after he left in 1929, who in turn left the Christian community in 1933.

Now he saw in the emerging National Socialism "(...) the power of childbearing of the new becoming" , became a party member and speaker . After 1945, he lived as a freelance writer and lecturer in Hamburg, where he apparently with a thesis on Spruce Dr. phil. PhD . An attempt by Emil Bock to persuade him to return to work in the Christian community on a personal visit failed.

Works

As Johannes Werner Klein

  • Baldur and Christ , Michael-Verlag (Christ of All Earth 3), Munich 1923
  • Existence under attack , self-published, Hamburg 1954
  • You are gods. The philosophy of the Gospel of John , Neske, Pfullingen 1967
  • Life ... what for? A fate gives the answer , Christians, Hamburg 1979

As Werner Klein

This is a highly probable assignment.

  • Theses between death and the devil. On the spiritual determination of the German , Tazzelwurm, Stuttgart 1938
  • The Gospel Beyond Denominations , Tazzelwurm, Stuttgart 1939
  • Master Eckhart. A walk through the sermons of the German master , Tazzelwurm, Stuttgart 1940
  • Nietzsche's fight against divine coercion , Tazzelwurm, Stuttgart 1940
  • Fichte's state theory and his social ideas , Hamburg: Phil. Diss. From September 5, 1945

literature

Web links

  • Biographical entry in the online documentation of the anthroposophical research center Kulturimpuls

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Gädeke, p. 94
personal data
SURNAME Klein, Johannes Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klein, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1984
Place of death Hamburg