Karlheinz Deschner

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Karlheinz Deschner (right) in 2007 in conversation with Hans Albert

Karlheinz Deschner , actually Karl Heinrich Leopold Deschner ( May 23, 1924 in Bamberg - April 8, 2014 in Haßfurt ), was a German writer who was best known for his works critical of religion and the church .

Life

Karlheinz Deschner grew up as the son of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother who later converted to the Catholic Church . He attended elementary school in Trossenfurt , in 1933/1934 the Franciscan seminary in Dettelbach (where he temporarily stayed in the Franciscan monastery) and from 1934 high school as a boarding school student with Carmelites and English ladies in Bamberg. In March 1942 he passed the school leaving examination. Like his entire class, he immediately volunteered and was - wounded several times - a soldier until the surrender , finally a paratrooper .

After serving as a soldier in World War II , he studied at the Philosophical-Theological College in Bamberg in 1946/47, and finally from 1947 to 1951 at the University of Würzburg . He has attended lectures on literary studies , law , philosophy , theology and history , among others . In 1951 he was with the work of Lenau's metaphysical despair and her lyrical expression doctorate .

In 1951 he married his partner, the divorced Elfi Tuch. This marriage resulted in three children (* 1951; * 1958; * February 2, 1959, † October 20, 1984). The Catholic Church publicly stated that the couple had been excommunicated for their invalid association . This was pronounced by the then Bishop of Würzburg, Julius Döpfner . Until then, Deschner had not published anything critical of the church or religion. He pursued intensive literary studies in the early 1950s. The philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche , Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer shaped his thinking.

In 1956, at the age of 32, Deschner published his first book, The Night Around My House . The following year he presented the book What do you think of Christianity? (1957), in which he summarized contributions by contemporaries such as Hermann Kesten , Heinrich Böll , Arno Schmidt , Max Brod , Arnold Zweig and others and which is considered to be his first work on church criticism.

In the same year the literary-critical volume Kitsch, Konvention und Kunst (1957) was published, followed by the novel Florence Without Sun in 1958 .

The book Again the Cock crowed , which appeared in 1962, has since been regarded by interested parties and church critics as a well-founded standard work. In 1970 he signed the contract with Rowohlt for the Criminal History of Christianity project ; the first volume could not appear until 1986. In 2013, the series had to be completed with the tenth volume, which goes back to the 18th century, for health reasons.

Thanks to private support from Herbert Steffen , Alfred Schwarz and others, Deschner was able to devote himself to his main work (Criminal History of Christianity) without major material worries . Since 1988, Deschner has also increasingly received public recognition, which is expressed in prizes and awards.

Deschner was a staunch vegetarian and said several times in interviews that if he could live again, then he would devote his energy to an even more hopeless subject than fighting Christianity - the animal. Again he would write, even if his books did not reach millions of readers as they do now. But they are in the service of an even more necessary cause, in his opinion the most necessary of all:

“Who leaves the church: a ray of light for me; who no longer eats animals: my brother. "

Karlheinz Deschner lived in the Catholic Haßfurt am Main , a small town in rural Lower Franconia , until his death .

He was a member of the PEN Center Germany and an honorary member of the Humanist Association of Bavaria .

Prizes and awards

In 1988 Karlheinz Deschner was awarded the Arno Schmidt Prize for his enlightenment engagement and for his literary work, after Wolfgang Koeppen , Hans Wollschläger , Peter Rühmkorf . In June 1993 he received - after Walter Jens , Dieter Hildebrandt , Gerhard Zwerenz and Robert Jungk - the Alternative Büchner Prize and in July 1993 - after Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Dubček - he was the first German to receive the International Humanist Award of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (International Humanist and Ethical Union). In addition, Deschner was awarded the Erwin Fischer Prize of the International Association of Non-Denominational and Atheists (IBKA) in September 2001 and the Ludwig Feuerbach Prize of the Association for Freedom of the Spirit in Augsburg in November .

In 2004 Deschner was awarded the Wolfram von Eschenbach Prize of the Middle Franconia district for his life's work. The laudation was given by the literary scholar Karl Corino .

In 2006 he received the Premio letterario Giordano Bruno, Milan.

In 2006 Deschner was elected a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Department of History).

In 2004 the Giordano Bruno Foundation announced the establishment of a Deschner Prize named after the author, which is to be awarded to people or organizations "who contribute in particular to the strengthening of secular, scientific and humanistic thought and action". The first recipient of this Deschner Prize (2007) was the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (Oxford).

reception

Many of the author's works met with a lively response from experts. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that his ideas often contradicted the prevailing doctrine or opinion. On the other hand, he often published his works as a paperback or as a paperback series in large editions, thus aimed at the general public and did not hold back from criticizing existing authorities. Sometimes they had succinct titles such as With God and the Fascists , Church of Un-Salvation or A Pope Travels to the Crime Scene .

Karlheinz Deschner's novel The Night Around My House (1956) caused a sensation, which a year later became a scandal with the publication of the pamphlet Kitsch, Convention and Art , because it praised unknown authors at the time and at the same time violently attacked poetic works that were popular at the time.

Since 1958, Karlheinz Deschner has mainly published works on religion and church criticism.

Rejection

Above all, the book series Kriminalgeschichte des Christianentums published from 1986 onwards met with rejection ; Church-critical representatives of Christianity, among them the Tübingen theologian and critic of the Catholic Church Hans Küng , rejected Deschner's fundamental criticism. In 1994 an anthology was published under the title Criminalization of Christianity? with 23 statements by church historians and other scholars of various denominations on criminal history . Deschner responded to these statements in the form of a replica in the 5th volume of his criminal history , although he only goes into detail on one of the statements.

Accusation of insufficient scientific knowledge

Deschner once described his motivation for writing as follows: “I write out of enmity. Because the story of those I am describing made me their enemy ”. The emeritus professor for church history at the University of Bamberg, Georg Denzler , who himself came out with texts critical of the church, said: "Such a motivation can never be the basis for a serious writing of history."

In a statement on the occasion of Deschner's 80th birthday, Denzler summarized the objections of some historians: “He (Deschner) knows no source study, he makes a very one-sided selection of literature, interprets printed sources without considering the context, takes individual events for the whole and deceives a learned annotation apparatus in which it is often impossible to control what is being said. ”Elsewhere, he judges that Deschner may be“ the most knowledgeable among the advocati diaboli ”, but that he lacks historical thinking and historical judgment. Hubertus Mynarek rejected Deschner's slurs. Deschner only makes use of the research results of Christian exegetes, archaeologists, medievalists, modern and modern historians, but in such a way that he turns the teachings of his teachers against them. Deschner "first freed her research results from the church straitjacket." In the same tribute, Mynarek Deschner characterized in his own words as a compiler "whose works are fundamentally dependent on the research results of the historically critical theologians". He did not and did not want to do his own original research. However, Deschner's inductive method, an additive Sisyphus work, should be viewed more critically, but as such cannot achieve the goal of exposing the church as a criminal organization. This requires a deductive philosophical-sociological analysis, such as that carried out by Eugen Drewermann . Deschner is not a religious philosopher or religious psychologist, nor a church critic, but a deserving "church history critic".

Accusation of a limited understanding of religion

Mynarek's main criticism is directed against Deschner's repressed religiosity, which consists only of doubts. His fixation on religious dogmas, his equation of religion and belief in God prevent a universal understanding of religion as with Giordano Bruno . His contrasting ethical transfiguration of the synoptic Jesus is "sentimental, too romantic-transfiguration". Mynarek explains Deschner's criticism of the church in part as "transformed aggressiveness" that is rooted in Deschner's abysmal, contradicting personality. The deterministic denial of free will in the aphoristic is ultimately in contrast to Deschner's critical attitude, which presupposes freedom and guilt.

Accusation of a fatalistic-pessimistic world and human image

Joachim Kahl is shocked by Deschner's numerous aphorisms, in which he believes he recognizes an image of man that is “maliciously disparaging, fatalistic, full of longing for death and killing”. In response to Kahl's criticism of Deschner's aphorism, reprinted in "Enlightenment is annoyance ...": Karlheinz Deschner's life - work - effect , Gabriele Röwer replicates in detail in the same volume; she complains, including numerous voices from world literature, Kahl's lack of understanding of the essence of the aphorism as well as his exclusion of a majority of Deschner's aphorisms, which contradicts his own interpretation, whose guiding principle she sees in the "humanization of living conditions on this planet".

Accusation of a distorted USA image of questionable origin

The political scientist and extremism researcher Armin Pfahl-Traughber criticizes Deschner's book Der Moloch for the fact that it is partly, albeit unintentionally, based on unchecked falsified sources and right-wing radical conspiracy literature, reminiscent of a “regulars' table discourse” and in places suggests that “the US Americans were worse than the Nazis ”. He evaluates the Moloch as a "in the overall view to be seen as a caricature [s] book about the state of the" Yankees ", which he [Deschner] despises." However, Pfahl-Traughber attaches great importance to the statement that he does not want to deny the many facts that are mostly well presented and that he does not want to defend the USA in general.

Deschner rejected the criticism. Orientation towards the golden mean between good and evil is not a historiographical criterion. He regrets that he has been faked on three sides of his work. His research into the Abegg archive also raised doubts about alleged “forgeries”. Hate sometimes also makes you clairvoyant, not blind, and is just the other side of compassion for the victims and the love of the truth. Pfahl-Traughber ignores the fact that he not only portrayed the Warburg banking house as Hitler's financier, but also Henry Ford , John Foster Dulles and German companies. His assessment of history is not German national, but coincides with Winston Churchill's with regard to the entry of the USA into the war in 1917.

approval

The Protestant theologian Hans Conzelmann wrote about Deschner's book Again the Rooster Crowed : “Deschner got some information. He will get involved in nothing but: information. "

The Catholic theologian Richard Völkl wrote about the same book: "Above all, the author proves what he says by means of an immense use of sources and literature."

The philosopher and literary scholar Ludger Lütkehaus called it "Deschner's merit for pointing out the violence of Christianity". Anyone who follows Deschner's "mercilessly traced blood trail" of Christians will hardly be able to resist the overall impression: "What has the history of Christianity, of Christianities made of the love religion from the beginning!"

The Catholic theologian Adolf Holl was impressed by the criminal history of Christianity : “How terrible the zeal for faith can be can be read in the 'criminal history of Christianity'. After reading it, all the popes, cardinals, bishops and abbots, theologians, nuns, monks and priests from the very beginnings of the Church to the present day appear like a gang of gangsters whose criminal activities are hidden behind clouds of incense. "

The theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann wrote in her book No and Amen. My farewell to traditional Christianity : “After reading Deschner, the European citizen, who is full of self-satisfaction with the term 'Christian West', because 'Christian West' sounds like pious righteousness to his ears, sees his soup full of hair after reading Deschner. Christian ignorance and arrogance are severely disturbed by Deschner ”.

In the Frankfurter Rundschau, the journalist Arno Widmann wrote about the criminal history of Christianity : "There are sentences in this book that one would like to learn by heart so that we never forget the foundations of the world in which we live." Edition the second heading: "Karlheinz Deschner's 'Kriminalgeschichte des Christianentums' shows us how we are."

After Deschner's death in April 2014, the Giordano Bruno Foundation, in cooperation with the Rowohlt and Alibri publishers, held a memorial ceremony in honor of their member. Michael Schmidt-Salomon praised Deschner in an obituary as the “jewel of the Enlightenment”.

Works

Literary works

Novels

  • The night stands around my house . Novel. List, Munich 1956
  • Florence without the sun . Novel. List, Munich 1958
    • New edition of the novels in one volume: The early autobiographical novels , Alibri, Aschaffenburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-86569-233-7

Aphorisms

Non-fiction

  • Kitsch, convention and art. A literary pamphlet. List, Munich 1957; Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-548-34825-4 .
  • The rooster crowed again . A critical church history. Günther, Stuttgart 1962; as paperback: rororo 6788, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1972, ISBN 3-499-16788-3 .
  • Talents, poets, amateurs. Overrated and underrated works in the German present. Limes, Wiesbaden 1964; NA 1974, DNB 740476246. '
  • With God and the fascists . The Vatican in league with Mussolini, Franco, Hitler and Pavelić. Günther, Stuttgart 1965
  • Church and Fascism. Youth Service, Wuppertal 1968, DNB 456332545 .
  • The cross with the church. A Sexual History of Christianity. Econ, Düsseldorf 1974; revised new edition 1992; Special edition 2009, ISBN 978-3-9811483-9-8 .
  • Church of Un-Salvation. Arguments for drawing conclusions. Heyne, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-453-00445-0 .
  • A Pope travels to the crime scene. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-455-08201-7 .
  • A century of salvation history. The Politics of the Popes in the Age of World Wars. 2 volumes. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1982/83
    • expanded new edition in one volume as: The Politics of the Popes. Alibri, Aschaffenburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86569-116-3 .
  • The offended church or: who disturbs the public peace? Expert opinion in the Bochum § 166 process. Ahriman, Freiburg im Breisgau 1986, ISBN 3-922774-05-9 .
  • Criminal history of Christianity (ten volumes). Rowohlt, Reinbek 1986ff
    • Volume 1: The early days. From the origins in the Old Testament to the death of St. Augustine (430)
    • Volume 2: Late Antiquity. From the Catholic "child emperors" to the extermination of the Arian vandals and Ostrogoths under Justinian I (527-565)
    • Volume 3: The Old Church. Falsification, dumbing down, exploitation, annihilation
    • Volume 4: Early Middle Ages. From King Clovis I (around 500) to the death of Charlemagne (814)
    • Volume 5: 9th and 10th centuries. From Ludwig the Pious (814) to the death of Otto III. (1002)
    • Volume 6: 11th and 12th centuries. From Emperor Heinrich II the "Saint" (1002) to the end of the Third Crusade (1192)
    • Volume 7: 13th and 14th centuries. From Emperor Heinrich VI. (1190) to Emperor Ludwig IV. The Bavaria (1347)
    • Volume 8: 15th and 16th centuries. From the exile of the popes in Avignon to the peace of religion in Augsburg
    • Volume 9: mid-16th to early 18th century. From the genocide in the New World to the beginning of the Enlightenment
    • Volume 10: 18th Century and Outlook for the Following Period. Kings by the grace of God and the decline of the papacy
    • Digitized edition: Criminal history of Christianity. CD-ROM, Directmedia Publishing , Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-89853-532-8
  • Opus Diaboli. Fifteen unforgiving essays on the work of the Lord's vineyard. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1987, ISBN 3-498-01270-3
  • The fake belief. A critical consideration of church teachings and their historical background. Knesebeck & Schuler, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-453-01231-3
  • Sleeping Beauty dreams and the smell of a stable. About Franconia, the landscape of my life. Knesebeck & Schuler, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-926901-14-4 .
  • The anti-catechism. 200 reasons against the churches and for the world, with Horst Herrmann . Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-89136-302-8 .
    • Revised new edition: The Anti-Catechism. 200 reasons against the churches and for the world. Tectum, Marburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-8288-3546-7 .
  • The Moloch. “Speak softly and always carry a club with you!” On the Americanization of the world. Weitbrecht, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-522-70970-5
  • The representatives of God. A History of the Popes in the 20th Century. Heyne, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-453-07048-8
  • What I think. Goldmann, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-442-12531-6
  • with Milan Petrović : World War of Religions. The Eternal Crusade in the Balkans. Weitbrecht, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-522-71740-6 .
  • Topless. For a godless heaven and a world free of priests. Twenty-two attacks, replicas, and other powerful pieces. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1997, ISBN 3-499-60705-0
  • For a bite of meat. The blackest of all crimes. Asku-Presse, Bad Nauheim 1998, ISBN 3-930994-10-0 .
  • The Rhön. The pagan and the holy, the original and the idyllic of a lonely landscape. Kleebaum, Bamberg 1998, ISBN 3-930498-15-4 .
  • Memento! Small memorandum on the Pope's “Great Act of Penance” in the Holy Year 2000. Rowohlt (rororo 60926), Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-499-60926-6 .
  • Music of oblivion. About landscape, life and death in Hans Henny Jahnn's main work . Asku-Presse, Bad Nauheim 2003, ISBN 3-930994-14-3 .
  • Poets and whiskers - From Jean Paul to Enzensberger. 24 essays on literature and literary criticism. Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 2007, ISBN 978-3-7930-9504-0 .

As editor

  • What do you think of Christianity? 18 responses to a survey . List, Munich 1957
  • Images of Jesus from a theological point of view . List, Munich 1966
  • The century of barbarism . Desch, Munich 1966
  • Who teaches at German universities? Limes, Wiesbaden 1968
  • Christianity in the judgment of its opponents . In 2 volumes. Limes, Wiesbaden 1969/71
    • Revised new edition in 1 volume. Verlag Max Hueber, Ismaning near Munich 1986, ISBN 3-19-005507-6 .
  • Church and War. The Christian Way to Eternal Life . Günther, Stuttgart 1970
  • Why I Quit Church . Kindler, Munich 1970
  • The manipulated belief. A Critique of Christian Dogmas . Kindler, Munich 1971
  • Why I am a Christian / Atheist / Agnostic . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1977
  • What I believe in . Gütersloh publishing house Mohn, Gütersloh 1990
  • Between kneeling and damnation. Robert Mächler , a devout antichrist. A selection from his work critical of religion and the church . Merlin, Gifkendorf 1999, ISBN 3-926112-95-6 .

literature

Video

Web links

Commons : Karlheinz Deschner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Karlheinz Deschner  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Michael Schmidt-Salomon: A jewel of the enlightenment. Obituary. Humanist Press Service, April 10, 2014, accessed April 29, 2014 .
  2. ↑ International Association of Non-Denominational and Atheists: Festschrift for the award of the Erwin Fischer Prize 2001 to Karlheinz Deschner , Hagen 2001, p. 28.
  3. ↑ About Karlheinz Deschner: Life, Works, Resonance. A documentation for the publication of Volume 3 of the criminal history of Christianity . Chapter “Biographical Note”, p. 19 ff. Rowohlt, 1990 (without ISBN).
  4. ↑ Under Person / Biographical Data , Karlheinz Deschner's website.
  5. ↑ Only living things swim against the current. 1985, p. 5.
  6. ↑ "About the Author". In: Annoyances. 1994, p. 92 f., Here p. 93.
  7. ^ Ceremonial address by Hermann Gieselbusch , where this fact (2004) was first published.
  8. ↑ Willi Winkler: The Antichrist. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. May 3, 2013, p. 3.
  9. ↑ brand eins : Naked in the forest with Nietzsche. 7/2004 (PDF, 812 kB).
  10. ↑ VEBU 11/2004.
  11. ↑ Awarded the Ludwig Feuerbach Prize to Karlheinz Deschner on November 30, 2001 , website of the bfg Augsburg
  12. ^ Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts: SASA Membership ( Memento from January 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 20, 2013
  13. ^ Humanistic press service: Karlheinz Deschner , May 23, 2007
  14. ↑ FAZ of March 31, 1989, page 38.
  15. ^ Dpa : Church critic Karlheinz Deschner turns 80 - "I write out of enmity" , May 19, 2004.
  16. ↑ Hubertus Mynarek: The Deschner phenomenon - size and limits . In: Society for Critical Philosophy Nuremberg (Ed.): Enlightenment and Criticism . Special issue 9, 2004, p. 132-145 ( PDF ).
  17. ↑ Hubertus Mynarek: The Deschner phenomenon - size and limits . In: Society for Critical Philosophy Nuremberg (Ed.): Enlightenment and Criticism . Special issue 9, 2004, p. 132-145 ( PDF ).
  18. ↑ Joachim Kahl: Deschner's aphorisms. A critique of their image of man as well as their understanding of society and history . In: Society for Critical Philosophy Nuremberg (Ed.): Enlightenment and Criticism . Special issue 9, 2004, p. 146-168 ( PDF ).
  19. ↑ Kahl 2004, pp. 230-256.
  20. ↑ Kahol 2004, pp. 257-322; Gabriele Röwer: Where is the positive? (Excerpt; PDF, 306 kB)
  21. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Deschner's USA picture - a critical view of "The Moloch" . In: Enlightenment and Criticism . Special issue 9, 2004, p. 169-186 ( PDF ).
  22. ↑ http://www.deschner.info/de/werk/33/diesseits.pdf
  23. ↑ Hans Conzelmann: Evangelische Theologie 6, born 1964, p. 336.
  24. ^ Richard Völkl, Caritas, Freiburg, December 1963, quoted from Deschner, Mit Gott und den Faschisten , p. 276 f.
  25. ^ Dpa : Church critic Karlheinz Deschner turns 80 - "I write out of enmity" , May 19, 2004.
  26. ↑ Adolf Holl: How I became a priest, why Jesus was against it, and what came out of it. P. 14.
  27. ↑ Uta Ranke-Heinemann: No and Amen. My departure from traditional Christianity. 8th edition 2009, p. 298 f.
  28. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau, August 12, 2008; Review after the publication of the ninth volume of the criminal history of Christianity
personal data
SURNAME Deschner, Karlheinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Deschner, Karl Heinrich Leopold (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and critic of religion
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Bamberg
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 2014
Place of death Hassfurt