Ludwig Christian Haeusser

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Louis Haeusser

Ludwig Christian Haeusser , also: Louis Haeusser (born November 6, 1881 in Bönnigheim ; † June 9, 1927 in Berlin ), was a traveling preacher of the 1920s and the best-known representative of the so-called inflation saints .

Life

Until 1918

Haeusser grew up in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg as the son of a pietistic winegrower, who viewed his son's intellectual interests with incomprehension. From the beginning there is a strong father-son conflict, which lays the foundation for Haeusser's strong aversions to any kind of outside determination and his constant conflicts with state authorities. "Educated Strictly, heavy stopped to terrible, hard field work, driven with 14 years in the business apprenticeship," said Haeusser retrospect, he leaves in 1899 against the wishes of parents Germany for England and sets out shortly after the turn of the century in Paris be entrepreneurs .

Haeusser acquired a considerable fortune, initially with the sale of dubious quality diplomas and medals. After police investigations he had to give up this business and in 1904 founded a stock company for sparkling wine trading under equally disreputable conditions. In 1905 he married Gabrielle Marguerite Grange. In 1909 they have a son: Louis Gabriel Robert. In 1913 the Haeussers move to Switzerland, where Haeusser works as a bookmaker for illegal French racing bets. In June 1914, an arrest warrant was issued against him in Germany, but Haeusser was not extradited by Switzerland.

The outbreak of the First World War was a turning point for Haeusser. In France, large parts of his property are confiscated as foreign property. Haeusser begins to neglect his business, finally gives it up completely in 1918 and becomes an anti-German war opponent. The fraudulent sparkling wine manufacturer becomes a “prophet of renewal” and “man of the turning point”.

Haeusser's "awakening"

Even as a young man, Haeusser was naive to believe in God. And already in 1912 he declares: “One day I will give up the business in order to live only my philosophy - my spirit - my thoughts!” Under the impression of the war, this religious sense of mission now breaks out. In an open letter in August 1917, he called on Kaiser Wilhelm II to end the bloodshed by abdicating and published an appeal for peace (“La Paix”): “One day, the unleashed people will smash the throne with a terrible fist Return of Peace Resists. "

In the summer of 1918, he left his family and tried to spread his message with public lectures - but without any public response. At the same time he made contact with Gusto Gräser and his life-reforming community Monte Verità near Ascona, where he got to know the teachings of Lao Tzu - and also fraudulently deprived a piece of property from grass. Stimulated by grass, it also changes its external appearance: from now on it appears with a monk's robe, long hair and a flowing beard. After new lectures in early 1919, Haeusser was arrested in Zurich and deported to Germany as an undesirable foreigner.

As an itinerant preacher

Haeusser poster

Haeusser now sees himself as a religious leader. Starting in Baden and Württemberg, he soon preached repentance and self-purification all over Germany. He mixes early Christian thoughts with Taoism , Nietzsche's superhumanity and Max Stirner's “I cult” : “IN MY DEED - you should not believe in Jesus - no - in yourself - in your deed - in your ability - in your strength - of your will to redeem yourself - of your power to overcome yourself - of you - of your spiritual power slumbering within yourself ”. Soon a growing number of "disciples" and "apostles" gathered around him. They organize his appearances, distribute his writings and collect donations. They include a striking number of women, whose affection and bondage Haeusser sexually exploits.

Haeusser draws attention primarily through his public abuse: “You hypocrites, your double-faced breed of otters, your brood of snakes, your obsolete graves, your walking lavatory pits, your living corpses, you walking graves, you modern carrion houses, you embodied pigsties, go inside you - feel ashamed ! ”Haeusser even holds an event at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where he is personally invited by Walter Gropius . However, he is widely regarded as a charlatan, not only in conservative circles, but also as representatives of the youth movement such as Walter Hammer : “A personality of German intellectual life? Häusser's appearance for many thousands of hope and purpose in life? I always see a barkeeper floating in front of my eyes from the funnel park of St. Pauli, who uses a cunning speech to get the stupid out of the crowd. "

Political activities

From around 1922 Haeusser also saw himself as a political force: as the savior of Germany, the future “dictator of the united states of Europe” and “world president” of truth. In November 1922 he founded, meanwhile again with a "bourgeois" appearance, together with the young Rittmeister a. D. Count Adolf von Bothmer the “Christian-Radical People's Party” as a gathering movement of supporters of all “inflation saints” and enemies of the republic from left and right. To do this, Haeusser stylized himself as a “swastika communist ” and sought contact with extremists such as the Free Corps Leader Hermann Ehrhardt and the Communist Max Hölz . The magazine “Haeusser”, which will appear in the same year, will serve the same purpose.

Haeusser's propagated goal is now the complete destruction of the old order. In a proclamation from 1922 he lets his annihilation fantasies run free: “Blood --- blood --- blood --- blood should flow, blood MUST flow, blood WILL flow! The BLOOD will accumulate IN all gutters like after a downpour! Because we will have butcher soup soon! A slaughter festival where pigs in human form are slaughtered is ahead of us! The seed is overripe! Days only separate us from the last day. The last judgment - the kingdom of God - the rule of the spirit - the dictatorship of truth - has come near! "

Conflicts with the authorities

Typeface by Haeusser 1923

From the very beginning of his preaching activity, Haeusser was officially banned from speaking and expelled. From 1922 he was in constant war with the authorities, which he deliberately provoked. He publishes lists of judges who have sentenced him and threatens them to execute them after he comes to power. To the Waiblinger Stadtschultheiß Vogel he wrote: “You are a smooth cattle! You see - bullshit - because not - that I shit on your dreary, lazy, stupid paragraphs, yes, shit and a big pile! - - You are not worth the sun shining on you or a poodle pissing off! You wet chicken, bed man! You deserve to be frowned upon and overshadowed so that you don't dry out so quickly! ”From then on, Haeusser spends more time in prisons and mental hospitals than in freedom. He is examined several times for his state of mind. They are diagnosed with hypomania and classified as a psychopath , but not as an insane psychotic .

At Christmas 1922 Haeusser became engaged to Bothmer's sister-in-law Hedwig von Pohl , the daughter of the late Imperial Vice Admiral Hugo von Pohl . Hedwig's mother has her daughter admitted to a psychiatric institution in order to remove Haeusser's influence. As a result of this affair, Haeusser himself was arrested, taken to the Langenhagen mental hospital in January 1923 and finally sentenced to a total of one year and nine months in prison and a fine of one million marks. Some of his close followers, including Adele Juels and Olga Lorenzen , were sentenced to prison terms.

Decline and end of movement

Haeusser fell into severe depression in prison. He doubts his "mission". In 1924 he dissolved the “Christian-Radical People's Party” and founded the “Haeusserbund” as a successor organization. He took part in the Reichstag elections in May and December 1924, but received just under 25,000 and fewer than 10,000 votes, respectively. The end of inflation and the economic upturn have made the attraction of the "inflation saints" wane. In 1925, Haeusser wanted to become President of the Reich : His nomination was not allowed, however, and the votes cast for him were declared invalid. Haeusser's political dreams have failed.

In July 1925, Haeusser was released from prison in Hamburg, seriously ill. At the end of 1926, he and his few remaining followers plan to found a rural commune near Berlin. However, the plan fails due to the lack of funding. Haeusser is financially at an end because of his prison stays and costly lawsuits. In the spring of 1927 he was admitted to the Neukölln Municipal Hospital, where he died in June at the age of 45.

Several hundred followers appear at his funeral. But as early as 1930 the “Haeusser” magazine was discontinued and the “Haeusser Bund” was deleted from the register of associations. A small group of disciples (in East and West Germany) existed until their biological end in the late 1970s. It publishes Haeusser's writings in book form.

Haeusser's grave in the Neukölln cemetery no longer exists.

Classification of Haeusser's world of thought

Haeusser's ideas were by no means new, but were in the continuity of the apocalyptic and millenarian movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. With groups like the life reformers , wandering birds and nature lovers , despite considerable differences in content, they had in common a discomfort with modern industrial society, “Western thinking” and the prevailing culture. Inflation saints like Haeusser packaged this criticism in religious terms. They proclaimed a “redemption” through Jesus Christ or his return, thus combining chiliastic and soteriological ideas with one another. Many of these new "saints", in addition to Haeusser for example Friedrich Muck-Lamberty , Max Schulze-Sölde , Emil Leibold , Leonhard Stark and Franz Kaiser , saw themselves as the reincarnation of Jesus or as their own god. In addition, there was an erotic component - and not only for Haeusser - which treated physical “cleansing”, “enthusiasm for the flesh” and sexual fulfillment and redemption, which was unusually open for the time.

The lost First World War with its political, economic and social consequences increased the acceptance for this kind of salvation and awakening movements, through which the petty bourgeoisie in particular promised new meaning and a spiritual reorganization. “When the revolutionaries were slain, sat in prison or resigned, the hour of the traveling prophets struck. When the external revolution came to an end, it found its continuation in the consciousness revolution, in a spiritual turn, ”said the historian Ulrich Linse. For Haeusser, the world was one huge “shit house” that had to be cleaned by him. A spirit revolution was to shape the coming new "empire". Again and again he emphasizes the power of the individual and of “action”. What all inflation saints had in common was this belief in their own “I” up to and including the desire to become one's own “God” and the resulting megalomania and urge to self-portrayal. In this sense Haeusser's traditional battle cry is to be understood: "I want to become a master, not master of people, but of myself!"

Literary processing

  • The church-critical writer Hermann Stehr built Louis Haeusser in his novel Droben Gnade Drunten Recht. The sex of the Maechler (Leipzig 1944) one.
  • The writer and national Bolshevik Ernst Niekisch describes his memories of alleged “redeemers” like Haeusser and Adolf Hitler in Daring Life. Encounters and experiences (Cologne / Berlin 1958).
  • Otto Buchinger reports in From marine doctor to fasting doctor. Metamorphoses of a hiker (Breisgau 1955) from the contacts of the DADA scene with grasses and the Haeusser association.
  • The play ! I speak! Join me!!! Haeusser and his contemporaries Gusto Gräser, Otto Gross and Gregor Gog put a search for salvation on stage. World premiere: May 17th, 2007 at Theater Rampe , Stuttgart.

Publications

  • The Haeusser speech of November 23, 1922 in the parking garage in Wilhelmshaven: According to a shorthand . Wilhelmshaven 1922
  • The superman of tomorrow . Heilbronn 1966
  • I am the deed. From the estate of the cultural philosopher . Heilbronn 1966
  • The meaning of our existence: Breviary. Thoughts from his work . Heilbronn 1966

literature

  • Judith Baumgartner / Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe (eds.): New beginnings - side paths - astray. Search movements and subcultures in the 20th century. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2883-X
  • Carl Dopf (ed.): Häusser in the judgment of his contemporaries . Hamburg: Krakehler-Verlag 1923
  • Eduard Gugenberger: Messengers of the Apocalypse. Visionaries and executors of the Third Reich . Vienna: Ueberreuter 2002, pp. 45–58 ISBN 3-8000-3840-4
  • Ulrich Linse: Wandering Prophet of the Twenties , in: Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Ed.): Residence: Nirgendwo . Berlin: Frölich & Kaufmann 1982, pp. 191-208 ISBN 3-88725-070-2
  • Ulrich Linse: Barefoot prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin: Siedler-Verlag 1983 ISBN 3-88680-088-1
  • Friedrich Wencker-Wildberg : Uncrowned kings. Attempt of a world history of the adventurer . Graz: Das Bergland-Buch 1934, pp. 638–649

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the text is based on Ulrich Linse: Barefoot Prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, pp. 156-200.
  2. ^ Declaration by Haeusser v. January 25, 1923 , Langenhagen Mental Hospital, No. 5896, p. 1 (Hannover City Archives).
  3. ↑ Self-description in: Haeusser No. 223 (1926).
  4. ↑ Quotations in: Ulrich Linse: Barefoot Prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 160f.
  5. ↑ s. Ulrich Linse: Barefoot prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 71f.
  6. ↑ cit. in Dieter Gerlinger: Louis Haeusser, the "Bönnigheimer Heiland" 2000 (web link).
  7. ↑ cit. in cit. in Dieter Gerlinger: Louis Haeusser, the "Bönnigheimer Heiland" 2000 (web link).
  8. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Barefoot Prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 57f.
  9. ↑ Insanity or rascality? , in: Junge Menschen 3 (1922), H. 9/10, P. 138ff.
  10. ↑ cit. n. Ulrich Linse: Barefoot prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 181.
  11. ↑ cit. n. Ulrich Linse: Barefoot prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 178.
  12. ^ Letter v. March 13, 1922, completely in Gerlinger (web link).
  13. ↑ Patient file Ludwig Haeusser (1923), Nervenklinik Langenhagen, No. 5896; two further reports in: State Archives Ludwigsburg, F 302 I Bü 39; in the specialist literature: Eduard Reiss : On formal personality transformation as a result of changed milieu conditions , in: Zschr. fd Gesamt Neurologie und Psychiatrie 70 (1921), pp. 55–92; Ders .: A prophet of chastity with sexually perverse activity , in: Zeitschrift für die Sexualwissenschaft 8 (1921), p. 113ff .; AV Knack: The Häusser Problem , in: International Journal of Legal Medicine 4, No. 1 (Dec 1924), pp. 9-28; Ders .: Some more about the Häusser movement , in: Dt. Zschr. F. judicial Medicine 8 (1926), pp. 66-80.
  14. ↑ s. Cornelia Regin: Traces of a Prophet - Haeusser in Hanover. In: Judith Baumgartner / Bernd Wedemeyer-Kolwe (eds.): Awakening - side paths - astray. Search movements and subcultures in the 20th century. Würzburg 2004, pp. 185-192; Gerlinger (web link); Criminal case against the traveling speaker Louis Haeusser u. a. (1919–1924) , State Archives Ludwigsburg, F 302 I Bü 39 .
  15. ↑ s. Ulrich Linse: Barefoot prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 230ff.
  16. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Barefoot Prophets. Savior of the twenties . Berlin 1983, p. 23; see also Carl Christian Bry : Verkappte Religionen , Gotha 1924; Gregor Dobler: 'Inflation Saints' - Prophets in the Context of the Alternative Movements of the Twenties in Germany , Uni Bayreuth, SS 2001 (manuscript).
  17. ↑ s. Ulrich Linse: Wandering Prophet of the Twenties , in: Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Ed.): Residence: Nirgendwo . Berlin 1982, p. 205.
  18. ↑ Quotations from: Ulrich Linse: Wandering prophet of the twenties , in: Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Ed.): Residence: Nirgendwo . Berlin 1982, pp. 191, 196.
personal data
SURNAME Haeusser, Ludwig Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haeusser, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prophet and saint of inflation
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Bönnigheim , Heilbronn district
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1927
Place of death Berlin