Magnus Schwantje

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Magnus Schwantje (born June 3, 1877 in Oldenburg , † September 11, 1959 in Oberhausen ) was a German writer , pacifist , animal rights activist , pioneer of the German vegetarian movement and founder of the Association for Radical Ethics .

Live and act

Magnus Ernst Schwantje first completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller . In 1898 he was a pupil of the "nature apostle" and painter Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach for a short time in his rural commune near Vienna. At the beginning of the 20th century he first worked for the Berlin Animal Welfare Association , where he gained experience that was later useful as a speaker and writer.

In 1907 he founded his own organization, the " Society for the Promotion of Animal Welfare and Related Endeavors" , which in 1919 changed its name to the Bund for Radical Ethics and existed until 1933. Among the several hundred members was also the peace politician Ludwig Quidde , his wife Margarethe , Hans Paasche and Adolf Richter .

Even before the First World War , Magnus Schwantje published the Ethische Rundschau , a magazine to promote the peace movement . He was also a co-founder of the Association of War Resisters, which was founded after the First World War, and wrote articles for the magazines Die Friedens-Warte and Friedensfront .

Under National Socialism, the Bund for Radical Ethics was banned. Schwantje experienced house searches in March 1933. In September he was arrested and interrogated in the infamous Columbia-Haus Gestapo prison . He was removed from the transport list to Dachau . In 1934 he fled to Switzerland. Here he supported the Zurich dentist Ludwig Fliegel in the work on the book 1000 Doctors Against Vivisection , for which he also wrote the foreword. The book, the distribution of which was banned by the National Socialists in Germany, was published in Switzerland in 1935. After his return to Germany in 1949, he worked again as a consultant for the issues of animal welfare, vegetarianism and the peace movement. He lived with his sister Alwine Schütte in Stade until 1956 and moved to the Ruhr area after her death.

Positions

During the First World War, Schwantje developed the term “radical ethics”, an ethic that wanted to tackle the root (hence radical from the Latin radix = root) of all social evils. Schwantje's radical ethics also included “radical animal protection” as the most important component. According to Schwantje, every being capable of suffering was a “legal subject”, regardless of which species it belongs to. Vegetarian nutrition, the abolition of vivisection and hunting were the central demands of Schwantje's animal rights concept. Schwantje's vegetarianism was far-reaching. He maintained a lifestyle that we would call vegan today without the term being common at the time.

Schwantje justified his vegetarianism primarily ethically and rejected recourse to naturalistic arguments. In addition, Schwantje repeatedly turned against the prejudice of entire peoples or groups, for example as cruelers to animals as in the case of Spain. Even anti-Semitism , racism or the time popular eugenics declined Schwantje decisively.

Today's proponents of anti-speciesism see it as a forerunner; The author Matthias Rude writes in his book Antispeciesism : “Schwantje saw through the function of speciesist ideology completely.” In 1927 he spoke at the VII International Democratic Peace Congress in Würzburg and said, among other things: “Most people, especially meat-eaters, fall It is difficult, however, to judge animals impartially, because they see that if they have to recognize them as having higher psychic qualities, especially great ability to suffer, they must not exploit them to the extent that they do today. It is precisely because man receives great benefit from the exploitation of animals that he despises them. Today's contempt for animals has the same cause as the underestimation of workers, women, negroes and other oppressed and exploited people. Whenever people want to exploit other people, they tend to suggest views about these people that make it easier for them to exploit. "

Works

  • The "noble hunts" and lust murder. 1897
  • The right of laypeople towards doctors. 1901
  • The Relationship of the Animal Welfare Movement to Other Ethical Endeavors. 1909
  • Animal murder and human murder, vegetarianism and pacifism 1916 (reprinted in 2010, see individual records)
  • Radicalism and idealism. 1919
  • About Richard Wagner's ethical work. 1919
  • Schopenhauer's views of the animal soul and animal welfare. 1919
  • Reasons against vivisection . 1919
  • Peace heroism. Pacifist essays from 1914 and 1915. 1919
  • Should we respect any so-called honest belief? An investigation of the influence of the unconscious will on the formation of judgments. 1920
  • Hans Paasche. His life and work. 1921
  • The right to use force. 1922
  • The love for animals. 1923
  • Animal slaughter and war. 1928
  • Reverence for life, brotherhood and vegetarianism. 1949
  • Mutual help and struggle for existence in the animal world. 1952

literature

  • Leo Tolstoy , Clara Wichmann , Elisée Reclus , Magnus Schwantje u. a. - End the slaughter! On the criticism of violence against animals. Anarchist, feminist, pacifist and left socialist traditions. Verlag Graswurzelrevolution Heidelberg 2010, pp. 97–119
  • Magnus Ernst Schwantje died , in: Mitteilungen des Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein , vol. 38 (1963), pp. 53–54.
  • Käthe Moritz (Ed.): Magnus Schwantje - the pioneering vegetarian philosopher and rarely unselfish person to remember . Friedens-Verlag: Salzburg / Großgmain - Bad Reichhall o. J. [1959?]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Renate Brucker: Animal rights and peace movement. “Radical Ethics” and Social Progress in German History . In: Dorothee Brantz, Christof Mauch (Ed.): Animal history. The relationship between humans and animals in modern culture . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76382-2 , pp. 268–285, here p. 270.
  2. ↑ Renate Brucker: Magnus Schwantje: Reverence for life . In: Leo Tolstoi, Clara Wichmann, Elisée Reclus, Magnus Schwantje u. a .: End the slaughter! On the criticism of violence against animals. Anarchist, feminist, pacifist and left socialist traditions . Verlag Graswurzelrevolution, Heidelberg 2010, pp. 97–119, here p. 102.
  3. ↑ Renate Brucker: Magnus Schwantje: Reverence for life . In: Leo Tolstoi, Clara Wichmann, Elisée Reclus, Magnus Schwantje u. a .: End the slaughter! On the criticism of violence against animals. Anarchist, feminist, pacifist and left socialist traditions . Verlag Graswurzelrevolution, Heidelberg 2010, pp. 97–119, here p. 103.
  4. ^ Matthias Rude: Antispeciesism. The liberation of humans and animals in the animal rights movement and the left , Stuttgart 2013, p. 103f.
personal data
SURNAME Schwantje, Magnus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Oldenburg
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1959
Place of death Oberhausen