Otto Dammer

Otto Dammer

Johann Gustav Eduard Otto Dammer (born April 20, 1839 in Stettin , † October 18, 1916 in Altkirchen ) was a German chemist , lexicographer , journalist and politician .

Live and act

Otto Dammer was born in Stettin in 1839 as the son of the teacher Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Dammer (1812–1850) and his wife Emilie Henriette Ottilie born. Benoit (1816–1839) born; the mother died a few days later. In Stettin he first attended the Otto School, where his father was a teacher, and later the Marienstiftsgymnasium . After confirmation in 1853, he became an apprentice pharmacist with his uncle Gustav Benoit (1822–1871) in the elephant pharmacy in Berlin and then a pharmacy assistant in Stettin.

A few years of chemistry studies followed in Berlin (under Heinrich Rose and Eilhard Mitscherlich ) and in Göttingen (under Friedrich Wöhler and Heinrich Limpricht ). On December 15, 1857, he passed the Rigorosum in Giessen and, after approving his dissertation De fermentatione, was awarded a Dr. phil. PhD. In August 1860 he married Mathilde Bohnenstengel in Gotha , the daughter of a teacher from Schützendorf (Cammin / Pomerania district).

Immediately after completing his doctorate, he began to write small popular articles that were published in nature (edited in Halle by Otto Ule ) and in the gazebo . At the suggestion of Professor Emil Adolf Roßmaessler , he became editor of the Lower Silesian Gazette in 1861 and worked on the editorial team of Roßmaessler's magazine Aus der Heimat . Through Roßäßler, Dammer came into contact with the Leipzig Workers' Educational Association, where he subsequently gave several lectures and met Alfred Brehm, among others . Through his mediation he became an employee at Meyer's Bibliographical Institute in 1862 .

Due to dissatisfaction with bourgeois concepts for solving the social question , Dammer separated from the workers 'education association in 1862 and founded a new workers' association "Forward" together with Julius Vahlteich and Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche . Under the impression of Ferdinand Lassalle's workers program and his first constitutional speech, Dammer, Fritzsche and Vahlteich approached Lassalle in December 1862 and called on him on behalf of the “Committee for the Convocation of a General German Workers 'Day” to position himself at the head of the German workers' movement .

Letter from O. Dammer to August Bebel from 1903 (original in the archive of the IISG )

In the period that followed, Dammer became very involved in the ADAV , which he took over from Lassalle's departure to Switzerland until the end of 1864. Then he resigned this office, moved with his family to Hildburghausen and devoted himself there to work on Meyer's Konversationslexikon ; This he oversaw in the following years up to the sixth edition (1902–1908). In addition, he wrote or edited numerous scientific works, including the manual of inorganic chemistry and the German boy experiment book . From 1886/87 to 1890 Dammer was co-editor of the popular science magazine Humboldt. From then on, Dammer seems to have largely stopped his political engagement, but his correspondence shows that he continued to be in contact with the social democratic movement.

From 1869 until his death Dammer lived in Berlin (from 1883 in Friedenau, most recently in Stubenrauchstrasse 67). His eleven grown-up children included the botanist Carl Lebrecht Udo Dammer and the geologist Bruno Dammer , his grandchildren included the Benedictine Eva “Placida” Laubhardt , the painter and graphic artist Hildegard Halfar-Dammer and the painter and graphic artist Joachim Dammer .

literature

• Wilhelm Benoit: History of the Benoit family from 1621 to 1909 . Macklot, Karlsruhe 1909, pp. 207-211.
• Otto Dammer . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism. Volume I. Deceased personalities . JHW Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, p. 59.
• Martin Hundt : Dammer, Johann Gustav Eduard Otto . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, pp. 80-81.
• Shlomo Na'aman : Otto Dammer - the first German worker functionary from the ranks of the proletarian intelligentsia . In: Yearbook of the Institute for German History . Tel Aviv 1973
• Helga Grebing :  Dammer, Otto. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 501 ( digitized version ).
• Andreas W. Daum : Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . 2nd, supplementary edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-486-56551-5 .
• Wolfgang Schröder : Leipzig - the cradle of the German labor movement. Roots and development of the workers' education association 1848/49 - 1878/81 . Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-320-02214-3 , pp. 12, 57, 62, 68, 339.

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Dammer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Documents about Otto Dammer in the archive of the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam): search function

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Dammer on genealogy.net
2. ↑ Emilie Henriette Ottilie Benoit on genealogy.net
3. ↑ Gustav Benoit on genealogy.net  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Mathilde Bohnenstengel on genealogy.net
5. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, p. 156-158, 205-207, 482 .
6. ^ Andreas W. Daum: Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . Munich 2002, p. 365 .