Paul Brockhaus

Paul Brockhaus in the 1930s

Paul Wilhelm Gerhard Brockhaus (born February 3, 1879 in Bad Godesberg , † June 2, 1965 in Lübeck ) was a German publicist and educator.

Live and act

Career until 1933

Brockhaus was the son of the later secret medical councilor Karl Brockhaus and his wife Maria, geb. Basement, cellar. His grandfather Carl Brockhaus was a leading representative of the evangelical brother movement . After attending school at the Evangelical Education Center in Bad Godesberg and graduating from the Royal High School in Bonn at Easter 1898, Brockhaus studied Protestant theology from 1898 to 1902 at the universities of Tübingen , where he became a member of the Derendingia fraternity , and Bonn . In 1902 he passed the first theological exam in Bonn, then attended the seminary in Soest from 1902 to 1903 and in 1904 took the second state theological examination in Koblenz . Subsequently, however, he did not enter the church service, but took a job as a teacher at the German School in Brussels at Easter 1904 . From there he passed the state examination for higher education in Bonn in 1906 in the subjects of Protestant religion, Hebrew and history, and in 1911 an additional examination in French.

At Easter 1911 Brockhaus came to Lübeck as a senior teacher through the mediation of the Lübeck reform pedagogue Sebald Schwarz , where Schwarz built the Oberrealschule zum Dom . Because of an eye problem, Brockhaus did not have to do military service during World War I and therefore remained in Lübeck school service. In 1918 he was appointed professor.

In addition to his work as a teacher, Brockhaus developed a wide range of people's educational and cultural-political activities in Lübeck. He became an active member of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities and soon played a leading role there.

He was a member of a "Committee against Dirt and Trash" founded in 1908, which in 1918 was initially renamed the "Committee for the Promotion of Folk Art" and after the end of the war the "Association for Folk Art". As one of his measures for "popular education" Brockhaus initiated a yearbook in 1919 together with Asmus Jessen , which initially appeared until 1923 under the title Lübecker Heimatkalender , then in 1924/1925 as Ein Lübeckisches Jahrbuch and finally as Der Wagen . Until the year of his death, Brockhaus was responsible for its content as editor and wrote numerous articles himself.

Since 1923 he was the editor of the Lübeckische Blätter published by the “Gemeinnützige” (non-profit organization) , which were not only a communication organ for the society, but also a central and influential forum for cultural and political discussion for the bourgeois milieu of the city. As the editor, Brockhaus gave room for controversial views.

Music, especially choral singing, theater, especially amateur drama, and folk dance played an important role in the “folk” and “community-building” art movement sought by Brockhaus. In the early 1920s, through his headmaster Schwarz, he received the Low German text of a nativity play from Pastor Wilhelm Mildenstein at the Luther Church , which he had received from Hamburg. Only later did it emerge that it was not an originally Low German piece, but a translation from Upper German into Low German. After revising the piece, Brockhaus initiated the Lübeck nativity play with students from the Oberschule zum Dom. In doing so, he established a Christmas tradition in Lübeck that continues to this day. Since he moved to the Katharineum in 1934, the nativity play has been performed by students at this school every year before Christmas until today under the rood screen of the Aegidienkirche .

In the mid-1920s Brockhaus had achieved a "singular" position in Lübeck's cultural life and "embodied [...] like no other Lübeck cultural worker the type of German-national educated citizen, anti-democrat from the heart, pioneer [...] of a National Socialist, Renewal ‛before 1933”. He was active in the Nordic Society and one of the most important organizers of the 700th anniversary of the freedom of the Reich in Lübeck in 1926. He was nationally involved in the German stage community, of which he was chairman until 1933, on the federal board of the stage people's union and the German youth stage.

Brockhaus, who had already brought the idea of ​​a "Low German cultural area from Flanders to the Baltic States" with him from his work in Brussels, was an activist of the Low German movement and was a member of the Fehrs Guild , which was important there. The “social Darwinist and racially Aryan” conceptualized Low German movement formed a segment of the Völkisch movement. The “iron stock” of the Low German movement of “Low German ideology” was their “racism” until at least the end of National Socialism. By the 1920s at the latest, the Fehrs-Gilde represented racist positions up to “open anti-Semitism [...], so that at last there was agreement with fascist politics in its most brutal form.” The example published by the guild is an example of this , What is Low German? Published in Kiel in 1928 Contributions to tribal studies , in which well-known representatives of racist and anti-Semitic views such as Adolf Bartels and Christian Boeck or the leading National Socialist racial ideologist Hans FK Günther contributed. Brockhaus was a member of the guild's "honorary committee". He was involved in the organization of the Low German-Flemish Culture Days in 1927.

time of the nationalsocialism

Brockhaus completed the transition from the Weimar Republic to National Socialism in a few weeks without conflict. While he was still the editor of the Lübeckische Blätter a week after the National Socialist takeover of power on February 5, 1933, whose character as a discussion organ he had emphasized, his next major contribution was already an anthemic eulogy for Adolf Hitler on the occasion of the “Führer birthday” on April 20, 1933 Here he described Hitler as a "brilliant person", who read with "brilliant certainty" in the "soul of the German people" and gave him "faith ... in his right to freedom and greatness, in his task in the world" have. The following issue began a series of prints from Hitler's Mein Kampf . A week later "The Low Germans turned to Adolf Hitler". On June 25, 1933, a contribution by the composer and NSDAP member Hugo Distler appeared, "On the mission of German Protestant church music and Lübeck's commitment as a church music city in particular". Right from the start, it called for “race care and healthy eugenics” as well as the “eradication of all foreign and anti-popular literature”.

Looking back in 2008, the Lübeckische Blätter saw the name Paul Brockhaus for the magazine's “change of course” in the summer of 1933 at the latest. “In the years that followed, the newspapers were trimmed more and more strictly on the Nazi course, especially during the war the bombastic one became Propaganda as the main feature of the magazine. ”According to a National Socialist ruling from 1939, the editor had understood,“ to transfer the former conference room on purely Lübeck matters into a general-cultural weekly German and National Socialist style. ”

In August 1933, the members of the “non-profit” committee for the Lübeckische Blätter and Paul Brockhaus as editor-in-chief made their offices available in order to enable a comprehensive replacement in the interests of the regime. Brockhaus then took over the editorial office again and kept it until 1951. “Under Brockhaus, the Lübeckische Blätter became the mouthpiece of the National Socialist elite of bourgeois origin.” In addition to Brockhaus, the National Socialist ideologues Werner Daitz and Hans Wolff shaped the face of the magazine. When the Lübeckische Blätter was supposed to be discontinued in 1941 due to the war-related paper shortage, it was possible to obtain another publication until 1943 with reference to its ideological significance at the Propaganda Ministry .

The development of the yearbook Der Wagen , which was published from 1930 to 1944 (with one interruption in 1934 and 1935) by Verlag Westphal, also shows the integration into National Socialism. The publisher Brockhaus was there as editor Asmus Jessen at the side. Jessen had joined the NSDAP early on. In addition to working together on this publication, the two were linked by a decades-long friendship, which also included the Lübeck painter and carpet artist Erich Klahn , for whom Brockhaus was a "lifelong friend and sponsor". Brockhaus supported Jessen like Klahn, who for him was "in the best sense of the word a Low German artist". What Brockhaus liked about Jessen and Klahn's art was the joint "reflection on creative, species and home-bound forces ... while turning away from international social art."

Anti-Semitic things also came into the car under the direction of Brockhaus . In a contribution about "Dyl Ulenspeegel's poetic broadcast" z. For example, the "Eulenspiegel" by the author Georg Engel , " Berliner Tageblatt -Jude", in which it was only enough for a "Till of the system time", was opposed to the "martyr" of a "higher community". Charles de Coster's "Ulenspiegel", for which Klahn created an extensive cycle of watercolor illustrations, was praised in the car as a representative of "idealism of action, faith, willingness to make sacrifices and a big heart". That is what the novel "reveals so originally Germanic and German".

While the " synchronization " of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities , its subsidiary associations and publications resulted in an extensive exchange of personnel, which on the one hand resulted in the exclusion of "non-Aryan" leaders and on the other hand in the entry of NSDAP members, Brockhaus remained who himself joined the NSDAP, took up his post and expanded it. As the company's “press officer”, he was now also responsible for contact with the daily press. Brockhaus took over the management of the newly built open-air theater in the Lübeck Wallanlagen in 1934-39 and was thus able to expand his voluntary commitment to popular amateur play .

Brockhaus, who occasionally wrote, was a - so in retrospect 1961 - "good and respected friend" of 1936 by the Nazi Government President Johann Heinrich Boehmcker into being called Eutiner poet circle . It included ethnic and National Socialist authors such as Hermann Claudius , Hans Ehrke , Georg von der Vring , Heinrich Eckmann , Gustav Frenssen , Edwin Erich Dwinger , Barthold Blunck and Hans Friedrich Blunck ; its activities were geared towards the needs of the party and the state.

Grave of Paul Brockhaus in the cemetery at the St. Jürgen Chapel , Lübeck

post war period

Towards the end of the war Brockhaus was retired as a teacher because he had reached the age limit. He was able to continue his activities in Lübeck's cultural life almost seamlessly after 1945, in particular as editor of the Lübeckische Blätter, which had been published again since 1949, and of the car , which, according to the judgment of his successor Manfred Eickhölter, retained its folkish tenor until Brockhaus' death in 1965. In a renewed ideological adaptation to the zeitgeist, Brockhaus now propagated a return to the urban bourgeoisie as the basis of democracy. From 1951 Brockhaus built the “non-profit” theater ring. After the "Gemeinnützige" had already awarded him its silver medal in 1939, in 1951 he was also given the society's gold medal when he left as editor of the Lübeckische Blätter . As a member of the editorial team, he continued to work on the Lübeckische Blätter . In 1957, the “non-profit organization” established the Professor Paul Brockhaus Foundation with the aim of promoting arts and crafts in Lübeck. It is now no longer on the list of the company's foundations.

family

Brockhaus was married to Magdalene ("Dale") Haukohl (1890–1979) and had a daughter and three sons with her.

Fonts

• Pranks, purrs and jokes for people who like to laugh. Stuttgart: Thienemann 1914, 2nd edition 1922
• All kinds of frills. Stuttgart: Thienemann, [1914]
• Of rascals and funny owls. Stuttgart: Thienemann, [1914]
• From the Lübeck home. Frankfurt a. M .: Diesterweg 1914
• The miracle tree. Stuttgart: K. Thienemann 1920
• From eating and drinking. Stuttgart: Waldorf-Astoria Zigarettenfabrik AG, [around 1926]
• Puzzle booklet for children of all ages. Lübeck: Rathgens 1948
• Shellfish. Poems Lübeck: Antäus-Verl. with Verl. Rahtgens 1948
• Greetings to the friends. Lübeck: [sn] 1950
• The book of St. Marien zu Lübeck. Stuttgart: Evang. Publishing company [1951]
• The dance of death in the Marienkirche in Lübeck. Wolfshagen-Scharbeutz: Westphal 1951
• Signs on the way. Wolfshagen-Scharbeutz / Bay of Lübeck: Westphal 1953
• In the evening field. [sl]: [sn] 1956
• From Lübeck Cathedral. Lübeck: Hansisches Verl.-Kontor Scheffler in Komm. 1958
• The tower cock. A book of poets from Lübeck. Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild 1960

literature

• Rolf Saltzwedel : Paul Brockhaus. In: Der Wagen 1967 , pp. 6-14.
• Rolf Saltzwedel: On the 100th birthday of Professor Paul Brockhaus . In: Lübeckische Blätter 1979, pp. 32–35
• Richard Carstensen : Brockhaus, Paul in Lübeck résumés . Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1993, pp. 59-61. ISBN 3-529-02729-4
• Jörg Fligge : Lübeck schools in the "Third Reich": a study on education during the Nazi era in the context of developments in the Reich , Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2014, p. 890 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Membership directory of the Derendingia fraternity in Tübingen. October 1933, p. 31.
2. ↑ Franz Kössler: Personal dictionary of teachers of the 19th century . Vol. 2: Baack – Buzello , p. 537; Digital copy (preprint) from Giessen University Library
3. ^ ^{A b} Regine Ley: The city chronicler . In: Lübecker Nachrichten from 29./30. January 2017, p. 19
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Manfred Eickhölter: Journey to Hell and Forced Conversion . From the history of the charitable. The years 1943-1953. in: Lübeckische Blätter , vol. 179 (2014), issue 15, p. 247 ( digital copy , PDF)
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Martin Thoemmes : 75 years ago: When the "green leaves" turned brown. In: Lübeckische Blätter, vol. 173 (2008), issue 12, pp. 202–203 ( digitized version , PDF)
6. ↑ Birte Arendt, Low German Discourses. Language settings in the context of laypeople, print media and politics, Berlin 2010, p. 100f.
7. ↑ Monika Schürmann / Reinhard Rösler (eds.), Literature and literary politics in the Third Reich. The Doberaner Dichtertag 1936-1943, Rostock 2003, p. 128.
8. ^ Fehrs-Gilde (Ed.), What is Low German? Contributions to tribal studies, Kiel 1928; Kay Dohnke / Norbert Hopster / Jan Wirrer (eds.), Low German in National Socialism, Hildesheim 1994, p. 288; Monika Schürmann, Reinhard Rösler (ed.), Literature and literary politics in the Third Reich. The Doberaner Dichtertag 1936-1943, Rostock 2003, p. 128.
9. ↑ On Boeck: "racist conceptions" and "obvious sympathy for the National Socialists", see: Kay Dohnke / Norbert Hopster / Jan Wirrer (eds.), Low German in National Socialism, Hildesheim 1994, p. 245
10. ↑ Henning Repetzky, "A world to plow is ahead of me" - Erich Klahn. A monograph, Hannover 2001, p. 67.
11. ^ Lübeckische Blätter, April 23, 1933, cited above. based on: Bernd Dohrendorf, The Influence of National Socialism on the Lübeck Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities, in: 200 years. Persistence and change in bourgeois public spirit, ed. v. of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities in Lübeck, Lübeck 1988, pp. 95–117, here: p. 104.
12. ↑ Bernd Dohrendorf, The Influence of National Socialism on the Lübeck Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities, in: 200 years. Persistence and change in bourgeois public spirit, ed. v. of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities in Lübeck, Lübeck 1988, pp. 95–117, here: p. 105.
13. ↑ Manfred Eick Hölter: From the city-state for issued city. Culture of remembrance between marginalization and transformation, in: The end of the independent Lübeck state in 1937, ed. by Jan Lokers and Michael Hundt, Lübeck, Schmidt-Römhild, 2014, pp. 147–161, ISBN 978-3-7905-0493-4 . [Lübeck's future in the National Socialist Reich: the concept of the “Wagen” from 1936].
14. ↑ Claus Schuppenhauer: Eulenspiegel also has time and place. Notes about Erich Klahn and the “Low German Idea” , in: Erich Klahns Ulenspiegel. Series of illustrations for Charles de Coster's novel , Wolfenbüttel 1986, pp. 13–26, here: p. 14.
15. ^ Paul Brockhaus: Versatile Low German artist. The Geibel Prize winner Erich Klahn , in: Die Kogge. Sunday supplement of the Lübecker Zeitung , November 21, 1943.
16. ^ Paul Brockhaus: Arts and crafts and folk culture. From the work of two Low German artists , in: Der Wagen. A Lübeckisches Jahrbuch 1942-1944 , pp. 105–111, here: p. 105.
17. ↑ Claus Schuppenhauer, Eulenspiegel also has time and place. Notes on Erich Klahn and the 'Low German Idea', in: Erich Klahns Ulenspiegel. Series of illustrations for Charles de Coster's novel, Wolfenbüttel 1986, pp. 13–26, here: pp. 23f.
18. ↑ Bundesarchiv Berlin, inventory 3,100 (NSDAP central file), index card for Paul Brockhaus.
19. ↑ Bernd Dohrendorf, The Influence of National Socialism on the Lübeck Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities, in: 200 years. Persistence and change in bourgeois public spirit, ed. v. of the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities in Lübeck, Lübeck 1988, pp. 95–117, passim.
20. ↑ So the dedication in an almanac from 1961. See also the dedication of the "Federspiele 1962/63" by Hermann Claudius to the "friend Paul Brockhaus" (Schleswig-Holstein, published by the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Heimatbund, 1964, p. 252 ).
21. ↑ Lawrence D. Stokes, The Eutin Poet Circle and National Socialism 1936 - 1945. A documentation. With an introduction by Kay Dohnke, Neumünster 2001; Review: [1] ; Lawrence D. Stokes, "Trailblazer of the New National Becoming", see: [2] .
22. ↑ Antje Peters-Hirt: One Hundred Years of Theater Lübeck. "Life - a dream, the world - a theater". In: Lübeckische Blätter, vol. 173 (2008), issue 14, p. 227 ( digital copy , PDF)
23. ↑ Die Gemeinnützige - Foundations of the Charitable , accessed on February 27, 2017.

Web links

• Literature by and about Paul Brockhaus in the catalog of the German National Library