Peter Wilhelm Hensler

Peter Wilhelm Hensler (born February 14, 1742 in Preetz , † July 29, 1779 in Hamburg ) was a German lawyer and writer .

Life

Peter Wilhelm Hensler was the youngest son of Friedrich Hensler and his wife Margarete Elisabeth, née Wedderkop . His father preached at Preetz Monastery , but died shortly after the birth of the son, whereupon his mother moved back to her parents in Oldenswort .

Peter Wilhelm Hensler attended the Christianeum from 1759 to 1760 and began studying law at the University of Göttingen in April 1760 . From 1761 to 1763 he studied at the University of Kiel . After working for Hans zu Rantzau , he moved to a tax office in Altona . Here he lived in a house with Johann Friedrich Struensee .

Hensler then worked for a short time as secretary of the Levetzow Privy Council in Reinfeld and moved to Stade in 1766 . Here he worked as a lawyer and after a few years took over the office of the state syndic of the estates of the Duchy of Bremen .

In 1779, when he was seriously ill, Hensler visited his older brother, the doctor Philipp Gabriel Hensler , in Altona and died during his stay in Hamburg.

Hensler had been married to Johanna Dorothea Wilhelmina Alberti, a daughter of Julius Gustav Alberti , since 1772 . The marriage resulted in two daughters and the son Gustav Wilhelm Hensler .

Works

Hensler was especially respected as an epigrammatist . His writings appeared in the Museum Almanach and in the Poetic Flower Harvest , both edited by Heinrich Christian Boie . Moreover, they are in Göttingen Musenalmanach of Voss Johann Heinrich find. In 1776 Hensler wrote about the play with the title Lorenz Konau . This deals with Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and is about a bookbinder who complains that his daughter has become "emotional" because of the novel. Hensler stood up against the widespread "Werther fever" after the novel was published and the sensitive enthusiasm associated with it, which, from his point of view, contradicted pragmatic ethics.

The poems were published posthumously by Philipp Gabriel Hensler and Johann Heinrich Voss.

literature

• Hans-Werner Engels : Hensler, Peter Wilhelm . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 146-147 .
• Hensler, Peter Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 7-11.