Peter Wust

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10th anniversary of Peter Wust's death, stamp year 1950 from Saarland

Peter Wust (born August 28, 1884 in Rissenthal ; † April 3, 1940 in Münster ) was a German Christian existential philosopher .

Life

He was born as the first of eleven children in Rissenthal, today a district of Losheim am See , in the Merzig-Wadern district in Saarland . His father, a sieve maker , had little money. Peter Wust first attended the one-class elementary school in his hometown, then the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Trier . His parents hoped he would become a Catholic priest , but instead decided to study other subjects after graduating from high school.

From 1907 Wust studied German , English and philosophy in Berlin and Strasbourg . He then worked as a teacher in Berlin , Neuss , Trier and Cologne before he received his doctorate at the University of Bonn in 1914 .

Under the influence of Max Scheler , Wust, who was initially a staunch Neo-Kantian , approached the emerging Christian existentialism . In 1920 he published The Resurrection of the Metaphysical . Contacts with the Renouveau catholique also played a role in this change . 1928 made Wust in Paris a . a. the acquaintance with Jacques Maritain , who was particularly close to him, Georges Bernanos , Léon Bloy , Paul Claudel and Nikolai Berdjajew . His book Mysterium Crucis has dedicated one of the leading figures of the German liturgical movement , Johannes Pinsk , among others to Wust.

In 1930 he was unexpectedly appointed professor of philosophy at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster without having completed his habilitation or having had teaching experience. Almost at the same time as Heidegger he designed his philosophy around human existence, but Wust's philosophy remained Catholic. After Hitler came to power, he was active in the ecclesiastical resistance during National Socialism . He planned a cultural offensive of German Catholicism. His philosophy aimed at the cultural unity of Europe under the sign of the Catholic faith alone. He saw Europe “undermined” by the Reformation and the Enlightenment, turned sharply against Bolshevism and interpreted the world economic crisis as a result of betrayal of Christian culture.

In exchange with existential philosophy and philosophical anthropology and against the background of classical metaphysics, Wust sees what is decisive in human beings in their 'insecuritas' situation, in the fundamental insecurity of human beings, which is shown on the most varied of levels such as science, philosophy and religion. It opens up the space in which man can only really realize himself in the space of finite freedom, which, however, always also means the daring character of human existence.

Peter Wust had suffered from maxillary cancer since 1938 and died in 1940 at the age of 55, so that he could still experience the beginning of the Second World War . On December 18, 1939, a few months before his death, he wrote a " farewell letter " to his students, in which he gave them a Μετανοεῖτε. (German: "Think / turn around!") shouts.

“And if you should ask me now, before I go and leave for good, whether I don't know a magic key that could open the last gate to the wisdom of life, then I would answer you: 'Yes' - and this is this magic key not the reflection, as you might expect from a philosopher, but prayer. The prayer is taken as a final devotion, makes silent, makes childlike, makes objective. "

- Peter Wust

reception

The Peter Wust Society , founded in 1982, has made it its business to look after the intellectual heritage of Peter Wust. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Peter Wust Society, the Saarland Minister of Culture Jürgen Schreier unveiled a sculpture “ Uncertainty and Risk ” created by Professor Rudolf Engel . It is named and thematically based on the main work of the same name by Peter Wust.

A memorial plaque is attached to Wust's birthplace in Rissenthal . Today there are, among others, the Peter-Wust-Schule in Münster , the Peter-Wust-Gymnasium in Wittlich , the Peter-Wust Community School in Püttlingen and the Peter-Wust-Gymnasium in Merzig as well as streets in different places, e.g. in Münster, in Merzig , his hometown Rissenthal and Trier - Heiligkreuz named after him. The Peter Wust Society annually awards the “Small Peter Wust Prize” to a high school graduate from the two high schools in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate.

Since 1975, the Catholic Academy Trier and Christian Adult Education Merzig have awarded the Peter Wust Prize every two years to promote European culture and European unification. In 2005 Prime Minister a. D. Bernhard Vogel received the award. Former Federal Environment Minister Professor Dr. Klaus Töpfer was awarded the Peter Wust Prize 2011 in Saarbrücken.

Werner Schüßler , holder of the Chair of Philosophy II at the Trier Theological Faculty , is one of those people who are still intensively concerned with the thinking of Peter Wust . Together with Werner Veauthier (†) he edited Wust's main work “ Uncertainty and Risk ” in 2002 in a new version (LIT Verlag, Münster).

Fonts (selection)

  • Resurrection of Metaphysics (1920)
  • Return from exile (1926)
  • Dialectic of Mind (1928)
  • Naivety and Piety (1925)
  • Man and Philosophy (1934)
  • Uncertainty and Risk (1937), 5th edition, Münster 2019 ISBN 978-3643145291
  • Figures and Thoughts (1940)
  • Farewell Word (1940)
  • Collected works , ed. by Wilhelm Vernekohl, Vol. I – X, Münster: Regensberg-Verlag, 1963–1969.

literature

  • Peter Keller (Ed.): Encounter with Peter Wust. 26 authors in dialogue with the Christian existential philosopher from Saarland. Verlag Die Mitte, Saarbrücken 1984, ISBN 3-921236-48-7 .
  • Alexander Lohner : Peter Wust . Regensberg, Münster 1991, ISBN 3-7923-0601-8 .
  • Alexander Lohner: Peter Wust. Certainty and risk . Schöningh, Paderborn 2nd edition 1995. ( digitized BSB Munich)
  • Josef Pieper : Nobody knew yet. Autobiographical records 1904–1945 , Munich 1976, pp. 152–153.
  • Marc Röbel: amazement and awe. A work-history study of Peter Wust's thinking . LIT, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-0714-6 .
  • Bernhard Scherer: A modern mystic. Meeting with Peter Wust. Naumann, Würzburg 1974.
  • Werner Schüßler :  Peter Wust. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 193-200.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Wilhelm Vernekohl: The philosopher of Münster . Regensberg, Münster 1950.
  • F. Werner Veauthier: Cultural criticism as a task of cultural philosophy. Peter Wust's importance as a critic of culture and civilization . Heidelberg 1997.
  • Peter Wust and Wilhelm Vernekohl: Letters and Articles . Regensberg, Münster 1958.
  • Werner Schüßler / Marc Röbel (ed.): "The restlessness of the human heart" - Insights into the work of Peter Wust (Edition Peter Wust. Series of publications by the Peter Wust Society, ed. By Herbert Hoffmann and Werner Schüßler, Volume 5), Berlin 2013 , ISBN 978-3-643-12063-2

On the direct influence of Peter Wust's philosophy on the painter and Paul Klee student Hubert Berke (1908–1979), the exhibition “From Peter Wust to Paul Klee - The Cologne painter Hubert Berke ”. See: Richard Kreidler: The painter Hubert Berke in Cologne 1934–1945 . Kölner Museums-Bulletin 2/2004, pp. 4–18.

Web links

Commons : Peter Wust  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Bambauer: N. Berdjajew and the German Philosopher Peter Wust
  2. ^ Christian Tilitzki: The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich. DE GRUYTER, Berlin, Boston 2002, ISBN 978-3-05-007981-3 , pp. 250 f., 401 ( google.de [accessed June 25, 2020]).
  3. ^ A parting word, Paul Wolff, Regensburg 1949, Christian Philosophy in Germany 1920–1945 p. 74.
  4. ↑ Memorial stone "Uncertainty and Risk"
personal data
SURNAME Wust, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Christian existential philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Rissenthal , Saarland
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1940
Place of death Muenster