Philipp Heinrich Ast

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Philipp Heinrich Ast - Detail from an oil painting in the old council pharmacy in Winsen (Luhe)

Philipp Heinrich Ast (born April 4, 1848 in Gronau (Leine) ; † August 15, 1921 in Radbruch ; called Schäfer Ast ) was a North German shepherd and in his time a famous herbalist , "who through herbal teas and strong emotional influence on the sick worked ” .

Life

Ast was the son of the shepherd Ernst Heinrich Ast and his wife Hanna Maria Dorothea Henriette Möhle . Son Philipp Heinrich also became a shepherd, but took on another ability from his father: curing sick cattle and even healing sick people. The art of healing had a tradition in the Ast family.

In 1872 Ast moved to Lüdersburg , where his uncle was a sheep master in the service of Baron von Spörcken. In April 1873 Ast took up a position on farm no. 2 in Radbruch (owner Ludwig Ahlers, now Hof Fischer). Ast was already known in the area, for he was widely known as a sheep shearer , and it was not hidden that he could heal sick cattle. But there was another reason for the change: The midwife Anna Dorothea Ahlers (1841–1922), daughter of the housekeeper Ludwig Ahlers (1797–1872) and his wife Anna Catharina Schmidt (1815–1871). She married Ast on December 26, 1873 and the couple had five children: Johanne Karoline Magdalena Ast (1874–1902), Heinrich Peter Philipp Ast (1875–1952), Conrad Franz August Ast (1878–1878), Wilhelm Alfred Ast (1880 –1881) and Carl Otto Ast (1882–1957). The latter had with his wife Olli, geb. Wilkens, two daughters, Olga and Ursel, who married the two brothers Wilhelm and Heinrich Keller.

When Ast had the opportunity to buy mining site 58 (now: Bardowicker Strasse 62) for his small family , he wanted to take it. However, no Radbrucher wanted to give him help or credit, which he never forgot. Finally, Peter Wilkens from Stelle (Harburg district) , for whom he had cured a valuable horse , lent him the money he needed. On September 29, 1888, Ast moved into the new house, where he lived until his death and made a name for himself as a healer. He initially obtained the ingredients for his mixtures from Thuringia . From 1883 he bought himself in Meineckes Winsener Apotheke (today Alte Rats-Apotheke).

In addition to his own experiences and methods, a recipe book that he inherited from his father in 1878 was of great importance to him. The fact that he mixed his medicine himself according to these secret recipes earned him a fine of 75 marks in 1893 for the unauthorized manufacture of medicines. The newspaper reports about it were the best advertisement; soon crowds of people seeking healing came to Radbruch. Ast has been tried several times for his medication. But finally, together with Meinecke, he found the solution: he just gave the patient a number slip. The pharmacist looked up the number in the book and mixed the appropriate medicine.

Others also benefited from Ast's healing activity. Tourism flourished in Radbruch, restaurants and waiting rooms were opened. The patients came by train and were driven to the Ast house in cabs . The trains were overcrowded, you could hardly keep up with printing tickets and you had to issue group tickets. In 1894, Ast treated up to a thousand people a day. The German press reported on it in detail. Even Berlin newspapers sent reporters to Radbruch. The type of treatment described in the Winsener Nachrichten on November 9th, 1884: “... the way the 'miracle doctor' treats the diseases is strange. A tuft of hair from the patient's neck is brought with him, or he cuts it off himself when the sick come in person; he holds his hair up to the light and looks at it for a short time through a magnifying glass, and then he states the illness of the person concerned ... "

With so much rush, Ast had to work efficiently. He always had ten patients called into the consulting room at once. Of these he appointed one to be the scribe, who had to write down the number slips. It was paid for in gifts. Help was sometimes free for destitute patients.

This is how Heinrich Ast, the shepherd, finally achieved great prosperity, bought the Meierhof in 1910 and invested his money in other farms and estates.

Ast was buried in Bardowick . He had shown the tombstone to his friend Peter Wilkens. Ast's descendants still live in Radbruch today, and his medicine can still be bought in the aforementioned pharmacy in Winsen.

Honors

  • The Schäfer-Ast-Weg is named after him in his native Gronau.
  • There is also a Schäfer-Ast-Weg in the village of Prerow , although it is reminiscent of the artist Albert Schäfer-Ast .
  • In his place of residence, Radbruch, there is Schäfer-Ast-Straße, where the Schäfer-Ast primary school is located.
  • In the open-air museum on the Kiekeberg there is the Schäfer-Ast-Garten.
  • The person of the "Shepherd Ast" appears in Eberhard Sievers' story Die terrible headaches (in: Grandfather's stories , Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8448-8184-4 ).

literature

  • Walter Ebel: Schäfer Ast. The miracle doctor von Radbruch , Ravens & Maack Verlag, 1973
  • Kurt E. Koch: Occult ABC , 1984, page 80f. Digitized

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav Radbruch, Günter Spendel: Biographische Schriften , 1988, page 411, footnote 172 ( digitized version )
  2. ↑ Hans Masalskis: Das Sprachgenie: Georg Sauerwein , 2003, page 231 ( digitized version )
  3. ↑ Drugs from the Schäfer , apotheke-adhoc.de, November 16, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Ast, Philipp Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ast, Philipp H .; Branch, shepherd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German shepherd and herbalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Gronau (Leine)
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1921
Place of death Broken wheel