Richard Benz

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Richard Edmund Benz (born June 12, 1884 in Reichenbach im Vogtland ; † November 9, 1966 in Heidelberg ) was a German German philologist , cultural historian and writer .

Life

Richard Benz's grave in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof

Richard Benz was born the second youngest of nine children to an Evangelical Lutheran clergyman. From the age of 5, Richard Benz lived in Dresden , where his father worked as a pastor , among other things at the Frauenkirche . From 1902 he studied in Heidelberg (where he was inspired by Henry Thode's lectures), Leipzig and Munich . 1907 doctorate he in Heidelberg on the subject of tales Romantic poetry Dr. phil. In the same year he settled in Freiburg im Breisgau . Here he lived in Haus Rosenau 7. In 1910, after the death of his father-in-law, he moved to Heidelberg, where he spent the rest of his life as a private scholar .

Because of a lecture tour he conducted on behalf of the Propaganda Ministry during the Second World War , the Allied authorities issued a temporary publication ban after the war .

In 1952 Richard Benz received the Federal Cross of Merit . In 1954 he was elected a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . In the same year he received the honorary citizenship of the city of Heidelberg. In the following year he was given an honorary gift from the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft . In 1959 he was appointed honorary professor for German cultural history at the University of Heidelberg and received the Great Federal Cross of Merit.

Richard Benz was an important figure in Heidelberg's cultural life. As early as 1902 he was involved in the founding of the Heidelberg Hebbelverein - a literary association that existed until 1908. In 1906 he took part in a celebration of the Hebbelverein for the centenary of the song collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn at Stift Neuburg . In 1921 he founded, among others with his friend Alfred Mombert , the community Die Pforte , which published books, posters and other printed works according to his own ideas. In the years after the Second World War he was increasingly perceived as the most prominent exponent of the educated middle class in Heidelberg and as the “grand seigneur of the spirit”.

Richard Benz was buried in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof . His grave is located on a terrace, in front of a brick retaining wall made of red sandstone. A plaque with the life data of Richard Benz and his wife was set into the supporting wall. In 1976, the city of Heidelberg donated the Richard Benz Medal for Art and Science in memory of Richard Benz .

plant

Richard Benz initially published medieval folk literature , such as the Legenda aurea , which he also translated into German . He dealt intensively with book design , especially typography , and played a major role in the creation of the books.

Then Richard Benz dealt with the importance of music in German culture . Richard Benz, a direct descendant of Johann Rosenmüller through his father's mother , had grown up with music from an early age, and performances of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Leipzig were among his formative experiences. In 1923 he published the hour of German music . His main works Die deutsche Romantik (1937), Deutsches Barock (1949) and Die Zeit der Deutschen Klassik (1953) also deal with music . His book "Geist und Reich", published in 1933, in which he took a stand on the intellectual situation of the time, was banned by the authorities of the Nazi state in 1935 because the treatment of the "race question" was in conflict with the official Nazi ideology.

Richard Benz was considered a typical private scholar who deliberately kept his distance from the academic world . His works also served less to gain scientific knowledge than to spread his thoughts and insights to the educated public. That is why Richard Benz largely dispensed with a scientific apparatus in his works. From a culturally conservative point of view, Richard Benz propagated his thesis of the peculiarity of German culture , which is rooted in German nationality and which found its expression in Romanesque , Gothic , Baroque and Romanticism , while he viewed the Renaissance and Classical as contrary to the German character. With regard to the Renaissance, however, Richard Benz later changed his point of view. From today's perspective, Richard Benz represented extremely völkisch views without, however, slipping into racist or anti-Semitic lines of thought. Richard Benz himself noted that his artist friends were all Jews .

After the Second World War , Richard Benz was highly regarded; his work was seen as an essential element of the conservative creation of meaning in the young Federal Republic of Germany at the time. Today the work of Richard Benz is as good as forgotten.

Richard Benz wrote the book Heidelberg on behalf of the Lord Mayor of Heidelberg, Carl Neinhaus . Fate and Spirit (1st edition 1961, 2nd edition 1975). This book, a “masterful city biography” and cultural history of Heidelberg , is regarded as a standard work on the one hand, but is today - especially because of the lack of a scientific apparatus and because of the almost complete fading out of economic and social history as well as the fact that the presentation only to the end 19th century is enough - sometimes seen as outdated or unusable.

Works (selection)

  • The Legenda aurea of ​​James de Voragine. Translated from Latin by Richard Benz. Lambert Schneider Publishing House , Heidelberg 1925.
  • Life-worlds and educational powers of my youth. Dresden and Heidelberg memories. Hamburg 1950 (autobiography until 1914).
  • Goethe and Beethoven. Reclam, Stuttgart 1948 (Reclam's Universal Library No. 7512).
  • German folk books. Published by Richard Benz. Lambert Schneider Publishing House, Heidelberg 1956.

literature

  • Julia Scialpi: The cultural historian Richard Benz (1884–1966). A biography. Heidelberg 2010 (= book series of the city of Heidelberg XIV), ISBN 978-3-89735-619-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Address book of the city of Freiburg 1909. p. 335.
  2. kulturkreis.eu: 1953-1989 sponsorship awards, honorary gifts  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed April 1, 2015)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.kulturkreis.eu  
  3. Richard Benz: Life Worlds and Educational Powers of My Youth. Dresden and Heidelberg memories , Hamburg 1950, p. 14
  4. Richard Benz: Life Worlds and Educational Powers of My Youth. Dresden and Heidelberg memories , Hamburg 1950, p. 130
  5. Richard Benz: Life Worlds and Educational Powers of My Youth. Dresden and Heidelberg memories , Hamburg 1950, p. 270
  6. Hans-Georg Gadamer : A philosopher walks through the city. In: Merian 10 / XXXVII, p. 8