Rudolf Penzig

Rudolf Penzig (born January 30, 1855 in Samnitz , Silesia , † April 20, 1931 in Berlin ) was a German writer , local politician and reform pedagogue .

Live and act

At first he was a teacher at the Schnepfenthal educational institution in Thuringia, but was dismissed for leaving the regional church . Afterwards he worked as a private teacher in Dresden . In 1879 he was in Halle with the dissertation Schopenhauer and human free will to Dr. phil. PhD . Until 1889 he stayed as a teacher in the Baltic States . He then ran a private school for the hard-to-educate in Switzerland, but it went bankrupt.

From 1893 he worked as a freelance writer in Charlottenburg . In the same year he joined the German Society for Ethical Culture founded by Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster as Secretary General and from 1897 edited the Ethical Culture. Weekly newspaper for socio-ethical reforms and their supplements Kinderland and Secular School . In 1899 he took over the chairmanship of the Berlin Humanist Community , which had separated from the Free Religious. In addition, he was a member of other free-thinking and free-spirited clubs and associations and their boards of directors, such as Rudolf Steiner , Martha Ahrens , Max Mattersteig and Bruno Wille on the management committee of the Giordano-Bruno Association , the League for Moral Education (1901), which was founded in 1900 German Association for Secular Schools and Moral Education (1906) and the Weimar Cartel (1907). With his advocacy for the organization of school life lessons (as cultural, religious and ideological studies), the threads ran through him as a confidant, especially in the years 1918 to 1926, to the Prussian Ministry of Culture . He also taught ethics at the Free University ( Humboldt Academy ) in Berlin.

With his liberal free- thinking he belonged to the left wing of the Progress Party , where he made an unsuccessful attempt to run for a Reichstag candidacy in 1903, but in 1917 he switched to social democracy . From 1908 to 1921 he was an unpaid city councilor of the city ​​council or the district office of Charlottenburg. From 1920 he carried the honorary title of City Elder of Charlottenburg, from 1924 City Elder of Berlin .

Furthermore, he was significantly effective as a Freemason . In 1907 he became a member of the newly founded Lodge Zur Morgenröte , which joined the Freemasons Association of the Rising Sun , which was also founded in Frankfurt am Main in 1907 , a reformed grand lodge based on a monistic worldview . In 1919 Penzig became their grandmaster . With his enlightenment writings, especially with his catechism , he did a great deal to raise the spiritual level of this covenant.

His final resting place is in the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf .

Fonts

• A word about belief in its advocates and despisers , Kassel 1884.
• Sin and redemption . Lecture, Berlin 1894.
• Raising children in families with no religion , Stuttgart 1895.
• The first moral lessons for children , Bern 1896.
• Serious answers to children's questions: selected chapters from a practical pedagogy for the home , Berlin 1897.
• Alfred Moulet: Pioneers of Moral Progress , Berlin 1902. (translation)
• Denominational or secular school? Three speeches, Berlin 1904. (co-author)
• Lay sermons on the new humanity , Sunday lectures held in the humanist community in Berlin, Gottesberg 1905–1912.
• Worries and hopes at the turn of the year , Gottesberg 1905.
• To the culture war for the school . A warning to thinkers, Berlin 1905.
• The secular non-denominational school , Berlin 1905.
• Jak odpowiadać na pytania dziecięce , Warszawa 1905.
• The right to leisure , Berlin 1906 (lay sermons, vol. 2)
• The Gospel of the Child , Berlin 1906 (lay sermons, vol. 3)
• Eelijke Reply op KindervAGEN , Amsterdam 1906.
• Without a church. A lifestyle on its own path , Jena 1907.
• Hoping and waiting . An Easter sermon, Gottesberg 1907 (lay sermons, vol. 4)
• The ethical human community . Gottesberg 1907 (lay sermons, vol. 5)
• What does the humanistic community want? , Gottesberg 1908 (lay sermons, vol. 6)
• Moritz von Egidy. Living thoughts of a dead person , Gottesberg 1909 (lay sermons, vol. 7)
• Darwin , its importance in the struggle for worldview and worth living . 6 articles, Berlin 1909. (co-author)
• Natural religion of salvation , Berlin 1910 (lay sermons, vol. 8)
• Free Christianity and Religious Progress , Berlin 1911 (lay sermons, vol. 9)
• Seresnye otvěty na dètskiè voprosy , St. Petersburg 1911. (Russian)
• The coming salvation of humanity , Berlin 1912 (lay sermons, vol. 10)
• The harmony between religious and moral classes , Berlin 1912.
• Mass strike and ethics , Frankfurt / M. 1915.
• What "ethical culture" wants and should do after the war . Lectures at the "Conference for Moral Will Formation in Schools", Berlin 1915.
• German religion , Berlin 1915.
• Religious instruction once, now and in the future , Berlin 1916.
• The society for ethical culture, based on the 'Mouvement éthique' , Hamburg 1918. (co-author)
• Life science. Draft of a systematic guide for teachers of life studies at advanced training schools and higher education institutions , Berlin 1920.
• Masonic textbook for the brothers of the independent German grand lodge: Freemasons' Association for the rising sun , Stuttgart 1920; 2. Verm. A. Oldenburg 1926.
• Our grandchildren's religion lesson , Berlin 1922.
• Letters about raising children to a socialist , Berlin 1922.
• Lodge talks about politics and religion . Leipzig 1923; ND Bremen 1982.
• A French Freemason against the warmongering , Swinoujscie 1923.
• The ethical movement in Germany: a celebration of the German Society for Ethical Culture for the 150th year. Anniversary of the American parent company , Berlin 1926.
• Religious studies and life studies in the secular school , Frankfurt / M. 1926.
• Apostate. Light and dark sides from my life , Berlin 1930.

literature

• Rudolf Eisler : Philosophen-Lexikon, Leipzig 1912, p. 534.
• Kürschner's Deutscher Schehrtenkalender, Vol. 4 (1931), p. 376.
• Frank Simon-Ritz : The organization of a worldview. The Free Spiritual Movement in Wilhelmine Germany, Gütersloh 1997.
• Horst Groschopp : Dissidents, Freethinking and Culture in Germany, Berlin 1997.
• Horst Groschopp: Rudolph Penzig and organized humanism. In: diesseits, Berlin 16 (2002), 59, pp. 30–31.
• Susanne Enders: Moral lessons and life studies, Bad Heilbrunn 2002.
• Lars Jentsch: The world as a people's education home. For the 150th birthday of Rudolph Penzig (1855–1931). In: Humanism currently. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Weltanschauung 9 (2005), no. 16, pp. 98-102.
• Berlin district lexicon Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Berlin 2005.
• Lexicon of Free Thought. Supplementary delivery 2011.

Web links

• www.literaturportal.de-lexikon-Rudolf Penzig