Theodor Brix

Theodor Brix (born April 15, 1844 in Brunsholm ; † June 21, 1905 in Flensburg ) was a German farmer and journalist.

Live and act

Theodor Brix was the son of Diedrich Brix (1798–1877), a farmer who had owned the Brunsholmhof since 1820 . The mother, Catharina Dorothea, née Jacobsen, (1805-1887) was a daughter of the farmer Jürgen Jacobsen, who came from Sörup-Schauby . He had a brother named Jakob (1828-1880) who worked as a physician in Flensburg . The sister Doris (1831-1915) married the pastor Otto Schnittger from Schleswig . His brother Jürgen also became a journalist.

Brix attended a village school and then received lessons from a private teacher. Contrary to his own preferences, he trained in agriculture at a young age. From 1872 to 1880 he first took over the Stenskær farm, then the Nygaard farm, both of which were located in North Schleswig. In 1887 he married Maria Wenzel, widowed Kulbe (1849–1901), with whom he had a son and a daughter. In the same year he moved from his previous residence in Flensburg to Berlin .

At the age of thirty-nine, Brix dealt with journalism, which was his real passion, initially as an autodidact. He benefited from living in Berlin, which helped his publications to gain a larger readership. In 1902 he moved to Kiel .

Brix, as a freelance journalist and in contrast to his brother, decided against the efforts of Prussia to Germanize North Schleswig, since he viewed this policy as inhuman and unwise. He stood up for the Danish population, which should be able to maintain their customs and idiosyncrasies. The struggle for this became his life's work.

Brix concluded more precisely than most of his German contemporaries that an excessive national feeling in all parts of politics could lead to unequal treatment of the minorities living in the country. He also described that the supporters of nationalism overestimated the influence of the state's means of power.

Brix, who did not belong to any party, initially tended to be liberal . In the last years of his life he was convinced that the parliamentary democracy he was striving for could only be achieved through social democratic politics. The journalist was of the opinion that social democracy, like him, campaigned for the minorities living in the country and fought with him against reactionary forms of government and German “world politics”.

At the beginning of the 20th century Brix wrote that there would be a revolution in Germany and a great war in foreign policy if the political orientation did not change. He found no understanding for these views among a large part of the population. The journalist died a few years later in June 1905 in Flensburg.

In an obituary, the Kieler Zeitung wrote: "He had an indomitable character, and what he recognized as right he upheld to the last resort. A certain one-sidedness was in his nature, but he was a man made by you true striving for truth was fulfilled, one of the few admonishers who demanded justice from the innermost fund of their hearts. "

literature

• Jörn-Peter Leppien: Brix, Theodor . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, pp. 81–83
• Jörn-Peter Leppien: Forgotten champion against nationalism - Callers in the desert - On the 125th birthday of Theodor Brix from fishing Kieler Nachrichten No. 88 of April 16, 1969, p. 8
• Daniel-Erasmus Khan: The German state borders. Legal historical principles and open legal questions , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, p. 395
• Matthew P. Fitzpatrick: Purging the Empire. Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871-1914 , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, p. 145

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kieler Zeitung: Obituary for Theodor Brix . Kiel June 25, 1905, p. 6 .