Theodor Heuss

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Theodor Heuss (1953)
Signature of Theodor Heuss

Theodor Heuss (born January 31, 1884 in Brackenheim ; † December 12, 1963 in Stuttgart ) was a German journalist , publicist , political scientist and liberal politician ( NSV , FVg , FVP , DDP , FDP / DVP ) for almost 60 years . When the FDP was founded in 1948, he became its first chairman. From 1949 to 1959 he was the first Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Life

Theodor Heuss (1905) Portrait of a youth in oil by Albert Weisgerber

Empire

Origin, childhood and studies

Bronze Heuss sculpture in front of the Theodor Heuss Museum in Brackenheim

Heuss came to the Württemberg city ​​of Brackenheim as the son of the government builder Ludwig "Louis" Heuss (1853–1903) and Elisabeth Heuss, née. Gümbel (1853–1927), to the world. He had two older brothers, Ludwig (1881–1932), later Heilbronn city doctor, and Hermann (1882–1959), later an architect and professor of construction. Heuss was a Protestant and came from a family from Haßmersheim that originally belonged to the old boatmen families on the Neckar . His great-great-uncle Friedrich Heuss (1804-1870) was one of the revolutionaries in Baden in 1848 and was nicknamed Neckar-Napoleon . He was also a member of the Constituent Assembly of the Grand Duchy of Baden .

After ten years as a master builder in Brackenheim, Heuss' father became head of the civil engineering department in the greater Heilbronn in 1890 , which resulted in the family moving there. Theodor Heuss attended elementary school and the humanistic Karlsgymnasium in Heilbronn , whose successor is now called Theodor-Heuss-Gymnasium in his honor . In 1902 he made his Abitur there. Because of a chronic shoulder injury sustained at this time, Heuss did not do military service .

Heuss studied economics , literature, history, philosophy, art history and political science at the Munich and Berlin universities. He increasingly concentrated his studies on economics. After the second semester, he suggested a topic for the dissertation to his doctoral supervisor , the Munich economist Lujo Brentano . After studying the sources and only three weeks of paperwork, he completed this work in 1905 under the title Weinbau und Weingärtnerstand in Heilbronn am Neckar and received his doctorate with the grade cum laude .

Political influence by Friedrich Naumann

As a schoolboy, Heuss had already orientated himself politically to the former Protestant pastor Friedrich Naumann . Immediately after graduating from high school, he attended the party congress of the National Social Association , which Naumann had founded in 1896. There he succumbed to the fascination of his idol, as he confided in his childhood memories: "It seemed that Friedrich Naumann sensed all the questions that troubled a young heart and had answers available, not with apodictic self-certainty, but with loud, searching thinking."

What impressed Heuss so much about Naumann's ideas was that he wanted to renew classical liberalism . In modern industrial society, social policy measures should enable the workers to participate in the increasing prosperity and to participate politically in the nation state . Naumann and Heuss, for example, advocated trade unions and an alliance with reform-oriented social democrats and called for democratic reforms, for example in terms of the right to vote. Only in this way can the liberal ideal of a self-determined personality also be realized in industrial mass society . The monarchy did not want to abolish both. They considered empire and democracy to be compatible in order to integrate the various interests in a symbolic head of state. In the age of imperialism, Naumann campaigned for a strong national power state and an expansive colonial policy . This mixture of social and democratic, national and imperialist ideas was very attractive to Heuss, as it offered a way out of the crisis of liberalism.

marriage and family

Heuss met his future wife in Naumann's house. Elly Knapp , daughter of the then well-known Strasbourg economist Georg Friedrich Knapp , was sensitized to socio-political issues early on by Naumann, had founded a further education school for girls as a teacher and stayed in Berlin in the winter of 1905/06. After her return to Alsace , an affectionate correspondence ensued with Heuss, who was three years her junior. They married on April 11, 1908 in Strasbourg. The two were married by Albert Schweitzer , with whom Elly Heuss-Knapp was good friends. Two years later, the only child Ernst Ludwig was born. Both led a partnership marriage at eye level, in which they allowed themselves a lot of professional freedom. Elly Heuss-Knapp taught at advanced training schools for women, gave lectures and wrote a textbook for women's schools so that she remained economically independent from her husband.

The journalist

After completing his studies, Heuss was a political editor . From 1905 to 1912, at Naumann's request, he took over an editor's position in the magazine Die Hilfe , the most important press organ of the National Socialist group. There he was initially responsible for artistic and literary, and later also for political issues. In 1912, Heuss took a career leap when he - again at Naumann's request - took over the editor-in-chief of the Heilbronner Neckar-Zeitung , a paper that was close to the National Socialists and enjoyed supraregional importance. In addition to the higher salary and more independence, Heuss was attracted by the prospect of getting involved in practical politics on the ground and perhaps later winning a seat in the Reichstag . Shortly after moving to Heilbronn in 1913, he also took over the editing of the political-literary weekly magazine März , which understood itself in the liberal-bourgeois tradition of the revolution of 1848 . Under the co-editor Conrad Haußmann , the paper pursued a critical course towards the Wilhelminian authoritarian state, but had too few subscribers and was in the red. Heuss was supposed to ensure the survival of the magazine, but the financial situation remained precarious and worsened under the conditions of the First World War to such an extent that March at the end of 1917 had to stop its publication. Heuss also published in numerous other papers, for example features for the Munich magazine Der Kunstwart and the specialist magazine Die Dekorative Kunst , where he wrote about architecture and design.

The party politician

In 1903 Heuss took part as a delegate at the last party congress of the National Social Association . After the dissolution of the association, he joined the left-liberal Liberal Association together with the vast majority of the National Socialists in the summer of 1903 , which merged with other left-liberal parties to form the Progressive People's Party . In 1906 he supported a candidate close to Naumann in the Urach constituency in the election campaign, so that he entered the Württemberg state parliament. A few months later he also succeeded in winning the Heilbronn constituency for Naumann in the Reichstag election campaign. His own efforts to win a seat in the Württemberg state election campaign for the Backnang district in 1912 , however, failed in the second ballot.

In the first World War

Because of his shoulder injury, Heuss did not have to take part in the First World War. His attitude towards the war was ambivalent. On the one hand, he was firmly convinced that Germany would have to defend itself against its aggressive opponents in a just war and maintain its European position of power. He wrote in the March magazine shortly after the outbreak of war: "The outcome of the war must not only demonstrate the superiority of our military technology, but also the moral strength and moral right of Germanness in the heart of Europe." On the other hand, Heuss distanced himself from extreme racist nationalism and limitless annexationism. So he turned against the discriminatory “ Jewish census ” by the Prussian War Ministry and defended his friend Hermann Hesse when he was insulted in the press as a “patriotic fellow”.

Move to Berlin

Heuss and his family had already moved to Berlin at the beginning of 1918, to work as a full-time managing director until 1921 and as a member of the board of directors of the German Werkbund from 1924 to 1933 . In this function he wrote the introduction to the documentation of the architectural competition for the "House of German-Turkish Friendship" in Constantinople (1st prize: German Bestelmeyer ), which was never built after the defeat in World War I and the collapse of the German and Ottoman empires has been. Heuss was also editor-in-chief of the magazine Deutsche Politik from his move until 1922 . Weekly for world and culture politics . A plaque above the entrance to the house at Fregestraße 80 in Berlin-Schöneberg reminds us that he lived there from 1918 to 1930.

Weimar Republic

Attitude to the revolution and democracy

The November Revolution was Heuss skeptical. Until then he had called for democratic reforms within the monarchy. With the unexpected abdication of the emperor and the revolutionary proclamation of the republic, he saw the civil order endangered. But Heuss did not want a return to the old order because he clearly recognized the responsibility of the old elites and the emperor for the military defeat and the overthrow. Because the old system failed and no longer had the support of the population, he still committed himself to the democratic republic at the end of 1918 and supported the Council of People's Representatives as an anchor of stability in the revolutionary turmoil. For this reason he also fought the " stab in the back legend " of the opponents of the republic.

For Heuss, the starting point of his political thinking was the nation, which he saw as endangered by the Versailles peace treaty . But unlike on the extreme right, with Heuss nation and democracy were mutually dependent. This “democratic nationalism” was accompanied by an affirmation of the Weimar constitution . Heuss advocated a parliamentary democracy based on competition between parties, which is given to an elected government with extensive powers. A strong executive should enable the state to act, especially in times of crisis that ruled the Weimar Republic for many years. Heuss did not want an omnipotent state, but rather to be bound by a liberal freedom and legal system, freely elected parliaments and independent courts. And finally, for Heuss, democracy was not limited to institutions, but also required an individual side. This democracy as a way of life was based on a culture of fairness and tolerance in political togetherness. In the end, the Weimar Republic should lack such attitudes of its citizens.

Activities in the Weimar Republic

The young politician Heuss initially did not succeed in entering the Weimar National Assembly and then in 1920 the Reichstag . Nonetheless, he practiced four professions, so to speak, during this time. First, he was a journalist. After the German politics had to stop its publication in 1922, he headed the magazine Deutsche Nation until 1925 . In addition, during this time he published around 900 articles in numerous, in some cases renowned, papers such as the Frankfurter Zeitung , thus making a part of his living. Second, Heuss was an association official. In addition to his work for the German Werkbund, he was deputy from 1920 and chairman of the Association of German Writers from 1925 . After he had advocated the so-called " Dirt and Trash Law " in the Reichstag in November 1926 , he resigned from this post under pressure from numerous writers. He was also a member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold organization for the protection of the republic and had been deputy chairman of the Association of Germans Abroad since 1926. Third, Heuss was active in political education . From 1920 to 1925 he worked as a director of studies and then on the board of directors of the German University of Politics until 1933 , where he held regular lectures and seminars on German constitutional and party history as well as contemporary political issues. Fourth, Heuss stood up for the republic as a democratic politician. At the end of 1918 he was a founding member of the German Democratic Party (DDP), whose founding appeal came from Theodor Wolff . In 1919 Heuss became a city councilor (since 1920 district councilor) in Berlin-Schöneberg . From 1924 to 1928 and from 1930 to 1933 Heuss was a member of the German Reichstag. There he sat on up to seven committees and spoke on numerous topics. In addition, as a politician, he gave almost 1,000 lectures across the country until 1933. In 1930 the DDP merged with the political arm of the anti-Semitic and authoritarian Young German Order , the Volksnationalen Reichsvereinigung , to form the German State Party (DStP). Nevertheless, the DStP received only 3.7 percent in the September 1930 elections and lost almost all of its supporters by 1933. As a member of the Reichstag, Heuss was unable to stop the decline of his party in the final crisis of the Weimar Republic.

In 1931 Heuss traveled to a conference of liberal parties that was held in Athens. He then made a tour of Greece, about which he published a number of articles, including a. about the landscape, the situation of Greek refugees from Turkey and about the modernization and industrialization of the country. This trip would later play a role when Federal President Heuss was able to break the diplomatic isolation of the Federal Republic with his first state visit, which took him to Greece in 1956.

Confrontation with National Socialism

In view of the threat to the Weimar Republic from National Socialism , Heuss had been grappling intensively with this movement and ideology since the early 1930s. In early 1932, for example, he published a historical-political study of Hitler's Path , which had eight editions and was translated into three European languages. He also fought against Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP in numerous speeches and campaign appearances . On May 11, 1932, in the fully occupied Reichstag, he subjected the National Socialist program to a fundamental criticism, which ended with the words: “The equipment of the Third Reich will come from a wholesale sale of repainted and refurbished shopkeepers from the Wilhelmine era , and from them, gentlemen I think we've had enough. "

National Socialism

Approval of the Enabling Act

On March 23, 1933, Heuss and the four other members of the German State Party - Hermann Dietrich , Heinrich Landahl , Ernst Lemmer and Reinhold Maier  - approved  the Enabling Act in the Reichstag . The MPs were of course under massive pressure and a specific threat of violence from the SS men present and the knowledge that many parliamentarians had been arrested and tortured. This “law to remedy the needs of the people and empire” provided for the executive to be granted the right to legislate for a period of four years without the involvement of the Reichstag and Reichsrat; In addition, laws that deviated from the constitution could also be passed. With the exception of the SPD, all parties in the Reichstag adopted the law. Heuss had initially spoken out in favor of rejection or at least abstention in his parliamentary group, but could not prevail and joined the majority opinion. What prompted him and his party friends to take this step, with which essential elements of the imperial constitution were suspended? Historical research has identified several causes. Firstly, the MPs were under pressure from the SA on the streets and in the Reichstag, so that if they were rejected they had to fear for their lives or that of their supporters. Second, they hoped to use the Enabling Act to steer revolutionary Nazi rule into legal channels. At least remnants of the Weimar constitution should be saved in order to be able to take on political responsibility again after the failure of the Hitler government. Thirdly, it was the liberal understanding of democracy at the time that suggested approval of the Enabling Act. The emphasis on a strong executive, state authority, leadership, national community and nation had already led to the approval of several enabling laws in the early twenties during the existential crises of the Weimar Republic, with which parliament was restricted in its legislative rights. In 1933, the left-wing liberals also hoped to secure the state's ability to act and contain the crisis with a further enabling law. It was not clear to Heuss and many of his contemporaries that National Socialism would not adhere to the democratic and constitutional rules of the game and would tread the path to terror, war and genocide.

After 1945 Heuss was repeatedly reminded of his voting behavior and increasingly felt it was a burden on his biography. In 1947, for example, he had to justify himself to an investigative committee of the Württemberg-Baden state parliament , to which state parliament members testified who had approved or rejected the enabling law. In his testimony, Heuss emphasized that no one was interested in the law later and that it was ultimately irrelevant to the Nazi tyranny.

Reactions to the National Socialist Takeover

The reactions of Heuss to the first measures of the Nazi government were ambivalent and also show an underestimation of the totalitarian character of the regime. He criticized certain manifestations of National Socialist rule, but accepted others or even endorsed them. He welcomed the coordination of the federal states as a step towards a central unitary state. He admitted the state leadership to certain interventions in the freedom of the press, but also saw limits in the field of culture and science, to which he continued to allow a life of their own: "Of course, it seems to us that the state 'totality' [...] is about people and about the For the sake of nationality, it must find its limit in the religious, in the creative of the arts and sciences, in the moral autonomy of the self-founded personality. "

In letters, Heuss expressed his indignation at the organized boycott of Jewish shops in early April 1933. On the other hand, he also came across the National Socialist propaganda lie of “horror reports” from “Jewish countries abroad”, especially from the “Eastern Jewish Communist Ghetto of New York and London ”, about the anti-Semitism in the Reich, which would have triggered the boycott in the first place. As a book author, he himself was affected by the book burning in Germany in 1933 , as three of his works were indexed and burned, including Hitler's Way (1932). But he relativized this event as a “ridiculous copy” of the book burning at the Wartburg Festival of the fraternities in 1817, which one should not “take too tragically”. Because Heuss clearly rejected some of the authors whose books were burned with his own, who were politically left-wing and who had sharply criticized the Weimar Republic before 1933, he let himself be carried away with anti-Semitic remarks. On May 7, 1933, he commented on the event in a private letter: “Some of the people who are on the list are not a bad neighborhood from a human point of view, but next to them there is also the uprooted Jewish literacy against which I have fought over the years have, and it is less nice to go down in history with them ”. Even if Theodor Heuss did not represent racial anti-Semitism, he made use of anti-Semitic stereotypes here in order to set himself apart from the left-wing despisers of the Weimar Republic. How close he was to Judaism, even during the Third Reich, is shown by his close contacts to endangered Jewish friends and acquaintances during this time.

Loss of office

In the course of 1933 Theodor Heuss lost a large part of his public offices and functions. In May he was dismissed from the now nationalized School of Politics. After his party, the German State Party, dissolved itself at the end of June 1933, he - like the other members of the Reichstag - was stripped of his seat because he had won it on the basis of a list connection with the banned SPD. And in September he and his fellow board members resigned from the German Werkbund, which had been brought into line. Without regular sources of income, it was now Elly Heuss-Knapp who secured the family's financial base with her innovative radio advertising and, from 1936, with her cinema advertising. She is considered the inventor of the jingle and also produced radio commercials for Nivea , Erdal and Kaffee Hag . Heuss supported his wife by drafting advertising verses. He even made his sonorous voice available in a spot for Nivea.

Activities as a journalist and biographer

At the beginning of 1933, Theodor Heuss joined the group of editors for the magazine Die Hilfe . He steered the paper on a course between criticism and adaptation. With his articles he distanced himself from the brutal and cynical character of the regime and denounced grievances between the lines. After 1934 he mainly dealt with foreign policy issues. Fewer points of friction with Nazi foreign policy were to be expected here. He welcomed Germany's exit from the League of Nations or the “ Anschluss ” of Austria to the German Empire. In his feature articles he also paid tribute to ostracized artists such as Max Liebermann , Ernst Barlach or the emigrated Thomas Mann . After several warnings from the Reich Propaganda Ministry , Heuss resigned as editor in autumn 1936 in order to protect the paper from the impending ban.

Heuss now published increasingly in other press organs such as the Berliner Tageblatt , the Potsdamer Tageszeitung or the Stuttgarter Neue Tagblatt . In 1941 he signed a contract with the Frankfurter Zeitung . For a flat fee of 500 Reichsmarks per month, he wrote 50 articles a year for this paper. Presumably at Hitler's instigation, Heuss was only allowed to publish his articles under the pseudonym “Thomas Brackheim” or the abbreviation “ss” or “rs” since 1942. At the end of August 1943, the Frankfurter Zeitung had to stop publishing.

In 1940/41 Heuss also published eight non-political articles in the Nazi weekly newspaper Das Reich , "because this paper paid opulently as it was before the world war and the articles received astonishingly high publicity."

This was also the time for the biographer Theodor Heuss. Within a few years he wrote five biographies, all but one of which could appear during the Third Reich: 1937 about the politician and companion Friedrich Naumann , 1939 about the architect Hans Poelzig (1869–1936), whose further dissemination had to be stopped at Hitler's instigation , 1940 through the marine biologist Anton Dohrn (1840–1909) and in 1942 through the chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–1873). Only the biography of the Swabian entrepreneur Robert Bosch (1861–1942), which Bosch had asked him for shortly before his death, could not appear until 1946.

Hazards and proximity to resistance

Heuss was endangered under the Nazi dictatorship. As early as June 1933, he was put out to be wanted in the German wanted poster register and protective custody was requested. It was thanks to the Berlin SA leader Karl Ernst, known with Heuss , that this order was not carried out. His mail was checked before delivery and his articles and books repeatedly aroused offense at the relevant Nazi agencies.

Heuss maintained contact with those who were persecuted and opponents of the regime and took part in several opposition discussion groups in which the future of Germany after National Socialism was openly debated. He came close to active resistance through his relationships with the Social Democrat Julius Leber . In connection with his work on the Bosch biography, he met Carl Friedrich Goerdeler in Stuttgart in December 1943 and promised him that in the event of an overthrow he would make himself available to the new government as head of press. But he was not one of the central actors in the resistance, and he was not involved in the specific plans for a coup. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, he was not persecuted. In autumn 1943 he had already left Berlin with his wife because the bombing raids became more and more stressful and Elly Heuss-Knapp's health deteriorated. In addition, his son had warned him that he was being targeted by the Gestapo . The Heuss couple experienced the last year and a half of the war in a small attic apartment with a sister-in-law in Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim.

The first post-war years

Judgment on the end of the war and National Socialism

Theodor Heuss felt the total German defeat in May 1945 as liberation from the National Socialist yoke. On an American “white list” he was listed as an “uncompromising democrat” who could support the democratic reconstruction of Germany. Heuss saw himself as an educator of the Germans for democracy. He saw the open and relentless confrontation with the National Socialist past as an indispensable prerequisite for the democratic change in attitudes. In a speech at the end of November 1945 he held against the German people that they had too easily “fallen into the shackles of National Socialism”. It shouldn't make it too easy "to throw the bad things behind you like a wild dream." But he rejected denazification by the military governments as well as the Nuremberg trials of the Allies against the main war criminals, because he considered the Germans to be the real ones Hitler's victims and therefore they should be prosecutors and judges.

Publicist and "Minister of Culture"

In the summer of 1945, Heuss was granted the license for one of the first post-war newspapers , the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung (RNZ) in Heidelberg, by the US military government in Württemberg-Baden . In addition to the communist Rudolf Agricola and the social democrat Hermann Knorr , he represented the liberal tradition on the editorial board. Heuss published over 80 leading articles in the paper, but he could not exert much influence on day-to-day business. Because the American military government appointed him on 24 September 1945 the first Minister of Culture Wuerttemberg-Baden, where the official title " cult minister" used. He entered the Cabinet Maier I of the all-party government (DVP, CDU, SPD, KPD) of his party colleague Reinhold Maier one, could now affect the educational and cultural policy take his country and the democratic reeducation ahead process. In the first state parliament elections in late autumn 1946, the Liberals only won 19 percent of the vote and were thus able to appoint one member of the government. Heuss therefore renounced the office of Minister of Culture in December in favor of Reinhold Maier.

Liberal party politician

Initially, Heuss had pleaded in 1945 for the establishment of a non-denominational bourgeois collecting party and was open to the CDU . But in Stuttgart, where he had lived since late summer 1945, an independent liberal party had already formed, the Democratic People's Party (DVP). He joined this and was elected to the board in January 1946. For the DVP he sat in the state constitutional assembly and was elected to the Württemberg-Baden state parliament, to which he belonged together with his wife Elly Heuss-Knapp until his election as Federal President in September 1949. In September 1946 he took over the chairmanship of the liberal state parties in the US zone. Heuss gained national importance when, in March 1947, he and Wilhelm Külz , chairman of the East-Zone Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), chaired the Democratic Party of Germany (DPD), which was made up of the liberal parties of the American, British and Soviet parties Zone composed. But against the backdrop of the looming Cold War , the deviations in Germany's political ideas between the LDP and the western regional associations were so great that Heuss terminated his cooperation with Külz and the DPD dissolved at the beginning of 1948. Instead, the liberal regional associations of the western zones founded the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in Heppenheim on December 12, 1948 and elected Heuss as chairman. Until the election of the Federal President in September 1949, when Heuss resigned from the chairmanship of the party, he was unable to unite the divided wings of the party.

The constitutional father: work on the Basic Law

At the beginning of 1948 Theodor Heuss was appointed honorary professor for political science at the Technical University of Stuttgart and gave two lectures in the summer semester on German history 1890–1918 and on basic political concepts. But because the deliberations in the Parliamentary Council were so demanding on him, he had to cancel further lectures. Since September 1, 1948, the 65 full MPs elected by the state parliaments had been negotiating a new German constitution in Bonn. As leader of the FDP parliamentary group, Heuss wanted to put the future Basic Law on a broad, non-partisan basis in order to gain acceptance among the population. He saw the task of his party in breaking up rigid differences between the large camps around the CDU / CSU and SPD and acting as a mediator. At the beginning of 1949, he formulated his role somewhat coarsely to a friend: "The position of my FDP parliamentary group in Bonn is not bad, since we act like bullies between the CDU and SPD, which are equally strong." But Heuss was by no means flat in the Parliamentary Council , but rather followed his convictions even against resistance.

It is thanks to his influence that the preamble avoided emphasizing too clearly the provisional character of the Basic Law and the Allied foreign rule. Heuss wanted to create a fully valid and permanent constitution which could also send a signal to the citizens of the Soviet occupation zone. In the case of the fundamentally important Article 1 of the Basic Law, he was able, against broad resistance, to emphasize the protective function of the state and to avoid an explicit appeal to a natural law justification of the fundamental rights. With regard to the scope of the basic rights, he advocated a restriction to the classic individual freedoms, because only these - unlike basic social and economic rights - are enforceable and enforceable. Against violent protests from the churches and the CDU / CSU, he was able to prevent the so-called “ parental rights ” from being included in the Basic Law. This right provided for the establishment of denominational schools with church sponsorship at the request of the parents. Heuss, on the other hand, as a supporter of the Christian community schools, saw the state's cultural sovereignty at risk.

In addition, the state designation "Federal Republic of Germany" goes back to a suggestion by Heuss. He also supported the national colors black, red and gold . As a supporter of a parliamentary system of government, he spoke out against a presidential system. He rejected petitions and referendums at federal level because he viewed them as a “bonus for every demagogue”. The composition of the Federal Assembly for the election of the Federal President is due to his idea.

Heuss was not able to implement all of his ideas. He saw the construction of the state chamber as a federal councilor as a mistake and preferred the establishment of a senate elected by the state parliaments. He did not want to enshrine the right to conscientious objection in the Basic Law, because he viewed compulsory military service as a “legitimate child of democracy”. But with this view he was clearly in the minority.

On May 23, 1949, the Basic Law was finally passed by a large majority by the Parliamentary Council. Heuss had shaped essential elements of the constitution through his intellectual abilities, his rhetorical talent as well as his content and style. He knew how to loosen up hardened opposites without losing his own profile.

Election to the Federal President

Theodor Heuss had already been brought into play several times for the office of the future head of state during the constitutional deliberations. After the federal election of August 14, 1949 , in which Heuss won a mandate and became FDP parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, the CDU and FDP agreed on a candidacy for Heuss for reasons of coalition tactics. On September 12, 1949, he was elected the first Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany in the second ballot with an absolute majority, including against the SPD candidate Kurt Schumacher (see Election of the German Federal President 1949 ).

The federal president

Understanding of ministry

The Basic Law by no means gives the Federal President the full range of powers that the Reich President of the Weimar Republic had. The real center of power is the Federal Chancellor . The way to the " Chancellor's Democracy " was not only due to the constitutional provisions or the assertive first Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , but also to the understanding of the office of Federal President Theodor Heuss. Because the Weimar Republic also failed due to the lack of approval of large sections of the population for the democratic state and the fundamental political and social conflicts, Heuss, as a non-partisan representative of the Federal Republic, wanted to anchor the young democracy positively in the consciousness of his citizens. His goal was to bring the various social groups closer to the still unstable state and to reconcile them with democracy. Integration was at the center of his understanding of office, not the introduction of conflicts into society. As a separate center of power alongside the Chancellor, the Federal President feared creating open tensions that could have shaken the new state.

As an integrating and representative head of state, Heuss was by no means without influence. Because he stood above the current political power struggles, he had moral authority through his personal integrity and credibility. Through his speeches and symbolic gestures, he brought important issues into the public domain and offered orientation. The education of Germans to democracy in a torn post-war society was an indispensable and consequential political act as an integration achievement.

Relationship with Konrad Adenauer

This integration course meant that Heuss wanted to avoid confrontations with the Federal Chancellor or other constitutional bodies as much as possible. That is why he shied away from an open trial of strength with Adenauer, whose power-conscious will to assert himself and his constitutional competencies he had little to counter. At the beginning of his tenure, Heuss tried to expand his scope. For example, he occasionally wanted to take over the chairmanship of cabinet meetings or claimed supreme command of the planned army for himself, but these attempts failed. A division of labor gradually established itself in which the Federal Chancellor was responsible for the actual government work, while the Federal President was responsible for the field of integration and representation. In spite of their different origins and their different natures, they usually dealt with each other trustingly and regularly exchanged ideas in conversations and letters. Their agreement on the major and important political issues also contributed to their mutual appreciation. B. ties to the West , Germany and Europe policy, rearmament or the policy of reconciliation and reparation towards the Jews and the State of Israel.

Symbolic politics: national anthem and medal

With his bourgeois demeanor and his education, Theodor Heuss represented the greatest possible contrast to his predecessors Hindenburg and Hitler as head of state . Because he combined politics, spirit and closeness to the people in his person, he represented a new, civil and democratic Germany at home and abroad . In his administration he set himself apart from the brutal demeanor of National Socialism. At the beginning of his tenure he prevented a postage stamp with his portrait, later he declined a visit to the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth in order not to "follow in the footsteps of Mr. Hitler on the Festhügel and to Wahnfried."

Heuss wanted to establish unencumbered and suitable traditions for the Federal Republic, especially with the creation of new state symbols. The introduction of a national anthem, for which he was responsible as Federal President, was of central importance to him. The old song of the Germans von Hoffmann von Fallersleben , argued Heuss, was no longer acceptable and contemporary for the new democracy as a result of the abuse by the National Socialists. He commissioned the poet Rudolf Alexander Schröder to write a new hymn, which he then - set to music by the composer Hermann Reutter - presented to the citizens in his New Year's Eve 1950 address. But the verdict was devastating in the media, in the population and across party lines in politics. After losing the support of Adenauer and the CDU / CSU, Heuss gave up in early 1952. He admitted that he "underestimated traditionalism and its need to persevere". Offended, he renounced a solemn proclamation; instead, he only recognized the "Deutschlandlied" in an exchange of letters with Adenauer.

Heuss was more successful in introducing new orders, which were supposed to express the gratitude of the democratic state towards its citizens. In 1950 he founded the Silver Laurel Leaf for special athletic (and initially also musical) achievements. In 1951 he founded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany with its various levels. And a year later he renewed the peace class of the Prussian order Pour le Mérite for outstanding scientists and artists and became its protector.

Cultural policy

With his cultural, scientific and educational policy initiatives, Heuss wanted to win over scientists, artists and intellectuals for the democratic state. As an honorary member of the Scientific Advisory Board, he supported the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, headed the “ Thank You Donation of the German People ” in 1951, initiated the foundation of the German Science Council in 1956, and as chairman of the administrative board accompanied the work of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg . Heuss, who stood up for the promotion of political education throughout his life, suggested the establishment of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation on May 19, 1958 and mobilized a few friends and companions for it.

From the early 1950s onwards, Heuss, who had a great affinity for design, dealt with the topic of industrial design and defended terms such as German workmanship and enthusiasm for work against being taken over by the regime and propaganda during the Nazi era. He was one of the first to recognize the importance of design and industrial design for the export-oriented German economy and initiated state funding for design.

Dealing with the National Socialist past

Even as Federal President, Heuss continued to plead for a relentless confrontation with National Socialism. In a widespread climate of relief and repression in politics and the population, he warned against self-righteousness, self-pity and forgetting too quickly. As early as December 1949, in an address to the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Wiesbaden , he emphatically pointed out: “There is no point in messing around with things. The hideous injustice that has been committed against the Jewish people must be brought up in the sense: Are we, am I, are you to blame because we lived in Germany, are we complicit in this diabolical crime? ”Heuss rejected the charge a collective guilt, but introduced the moral concept of collective shame, which affects all Germans. At the inauguration of the memorial in the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , he made it clear: The Jews “will never, they can never forget what was done to them; the Germans must never forget what happened to people of their ethnicity in those shameful years. ”Heuss considered remembering the Nazi crimes as the basis for democratic renewal and for reconciliation with the victims. Reconciliation and the policy of reparation towards the Jews and the State of Israel were close to his heart.

In a speech on the 10th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Heuss acquitted the conspirators, some of whom he knew personally, of the charge of breaking oath and high treason. By emphasizing the borderline situation in which the assassins saw themselves placed between their oath on Hitler and their personal conscience, he justified the resistance to an amoral and inhuman regime. Heuss thus established a positive tradition of remembrance that is still remembered today. Heuss not only triggered approval with his remembrance policy speeches. Part of the population saw it as a provocation and protested against it in letters to him. But Heuss himself also pursued a policy of the past in some cases, which seems questionable today. During his tenure in office, for example, he repeatedly advocated the pardoning of war criminals such as the former State Secretary in the Foreign Office, Ernst von Weizsäcker . Even more irritating was his use of the former task force leader Martin Sandberger , who had first been sentenced to death and then to life imprisonment for the murder of thousands of Jews, communists and partisans.

Talk

During his two terms in office, Heuss made a total of 775 speeches. Above all, it was his speeches with which he had an impact on the broader population. Heuss justified the speech as a trademark of the Federal President for his successors. He drafted his speeches himself and delivered them freely in his Swabian dignitary bass, based at most on notes. He was able to get involved with very different groups of listeners and gave the impression of addressing them personally. With his extensive education, he linked historical with current issues. He seasoned his sometimes rambling thoughts with a pinch of humor and irony. Instead of final answers, he offered food for your own reflection. Even if he wanted to shake up his fellow citizens with uncomfortable truths on some topics, he ultimately relied on reconciliation of an insecure post-war society in his speeches.

Foreign state visits

year month Country
1956 14-22 May Greece
1957 5th - 13th May Turkey
19. – 22. November Italy
27.-28. November Vatican
1958 May 28th - June 3rd Canada
June 4th - June 23rd United States
20.-23. October Great Britain

In 1955 the Federal Republic largely gained its sovereignty through the German Treaty. As Federal President, Theodor Heuss has since made several state visits abroad. Of central importance were his gestures of reconciliation towards the countries that had suffered under the National Socialist tyranny and the terrorist bombs during World War II. In 1956 he honored the victims of brutal retaliation by the German occupiers in Greece. A year and a half later, during his visit to Italy, he laid a wreath at the Fosse Ardeatine, where the SS had shot over 300 Italian hostages in 1944. The state visit to Great Britain, where the consequences of the bombing war were still visible, was also explosive. Even if Heuss was warmly received by the British Queen and Government and his person and his demeanor received a lot of praise, there was also criticism from the English side that the visit was too early and uneasiness in the German media about whether Heuss was the Federal Republic can still represent contemporary.

Ultimately, Heuss's state visits also paved the way for better relations with the former war opponents, because he did not skip the mortgage of National Socialism. Through his own life and his civil personality alone, he represented a changed, peaceful and democratic Germany that had learned from its history.

Influence on daily politics

Heuss' administration was not limited to symbolic gestures, representational tasks and speeches. He did not act in disbelief, but occasionally intervened in important issues of daily politics and thus abandoned his role as non-partisan head of state. He saw himself as a representative of a policy that he judged to be correct and responsible. So he supported - mostly behind the scenes in conversations and letters - Adenauer's policy on Germany and the goal of integration with the West. He was an advocate of rearmament and in 1952 requested an opinion from the Federal Constitutional Court on a German contribution to the European Defense Community , but then withdrew it on Adenauer's advice. He also allowed himself to be drawn into the internal party disputes of the FDP and criticized the behavior of some nationalist FDP state associations. When Heuss considered the verbal abuses of the Federal Minister of Justice, his party friend Thomas Dehler, to be unacceptable, he refused his reappointment in 1953.

Elly Heuss-Knapp as "First Lady"

In the exercise of his strenuous office, Heuss found support from his wife Elly Heuss-Knapp. She was still an important conversation partner and advisor to him and accompanied him as “First Lady” on trips and receptions. In addition, she created her own area of ​​responsibility when she and Antonie Nopitsch founded the Deutsche Müttergenesungswerk in 1950 , an umbrella organization for the numerous rest homes of the social and charitable associations. To date, every woman (or life partner) of the Federal President has taken on the patronage of the mother's convalescence work. Plagued by illnesses for years, Elly Heuss-Knapp died on July 19, 1952 of a severe heart condition.

recognition

During his first term in office, Heuss gained great political prestige and popularity among the general public. Every day he received several hundred letters from citizens who valued him and his administration, asked for help, wanted to discuss problems with him, gave him presents or even sharply criticized him. Even if he had no constitutional competences or financial resources for many of these concerns, he often wrote personal responses in order to act as an educator for democracy in this way. Numerous honors and awards recognized him (see below). The festivities for his 70th birthday on January 31, 1954, which lasted over three days, testify to the recognition that politicians and the public showed the Federal President. So it was not surprising that when he was re-elected on July 17, 1954 in the Federal Assembly, he was elected for a second term with an overwhelming majority across all parties: in the first ballot he received 85.6 percent of all votes.

In the vernacular he was affectionately known as "Papa Heuss". This showed a great longing of post-war society for normality and a kind father figure. His bourgeois and popular demeanor with hat, stick, cigar, red wine glass, thoughtful humor and penchant for anecdotes met this expectation. This also showed the downside of its great popularity: the increasing depoliticization of a "grandfather figure that has been harmonized to the point of harmlessness," according to the judgment of the publicist and Heuss expert Hermann Rudolph . Heuss rejected this trivialization of his person and thus also of his administration, as he made clear in a letter to Federal Interior Minister Gerhard Schröder in the spring of 1959: "I have been fighting for years against this dad talk, which I cannot tolerate".

Term expires

At the end of his second term of office, when 84 percent of the population rated Heuss's administration as good or excellent, politicians and the public were considering changing the Basic Law to allow the respected Federal President to have another term. Heuss himself did not initially completely rule out this idea, but ultimately rejected an amendment to the constitution relating to himself. Instead, Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer announced his candidacy for the highest office of the state because he believed that the Federal President had considerably more powers than Heuss assumed. He provoked a violent correspondence with Heuss, who saw his performance as Federal President devalued. In the end, Adenauer also realized that as Federal Chancellor he would continue to have considerably more influence on day-to-day politics than in the office of Federal President, and withdrew his candidacy. Finally, on July 1, 1959, the Federal Assembly elected Heinrich Lübke as Heuss's successor in the second ballot with a narrow absolute majority. Heuss' term of office ended on September 12, 1959.

The last few years in Stuttgart

After leaving Bonn, Heuss moved into his retirement home in Feuerbacher Weg 46 on Stuttgart's Killesberg in September 1959 (today's Theodor-Heuss-Haus ). There he wanted to dedicate himself above all to his family and friends, his literary inclinations and the writing of his memoirs, which he continued to write until 1933. He found the many requests for lectures and patronage mostly a disruption to which he sometimes reacted brusquely. Nevertheless, he wanted to continue to work in public, gave lectures on topics that were important to him, and remained on the committees of some cultural institutions to which he still felt connected.

As former Federal President he spoke about current events that particularly moved him, such as the " swastika graffiti " at the Cologne synagogue at the end of 1959 or the defamation of the Social Democratic candidate for Chancellor Willy Brandt, whom he defended against accusations of illegitimate birth and emigration . Several trips abroad took him to France, Israel and India, where he was received like a state guest and held talks with high-ranking politicians. After his health deteriorated and his leg had to be amputated in the late summer of 1959, he died in his house on December 12, 1963. The funeral service took place as part of a state funeral on December 17, 1963 in the collegiate church (Stuttgart) . The double grave of Theodor Heuss and his wife is in the forest cemetery in Stuttgart .

Numerous obituaries were written for Heuss. The social philosopher Theodor W. Adorno , a prominent representative of the neo-Marxist “ Frankfurt School ”, paid tribute to him with remarkable words: “There was something barely imaginable between him and the supposedly anonymous and alienated masses: contact without demagogy.” Heuss reminded people of them “The citizen's idea of ​​a world in which there is no need to fear.” The London Times wrote on the occasion of the death of Theodor Heuss' successor Heinrich Lübke :

“Professor Heuss was extraordinarily successful as Federal President and embodied the concept of the educated man of honor ('Scholar and Gentleman') to perfection under the extremely difficult circumstances in which Germany found itself after Hitler's war of aggression was lost. As the formal head of state, he did what he could to restore the country's image as one of poets, philosophers and musicians. "

- The Times , April 7, 1972, p. 16. Translated from English.

Honors and awards (excerpt)

Ceremony for the 100th birthday of Heuss in the Bundestag on January 31, 1984

Afterlife

Foundations and other organizations

2009

In 1964 the Theodor Heuss Foundation named after him was founded. It awards the Theodor Heuss Prize and the Theodor Heuss Medal for civic initiative and civil courage every year .

The Federal President-Theodor-Heuss-Haus foundation was established in 1994 to promote political education and contemporary research. She maintains the Theodor-Heuss-Haus in Stuttgart.

The Theodor-Heuss-Kolleg is a support program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung for young people.

The educational facility of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which Heuss co-founded in Gummersbach , opened in 1967 is called Theodor Heuss Academy . It was planned with Heuss's knowledge since 1963 and named after him with his consent. The archive of liberalism built there in 1984 has u. a. also about letters and documents from Heuss. From 1958 to 1963 he was a member of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

Museums

The Theodor-Heuss-Haus, the former residence of Heuss on Stuttgart's Killesberg , has been open to the public as a memorial and museum since 2002. In addition to Heuss's authentic living spaces, a permanent exhibition provides information about the life and work of Theodor Heuss and Elly Heuss-Knapp.

The Theodor Heuss Museum is located in the former Obertorhaus in Heuss' birthplace Brackenheim .

Others

The head of Theodor Heuss, in the middle of a coffin of the Katharinenkirche Oppenheim

The rescue cruiser Theodor Heuss , the first ferry of the Vogelfluglinie , a VIP - Airbus of the flight readiness of the Federal Ministry of Defense , a barracks of the Bundeswehr in Stuttgart as well as numerous streets, squares and schools all over Germany are named after Heuss .

In the 1950s, when the head sculpture of an Obergaden - eyelashes of the Gothic Katharinenkirche in Oppenheim (south side) had to be renewed, it was given the facial features of the then Federal President Theodor Heuss.

Until the introduction of the euro on January 1, 2002, its image was on a mint issue of the two-mark piece . There were also two German stamp series: Federal President Theodor Heuss (1954–1957) and Heuss Medaillon (1959). On the occasion of the 125th birthday, a 145 euro cent stamp was issued by Deutsche Post AG in 2009 with a photo portrait of Heuss.

Fonts (selection)

Kapp-Lüttwitz. The Crime Against the Nation, 1920
Hitler's Path, exhibit in the Theodor Heuss Museum
Dutch and Italian editions of Theodor Heuss' book Hitler's Path from 1932
  • Viticulture and vintner stand in Heilbronn am Neckar. Dissertation at the University of Munich 1905/06; Carlesso, Brackenheim 2005, ISBN 3-00-014657-1 .
  • The states and the empire. Progress book publisher "Hilfe", Berlin-Schöneberg 1918.
  • Friedrich Naumann : Design and Designer. Life history pictures. Edited by Theodor Heuss. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1919.
  • Hitler's Way: A Historical-Political Study of National Socialism. Union, Stuttgart 1932 (eight editions in 1932, Heuss prevented a reprint during his lifetime). New edition as Hitler's way. A font from 1932. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1968.
  • Friedrich Naumann. The man, the work, the time. German Publishing House, Stuttgart / Berlin 1937; Siebenstern-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich / Hamburg 1968.
  • Hans Poelzig: Buildings and Designs. The life picture of a German builder. E. Wasmuth, Berlin 1939; Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-421-02835-4 .
  • Anton Dohrn in Naples. Atlantis-Verlag, Berlin / Zurich 1940; extended edition under the title Anton Dohrn. Wunderlich, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1948.
  • Justus von Liebig. On the genius of research. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1942.
  • Robert Bosch. Life and achievement. Wunderlich, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1946; extended new edition, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-421-05630-7 .
  • German characters. Studies of the 19th Century. Wunderlich, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1947; Goldmann, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-442-11130-7 .
  • Shadow conjuring. Figures on the margins of history. Wunderlich, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1947; Klöpfer and Meyer, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-931402-52-5 .
  • 1848. Work and legacy. Schwab, Stuttgart 1948; New edition under the title 1848. The failed revolution. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05143-7 .
  • Courage to love. German Coordination Council of Christians and Jews, Bad Nauheim 1949 (speech by the Federal President on the occasion of the ceremony of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Wiesbaden on December 7, 1949).
  • What is quality? On the history and the task of the Deutscher Werkbund. Wunderlich, Tübingen / Stuttgart 1951.
  • Foreplay of life. Childhood memories. R. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1953.
  • several articles in the Neue Deutsche Biographie , from 1953 ( e-texts ).
  • On the art of this present. 3 essays. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1956.
  • Speeches to the youth. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1956.
  • From place to place. Walks with pen and pen. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1959; Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-421-06225-0 .
  • State and people in the making. Talks in and about Israel, with 4 color sketches by the author. Ner-Tamid-Verlag, Munich 1960.
  • In front of the book wall. Sketches of poets and poetry. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1961.
  • Wandering through German fate. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1961.
  • Memoirs 1905–1933. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1963; Fischer library, Frankfurt a. M./ Hamburg 1965.
  • Harvest of the Years - A selection from his writings. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1963; Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1964.
  • To and about Jews. Compiled from writings and speeches (1906–1963) and ed. by Hans Lamm. Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf / Vienna 1964.
  • Berlin and its museums. Knorr and Hirth, Munich / Ahrbeck 1966.
  • Swabia. Colors to a portrait. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1967.
  • The seizure of power and the enabling law. Two posthumous chapters of the memories 1905 to 1933. Ed. By Eberhard Pikart. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1967.

swell

  • The big speeches. The statesman , Tübingen 1965.
  • The big speeches. The humanist , Tübingen 1965.
  • Records 1945–1947. Edited by Eberhard Pikart. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1966.
  • Diary letters 1955–1963. A selection from letters to Toni Stolper . Wunderlich-Verlag Leins, Tübingen / Stuttgart 1970, ISBN 3-8052-0308-X .
  • Theodor Heuss, Elly Knapp: This is how you became home to me. A love story in letters from the beginning of the century . Edited by Hermann Rudolph. DVA, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-421-06301-X .
  • Theodor Heuss, Konrad Adenauer: Our fatherland benefits. The correspondence 1948-1963 , arr. by Hans Peter Mensing. Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-88680-319-8 .
  • Konrad Adenauer, Theodor Heuss: In private. Conversations from the founding years 1949–1959. Schöningh, Paderborn 1997, ISBN 3-88680-614-6 .
  • Theodor Heuss. Father of the Constitution. Two speeches in the Parliamentary Council on the Basic Law 1948/49. Ed. And edit. by Ernst Wolfgang Becker. De Gruyter Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-11791-6 .
Theodor Heuss, Stuttgart edition
  • Departure in the Empire. Letters 1892–1917. Ed. And edit. by Frieder Günther. KG Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-25123-8 . ( PDF ).
  • Citizen of the Weimar Republic. Letters 1918–1933. Ed. And edit. by Michael Dorrmann. KG Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-25122-1 . ( PDF ).
  • On the defensive. Letters 1933–1945. Ed. And edit. by Elke Seefried . KG Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-25124-5 ( PDF ).
  • Democracy educator. Letters 1945–1949. Ed. And edit. by Ernst Wolfgang Becker. KG Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-44116-5 . ( PDF ).
  • The federal president. Letters 1949–1954. Ed. And edit. by Ernst Wolfgang Becker, Martin Vogt, Wolfram Werner. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-598-25127-6 . ( PDF ).
  • The federal president. Letters 1954–1959. Ed. And edit. by Ernst Wolfgang Becker, Martin Vogt and Wolfram Werner. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-029887-1 . ( PDF ).
  • Dear Federal President! The correspondence with the population 1949–1959. Stuttgart edition. Edited by the Federal President-Theodor-Heuss-Haus Foundation , edit. by Wolfram Werner. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-598-25126-9 . ( PDF ).
  • Privatier and Elder Statesman. Letters 1959–1963. Ed. And edit. by Frieder Günther. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-598-25129-0 . ( PDF ).

literature

Archives

Web links

Commons : Theodor Heuss  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Isolde Döbele-Carlesso : In the shadow of the famous brother . In: Heilbronn voice . October 9, 2007 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on May 24, 2011]).
  2. Kristian Buchna: In the shadow of anti-clericalism. Theodor Heuss, Liberalism and the Churches. (= Stiftung Bundespräsident-Theodor-Heuss-Haus, Kleine Reihe , 33), Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-942302-10-4 .
  3. Bernhard Zeller : Theodor Heuss - The man, the work, the time. An exhibition . Ed .: Theodor Heuss Archive. Wunderlich u. a., Tübingen 1967, DNB  458328561 , p. 3 .
  4. Dr. Hanns Heiman: Die Neckarschiffer - The situation of the Neckarschiffer since the introduction of the tugboat . tape 2 . C. Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung , Heidelberg 1907, OCLC 491090143 , p. 433 ( digitized version ).
  5. Ute Grau, Städtetag Baden-Württemberg - Working group of full-time archivists (ed.): Revolution in the south-west - sites of the democracy movement 1848/49 in Baden-Württemberg . Info Verlag , Karlsruhe 1998, ISBN 3-88190-219-8 , p. 234, 382 .
  6. ^ Karl Heinz Neser: Political life in the Neckar-Odenwald district - yesterday and today . Verlag Regionalkultur , Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-89735-422-5 , p. 40, 42, 43 .
  7. ^ Theodor Heuss: Preludes of Life. Childhood memories . Tübingen 1953, p. 207-210 .
  8. ^ Theodor Heuss: Memories 1905-1933 . Tübingen 1963, p. 25 .
  9. ^ Theodor Heuss: Preludes of Life . Tübingen 1953, p. 198 .
  10. Thomas Hertfelder: From Naumann to Heuss. About a tradition of social liberalism in Germany . In: Stiftung Bundespräsident-Theodor-Heuss-Haus, small series . tape 29 . Stuttgart 2013, p. 15-28 .
  11. Theodor Heuss / Elly Knapp: “This is how you became my home.” A love story in letters from the beginning of the century . Ed .: Hermann Rudolph. Stuttgart 1986.
  12. Kirsten Jüngling / Brigitte Roßbeck: Elly Heuss-Knapp (1881–1952). The first first lady. A portrait . Heilbronn 1994, p. 132-141 .
  13. Reiner Burger: Theodor Heuss as a journalist, observer and interpreter of four epochs of German history . Münster 1999, p. 53-107 .
  14. ^ Frieder Günther: Introduction, in: Theodor Heuss. Departure in the Empire. Letters 1892–1917 . Ed .: Frieder Günther. Berlin / Boston 2014, p. 25 .
  15. Reiner Burger: Theodor Heuss as a journalist, observer and interpreter of four epochs of German history . Münster 1999, p. 156-180 .
  16. Dieter Düding : The National Social Association 1896-1903. Oldenbourg, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-486-43801-8 , p. 191, note 47.
  17. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 31-35 .
  18. ^ Theodor Heuss: The world war . In: March . tape 8 , no. 34 , August 15, 1914, p. 224 .
  19. Peter Merseburger: Theodor Heuss - The citizen as president . Biography , Munich, DVA, 2012, ISBN 978-3-641-04157-1 , pp. 139-185.
  20. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 44-47 .
  21. Jürgen C. Heß: Theodor Heuss before 1933. A contribution to the history of democratic thought in Germany . Stuttgart 1973, p. 141-176 .
  22. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 47-50 .
  23. ^ Thomas Hertfelder / Christiane Ketterle (eds.): Theodor Heuss. Publicist - politician - president. Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition in the Theodor-Heuss-Haus . Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-9807404-4-9 , pp. 80 .
  24. ^ Joachim Radkau: Theodor Heuss . Munich 2013, p. 164-170 .
  25. ^ Peter Merseburger: Theodor Heuss. The citizen as president. Biography . Munich 2012, p. 233-238 .
  26. ^ Horst Wagner: The founding of the DDP in 1918 . In: Berlin monthly magazine 11/1998 at the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein .
  27. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-17-021490-3 , pp. 57 .
  28. ^ Frieder Günther: Heuss on trips. The foreign representation of the Federal Republic. P. 84.
  29. Ralf Dahrendorf / Martin Vogt (eds.): Theodor Heuss. Politician and publicist. Essays and speeches . Tübingen 1984, ISBN 978-3-8052-0389-0 , p. 231 .
  30. ^ Official protocol of the Reichstag, Bavarian State Library , March 23, 1933, accessed on November 27, 2017.
  31. Jürgen C. Heß: "The German situation has become extremely serious." Theodor Heuss and the challenges of 1933 . In: Yearbook on Liberalism Research . tape 6 , 1994, pp. 65-136, especially pp. 83-94 .
  32. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 69-72 .
  33. ^ Peter Merseburger: Theodor Heuss. The citizen as president. Biography . Munich 2012, p. 302-308 .
  34. ^ Joachim Radkau: Theodor Heuss . Munich 2013, p. 184-187 .
  35. Ernst Wolfgang Becker: The normative dimension of Realpolitik. Left Liberalism and Enabling Legislation in the Weimar Republic . In: Yearbook on Liberalism Research . tape 28 , 2016, p. 91-118 .
  36. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Authorization to Political Error. The approval of the Enabling Act 1933 and the policy of remembrance in the first Wuerttemberg-Baden investigative committee of the post-war period . Stuttgart 2001.
  37. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker, Thomas Rösslein (ed.): Political error in the witness stand. The minutes of the committee of inquiry of the Württemberg-Baden state parliament from 1947 for the approval of the “Enabling Act” of March 23, 1933 . Stuttgart 2003, p. 137-142 .
  38. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Citizens in the Age of Extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 72-78 .
  39. Theodor Heuss: Gleichschalt des Geistes . In: Help . No. 10 , May 20, 1933, pp. 267 .
  40. ^ Heuss to Friedrich Mück, April 1, 1933, and Heuss to Otto Debatin, May 6, 1933 . In: Elke Seefried (ed.): Theodor Heuss: In the defensive. Letters 1933–1945 . Munich 2009, p. 132, 148 f .
  41. ^ Heuss to Friedrich Mück, April 1, 1933 . In: Elke Seefried (ed.): Theodor Heuss: In the defensive. Letters 1933–1945 . Munich 2009, p. 132 .
  42. ^ Joachim Radkau: Theodor Heuss . Munich 2013, p. 187 f .
  43. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 76 .
  44. ^ Heuss to Friedrich Mück, May 7, 1933 . In: Elke Seefried (ed.): Theodor Heuss: In the defensive. Letters 1933–1945 . Munich 2009, p. 151 .
  45. Karl-Josef Kuschel: Theodor Heuss, the Shoah, Judaism, Israel: An attempt . Tübingen 2013, p. 163 ff .
  46. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 78 f .
  47. ^ Christian Maatje: Sold air. The commercialization of broadcasting. Radio advertising in Germany (1923–1936) . Potsdam 2000, p. 275-308 .
  48. Reiner Burger: Theodor Heuss as a journalist. Observer and interpreter of four epochs of German history . Münster 1999, p. 291-319 .
  49. Reiner Burger: Theodor Heuss as a journalist. Observer and interpreter of four epochs of German history . Münster 1999, p. 352-377 .
  50. ^ Heuss to Oskar Stark, February 25, 1941 . In: Elke Seefried (ed.): Theodor Heuss: In the defensive. Letters 1933–1945 . Munich 2009, p. 399 f .
  51. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Biography as a way of life. Theodor Heuss as a biographer under National Socialism . In: Wolfgang Hardtwig, Erhard Schütz (Hrsg.): History for readers. Popular historiography in Germany in the 20th century . Stuttgart 2005, p. 57-89 .
  52. Elke Seefried: Introduction . In: Elke Seefried (ed.): Theodor Heuss: In the defensive. Letters 1933–1945 . Munich 2009, p. 44 ff .
  53. Jürgen C. Heß: "The Nazis knew that we were and remained their enemies." Theodor Heuss and the resistance against National Socialism . In: Yearbook on Liberalism Research . tape 14 , 2002, p. 143-195 .
  54. Henric M. Wuermeling: The white list. Change in political culture in Germany in 1945 . Berlin 1981, p. 284 f .
  55. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Introduction . In: Ernst Wolfgang Becker (ed.): Theodor Heuss: Educators for democracy. Letters 1945–1949 . S. 15-55 .
  56. Theodor Heuss: In Memoriam . In: Ralf Dahrendorf, Martin Vogt (Ed.): Theodor Heuss. Politician and publicist . Tübingen 1984, p. 303 .
  57. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss. Citizens in the age of extremes . Stuttgart 2011, p. 109-111 .
  58. Reiner Burger: Theodor Heuss as a journalist. Observer and interpreter of four epochs of German history . Münster 1993, p. 398-450 .
  59. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: An intellectual in the showcase? Theodor Heuss and the re-establishment of liberalism in Germany after 1945 . In: Yearbook on Liberalism Research . tape 20 , 2008, p. 29-45 .
  60. Jürgen C. Heß: False start. Theodor Heuss and the Democratic Party of Germany 1947/1948 . In: Yearbook on Liberalism Research . tape 9 , 1997, pp. 83-121 .
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  103. AAS 50 (1958), n.3, p. 129.
  104. PDF document on Katharinenkirche, p. 3 .
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