Theodor Pösche

Theodor Friedrich Wilhelm Pösche (born March 23, 1825 in Zöschen , † December 27, 1899 in Washington, DC ) was a German author, statistician and geographer.

Life

Pösche was born as the eldest son of eight children of the teacher Johann Gottlob Pösche and his wife Caroline Friederike Luise Pösche , née Zöllner . His father died in 1839. At Easter 1844 he began studying theology at the University of Halle . The first publication The Protestant Friends and Their Opponents was published in 1845 by the publisher Häniche from Oschersleben . Pösche spoke out in favor of a rationalism in the sense of the friends of light .

Theodor Pösche was politically active and advocated democracy and a republican form of government. He distanced himself from the idea of communism . In 1845 he was one of the founders of the AHB fraternity ! Rhenania Salingia . He was a founding member of the Democratic People's Association founded in Halle (Saale) in April 1847 . He worked as an employee of the Halle Democratic Newspaper . For the newspaper he reported from the Berlin Democratic Congress .

On November 15, 1848, a 25-member security committee was founded in Halle to advocate compliance with civil rights . On November 19, 1848, a demonstration took place in the town's market square. On the orders of the city, the city militia surrounded the square. The demonstrators were asked to break up the rally around 11 am, but they refused to do so. Some violent clashes followed, with people injured. Subsequently, the authorities tried to seize the so-called ringleaders , in particular looking for Pöschel. However, he managed to submerge in the crowd. A profile from Pösche appeared in the Halleschen Courier three days later. Pösche was later sentenced to 16 years imprisonment in absentia. He withdrew and lived with a cousin in Giessen until at least 1850 . He then probably emigrated to England and ultimately to the USA .

In 1852 he lived in Philadelphia . Here he married Emma Pelz (1827–1911) and lived not far from the town hall. He has four children. Pösche continued to be politically active and was a member of the American Revolutionary League for Europe . Together with their spokesman Karl Goepp , he published the book The New Rome; or, The United States of the World . Pösche took the view that the USA should be seen as the core of a world republic, which states should join after they have gained their freedom. The English language is, nothing is so certain , on the way to the future world language . He also spoke out in favor of the abolition of slavery . Pösche and Goepp also took the view that if the races were mixed, the white skin color would displace the black of the African-Americans.

In a letter to Adolf Cluss dated September 15, 1853, the philosopher Karl Marx took a negative position on Pösche: I think it is time for you to take a fresh start in the polemics and these absurd Göpp-Pösche who invented the material conception While their materialism is that of the common man mending the stuff.

In the 1850s, he founded a private school in St. Louis , which developed into a higher education institution.

A construction of a flying boat, presented by him in 1853, caused a sensation .

In 1856 he received US citizenship. He moved to Washington DC and worked in the domestic tax office.

In the USA he was considered an expert in geography and statistics. After the USA acquired Alaska from Russia in 1867 , Pösche was employed as a translator of German-language texts in the course of mapping the area. Was on friendly Poesche the in Gotha living August Petermann . Pösche provided large parts of the maps for his Stieler's Atlas . On Spitzbergen a mountain was named Pösche-Berg after Theodor Pösche.

Pösche wrote many geographic and anthropological essays. In his work on the Aryans , published in 1878 , he dealt with their origins and suspected their origin in the Pripjet swamps on the Dnieper . In this region he saw a tendency of organisms to albinism . There he postulated a cultural triumph of the Aryans and saw political world domination with them. Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the contemporary readers of the book . Later this line of argument was also used by the National Socialists .

In the 1870s, Pösche advised the German Chancellor Bismarck on behalf of the US government on the introduction of a tobacco monopoly and was the chancellor's table guest for several weeks.

Fonts

• The New Rome; or, the United States of the world (with Charles Goepp). Putnam, New York 1853 ( digitized ).
• The Aryans. A contribution to historical anthropology. Costenoble, Jena 1878 ( digitized ).

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 4: M-Q. Winter, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8253-1118-X , pp. 338-339.
• Manuel Schulz, From Oschersleben out into the world - The author's career of the enfant terrible Theodor Pösche in Börde, Bode, Heide - Heimatheft 2013 , publisher: Landkreis Börde, Haldensleben 2012, page 44 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zöschen lost property (8)
2. ↑ Andreas Urs Sommer: Commentary on Nietzsche's "Zur Genealogie der Moral". (= Nietzsche Commentary, Vol. 5/2) Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2019 ISBN 9783110293388 , p. 111.