Victor Basch

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Victor Basch (born August 18, 1863 in Budapest , Austrian Empire , † January 10, 1944 near Lyon in the Ain department ) was a French German philosopher , philosopher and politician.

Life

Place Victor-et-Hélène-Basch in the 14th arrondissement of Paris

Viktor Wilhelm Vilmos Langsfeld Basch was born on August 18, 1863 in Budapest to a Jewish family. As a child he moved to France with his family. In Paris , Basch attended the Lycée Condorcet and studied German and philosophy at the Sorbonne . After acquiring the Agrégation for living languages ​​in 1884, he held a chair for German studies and a chair for aesthetics at the University of Nancy from 1885 to 1887 . In 1885 he married Ilona Fürth in Pest , who later called herself Hélène Basch, born in Budapest in 1863. In 1887 they became French citizens . From 1887 to 1906 Basch was professor of philosophy in Rennes . From 1906 he took over a professorship for German language and literature at the University of Paris . Basch was a member of a Masonic lodge.

As an undogmatic socialist , Victor Basch stood up for Alfred Dreyfus . In 1898 he founded the League for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights together with Ludovic Trarieux and Lucien Herr and in 1926 became its fourth president. From 1920 to 1930 he was active against the extreme French right and was injured by members of the Camelots du roi on the occasion of a political gathering in November 1930 . In the interwar years, Basch was also committed to German-French understanding. Basch promoted meetings between German and French youth. He warned early on in France of the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) . From 1933, Basch broke away from his pacifist league colleagues and supported a fight against fascism, which also left an option for military means open. Basch played an important role in the creation of the Popular Front and supported the Spanish Republic . He opposed the dictate of Munich in 1938 and protested loudly against the German-Soviet non-aggression pact in 1939.

With this commitment, Basch was a natural enemy of the Vichy regime and the German occupying power. The Germans put it under control immediately when they occupied the country. But Basch refused to avoid the danger and go into hiding. Instead, he moved to Lyon in the supposedly independent unoccupied zone . The Baschs belonged to a resistance action , the Comité d'action socialiste . At the instigation of the Germans, they were arrested in January 1944 by members of the Milice française from Lyon under the command of Paul Touvier . They were then murdered by Joseph Lécussan and the Gestapo chief of Lyon August Moritz . Their bodies were later found on a country road near Neyron (Ain); they had many gunshot wounds. Victor Basch was buried in the French war cemetery of La Doua .

Basch's daughter Yvonne married the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs . Her daughter Françoise Basch writes about her grandfather:

“(My essay) describes the philosophical, political and professional career of Victor Basch from the perspective of his relationship to Germany. Germany played a key role in the life of the teacher and philosopher Basch. He maintained an uninterrupted, intensive dialogue with this country. By studying philosophy as well as German language and literature, Basch concentrated on the history of ideas and literary studies, which he studied and taught at the universities of Nancy, Rennes and Paris. When describing his career, three stations in particular are discussed: During the First World War, Victor Basch took the side of the “Union sacrée” and advocated a so-called “defensive” patriotism. At the same time, however, he is constantly on the lookout for pacifist signals from the German side. After the end of the war, he then fought against the harshest paragraphs of the Versailles Agreement in an effort to keep Germany from sliding into a catastrophic state that would have negative effects on all of Europe. “L'amant de la paix” unceasingly preaches Franco-German rapprochement and defies nationalists and right-wing extremists from both countries. From 1930 he finally devoted himself to exposing the Nazi regime. "

- Basch, résumé by Victor Basch et l'Allemagne: dialogue et dissonance :

Honorable memory

In France, numerous streets and schools bear Basch's name.

Publications

  • Essai critique sur l'esthétique de Kant . Alcan, Paris 1896
  • L'individualisme anarchiste Max Stirner . Alcan, Paris 1904
  • La poétique de Schiller . Essai d'esthétique littéraire . In the Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporain series . Alcan, Paris 1911
  • Open letter to President Ebert . In Gerhart Seger (ed.): The Quidde case . Facts and documents . Oldenburg, Leipzig 1924
  • Schumann . Alcan, Paris 1926
  • Les doctrines politiques des philosophes classiques de l'Allemagne: Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel . Alcan, Paris 1927

Numerous articles in the magazines Le Siècle and La Grande Revue .

literature

  • Françoise Basch: Victor Basch ou la passion de la justice. De l'affaire Dreyfus au crime de la milice . Plon, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-259-02409-2 .
  • Bernard Ludwig: Victor Basch et l'Allemagne. Esquisse d'une relation particulière . In: Revue d'Allemagne et des pays de langue allemande 36 (2004), Issue 3–4 (July – December), pp. 341–358 (with references). Edited by the Société d'Études Allemandes, Strasbourg, ISSN  0151-1947 .

Filmography

  • Vincent Lowy: Victor Basch, dreyfusard de combat . Documentary France 2005 (52 min.)

Web links

Commons : Victor Basch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ W. D. Hall's article on Basch in Bertram Gordon, Editor: Historical Dictionary of World War II France - The Occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938–1946. Westport, Connecticut 1998, ISBN 0-313-29421-6
  2. ↑ s. French bash lemma
  3. ↑ Zs. Lendemains, 23rd year 1998, no . 1, special issue Ligue des Droits de l'Homme , Stauffenburg Verlag ISBN 3860579606
personal data
SURNAME Bash, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Viktor Wilhelm Vilmos Langsfeld Basch (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Germanist, philosopher and politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1944
Place of death near Lyon, Département Ain