Walter Feilchenfeld-Fales

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Feilchenfeld-Fales (in the 1940s)

Walter Feilchenfeld-Fales (born September 2, 1896 in Berlin , † April 18, 1953 in Lincoln) was a German educator and philosopher , who is known in particular as the chief editor of Pestalozzi's works and letters .

life and work

family

According to Walter Feilchenfeld's study of the Feilchenfeld family, all persons with this name are descended from Wolf Fabian Fales (1745-1820). He lived in Lissa and changed his name to Feilchenfeld around 1793 after the city passed to the Prussians. Walter Feilchenfeld-Fales is related to Rabbi Fabian Feilchenfeld and his grandson Walter Feilchenfeldt through his son Hirsch Wolf Feilchenfeld (1786–1865) . He took the original name Fales in 1940 (emigrated to the USA).

Studies and employment

In the First World War was Feilchenfeld soldier was wounded and was 20 months in captivity. After the war he studied German and classical philology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin and received his doctorate there in 1922 under Julius Petersen , Gustav Roethe and Eduard Spranger .

Title page of the first volume of the critical Pestalozzi edition, 1927

After his teacher training, he taught from 1924 to 1928 at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Realgymnasium (from 1927: Karl-Marx-Schule ) in Berlin-Neukölln , which was directed by Fritz Karsen . After a vacation year 1928-29, which he used for his scientific work, Feilchenfeld was employed as a substitute teacher at various schools in Berlin, but had no permanent job. Due to his Jewish origins, his employment as a teacher was withdrawn in July 1934 (due to the so-called Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , Section 6). He received a low pension and worked from 1934 to 1938 at the Jewish teachers' college in Berlin. He then emigrated to Switzerland with his wife, whom he had met at the teachers' seminar, and continued to work on the Pestalozzi edition until the beginning of 1940. In February 1940 they were able to flee to the USA via Italy on one of the last ships.

Editor of the Pestalozzi edition

From 1923 to 1938 Feilchenfeld was the chief editor of the (critical edition of) Pestalozzi's “Complete Works”. This project was initiated in 1923 by Spranger, Artur Buchenau and Hans Stettbacher. The first volume was published in 1927 on the 100th anniversary of Pestalozzi's death, but completion took until 1996. In Volume 12 of the work edition published in 1938, his name was not mentioned on the title page or in the foreword.

His work was recognized again with the publication of the "Complete Letters". He had already done important preparatory work here before the Second World War. This was also recognized when the “Complete Letters” (from 1946) appeared. He is named as one of the editors in various volumes of letters and he was the main editor of volumes 4 and 5.

Emigration and Lincoln University

After arriving in the USA, Fales and his wife Ruth, b. Ilgner, (1915-2004) as a domestic worker; later Walter was employed in the archives of the American Friends Service Committee (the Quakers ) and Ruth opened a kindergarten. Their son Evan was born in 1943 and their daughter Corinna in 1945; the family lived in Haverford, Pennsylvania at the time.

From 1946 to 1953 Fales was Professor of Philosophy at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. His wife was the first to graduate in from Lincoln University. Her teacher training in Germany had not been recognized in the USA, which is why she was also aiming for an American degree. Since Lincoln University was a "black" college and, moreover, had only trained male students so far, Ruth Fales had to obtain her legal degree, which she received in 1953, shortly before Walter Fales' death.

In addition to the works mentioned in the Works section, Walter Fales has published more than 60 articles.

Walter Fales Memorial Prize

Since the 1960s, Lincoln University has awarded the Walter Fales Memorial Prize to students with the best thesis in philosophy.

Works

  • Jakob Böhme's influence on Novalis , dissertation, Berlin, 1922.
  • Leibniz and Henry More. A contribution to the history of the development of monadology. In: Kantstudien 28 , Berlin, 1923.
  • Pestalozzi, Goethe, Lavater. In: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 3 , pp. 431–443, Niemeyer, Halle, 1925.
  • Discover your self , Quelle & Meyer , Leipzig, 1926.
  • On the critical complete edition of Pestalozzi's writings and letters. In: Die Erziehungs 2 , pp. 238–240, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig, 1927 (with the same text also in Geisteskultur 36 ).
  • The concept of truth in Pestalozzi. In: Archive for the history of philosophy 40 , Heymanns , pp. 504–533, 1931.
  • Thoughts on a psychology of the situation. In: Archive for the whole of psychology 87 , pp. 161-182, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, 1933.
  • From unknown writings Joh. Heinr. Pestalozzis. In: Journal for the history of education and teaching 23 , pp. 15–48, 1933
  • Wisdom And Responsibility , Princeton University Press , 1946.
  • The descendents of Wolf Fales (A chronicle of the Feilchenfeld family). Compiled by Walter Fales , 1947, online (Center for Jewish History) .

literature

  • Susanne Edel: The individual substance in Böhme and Leibniz , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1995.
  • Klaus-Peter Horn : Life in and out of time. The correspondence between Walter Feilchenfeld / Fales and Eduard Spranger 1923 to 1953. In: People's educators in poor time. Studies on the life and work of Eduard Spranger. Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 83-104, 2004.
  • Klaus-Peter Horn, Thomas Koinzer: A German-American network through letters after the Second World War. An attempt and its failure , Paedagogica historica 43 , 283–294, 2007.
  • Christa Kersting: Pedagogy in Post-War Germany. Science policy and discipline development 1945–1955 , Klinkhardt, 2008 (esp. Pp. 155–162).
  • Feilchenfeld-Fales, Walter. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 6: Dore – Fein. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-22686-1 , pp. 558-561.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fabian's sister Fanny married the rabbi Wolf Landau (chief rabbi in Dresden).
  2. ↑ Walter Fales was one of the 47 "Rosenwald Fellows" of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars , see Duggan / Drury: The Rescue of Science and Learning , online (PDF file; 793 kB), and the Emergency Committee's finding aid in the New York Public Library, pp. 2 and 29, online (PDF file; 402 kB).
  3. ↑ Evan Fales was later a physics teacher, since 1974 he has been professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa .
  4. ↑ See Susan Pevar: Lincoln University's First Alumna, Ruth Fales , LU Lone Arranger, 2006, online
  5. ↑ For example in the journals Die Erziehungs (1927, 1931, 1933, 1935), Deutsche Literaturzeitung (1927, 1933), Deutsches Philologenblatt (1929, 1930), The entertainment paper of the Vossische Zeitung (as a pseudonym FW Alter, 1929, 1930), monthly for higher schools (1930), magazine for the history of education and instruction (1932), Der Schild (1933, 1934), Der deutsche Vorrupp (1934), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1943, 1950, 1952, 1953), Harvard Educational Review (1946), The Journal of Religion (1951), Philosophy of Science (1953).
personal data
SURNAME Feilchenfeld-Fales, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feilchenfeld, Walter; Fales, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German educator and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1953
Place of death Lincoln