Walter Schubart

Walter Schubart (undated photo, probably from the 1920s)

Walter Schubart (born August 5, 1897 in Sonneberg , † September 15, 1942 in a prison camp in Kazakhstan , then the USSR ) was a German lawyer and cultural philosopher . In 1933 he left Germany and lived in Riga until his arrest by the Soviet secret police GPU in July 1941 . Here he wrote several books with which he made a name for himself as a cultural and religious philosopher far beyond the German-speaking area. His historical-philosophical essay “Europe and the Soul of the East”, published by Vita Nova in Lucerne in 1938, was particularly well received. In Germany, the book was only known after the Second World War and was reprinted until the late 1970s. In post-Soviet Russia it is still often interpreted in a nationalist way.

Life

Walter Schubart was born on August 5, 1897 as the eldest child of Albin and Charlotte Schubart, b. Roth, born in Sonneberg, Thuringia. His father was a magistrate at the local ducal district court , later a secret judicial advisor in Meiningen , the mother came from a merchant family in Sonneberg. Walter grew up with his siblings Erika and Werner and attended the humanistic grammar school in Meiningen, where the family had lived since 1906. His interest in the humanities and his mother's love for music became apparent early on.

After graduating from high school , Walter Schubart took part in the First World War as a volunteer and returned in 1919 as an officer with military awards. By the will of the Father, he studied law in Heidelberg , Halle , Tübingen and Jena , where he 1922 with the promotion of Dr. jur. completed. This was followed by a job as a lawyer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich , where he came into contact with Oswald Spengler , and several trips abroad.

In Munich, Schubart met Vera Englert, described as "elegant and highly educated", a Latvian Jew who posed as a Russian aristocrat. Her birth name was Rosa Rebekah Behrmann (* 14th ^jul. / 26. January  1897 ^greg. In Ventspils , † 1943 probably in a women's camp in Kazakhstan). She was married to the German pilot Josef Englert and had two children with him, Inge and Maximilian , but had been separated from her husband since 1924. Walter Schubart and Vera Englert became a couple; They moved with the children to Jena and married on December 23, 1930 in Erfurt.

From 1926 to 1932 Schubart worked as a lawyer at the Jena Higher Regional Court . After Hitler came to power in 1933 , he emigrated with his family to Latvia , as he saw no future for himself in National Socialist Germany. He initially lived with his mother-in-law in Ventspils (until 1918 German Windau), from 1935 in Riga. His son Alexander was born in Jena and his daughter Nora in Ventspils. From 1938 Schubart lived with his family in the Albertstrasse in Riga, famous for its Art Nouveau facades (Alberta iela 7, apartment 10).

In Riga, Schubart began to work as a writer and publicist and described himself as a professor of philosophy . However, only lectures at the German Herder Institute in Riga can be verified. There is no evidence for a doctorate in philosophy or for regular teaching at the University of Riga . Several books were written in quick succession, newspaper articles for the Baltic German newspaper Rigasche Rundschau, which was liberal until it was brought into line in 1933, as well as articles for magazines in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. His books “Europe and the Soul of the East” (1938), “Dostojewski und Nietzsche” (1939) and “Geistige Wandlung. Von der Mechanik zur Metaphysik ”(1940) appeared in the Swiss exile publisher Vita Nova and was placed on the index of“ undesirable and harmful literature ”by the National Socialists. Only Schubart's last book “Religion und Eros” (1941) could be published in Germany by the CH Beck publishing house in Munich.

The occupation of Latvia by the Red Army on June 17, 1940 made all lecturing and teaching activities impossible for Schubart. Attempts to move to Budapest or Zurich failed; he turned down a call to the Moscow "Institute for East-West Compromise". During a house search by the Soviet secret police ( GPU ) the typewriter , books and pictures were confiscated, as was Schubart's literary archive. The manuscript of a book on culture and technology that Schubart had just finished is considered lost.

In November 1940, son Maximilian was denounced and arrested. Shortly afterwards, his father was also arrested, but released after interrogation. Through the mediation of the German ambassador in Moscow, Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg , his son was released and had to leave the country within 24 hours.

In January 1941, the Schubart couple, who themselves did not receive an exit visa, sent their children Inge, Alexander and Nora to Germany. On July 19, 1941, Walter Schubart and his wife Vera were arrested by the GPU and deported on the Siberian railway. It was not until 1998, following a request from relatives through the Red Cross , that it became known that Walter Schubart had perished on September 15, 1942 in a prison camp in Kazakhstan. When asked in the 1990s, the KGB archives in Riga and Moscow claimed they knew nothing about it. It has not yet been possible to determine when and where Vera Schubart died, and inquiries from the Russian authorities remained unanswered.

Work and reception

In his books, which have been translated into at least eight languages, Schubart represented a humanistic-religious worldview with which he embodied a different Germany for many readers during the time of Nazi rule and countered the pseudo-religious claims of Nazi ideology.

The book "Europe and the Soul of the East" heralds the redemption of Europe by Russia or "the birth of a west-east world culture". It was after its publication u. a. noticed in the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Hungary and the USA, immediately after the war also in Italy. It was only discovered in Germany after 1945. Two radio broadcasts put Schubart's theses up for discussion. Above all, his pessimistic image of Western culture and his hope that the Russian soul would heal Western people met with criticism. During the East-West conflict, Heinrich Böll emphasized its topicality; after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the philosopher Wilhelm Schmid found it helped to better understand the present between East and West. Since the first full Russian translation, which appeared in 1997, this work has been the subject of controversy in post-Soviet Russia.

Schubart's last published work “Religion und Eros” is the religious psychological attempt to reconcile the two strongest driving forces in humans, which in Schubart's view were antagonistic primarily through the sexual morals of the apostle Paul and the church father Augustine . In conclusion, the author claims: "Religion and eroticism have the same goal: They want to transform man, they strive for his rebirth". The book was recognized early on by religious historians and psychologists, but it was also criticized for its exaggeration of eros, its tendency towards mysticism and an overly negative interpretation of Protestantism . Protestant and Catholic theologians of high standing such as Karl Barth (as part of his criticism of religion ), Helmut Thielicke and Heinrich Stirnimann have dealt with him. Today Christian authors of sacred writings such as the Benedictine Anselm Grün and the former priest Pierre Stutz refer to Schubart's plea for a lively connection between religion and eroticism.

Schubart's contribution to a west-east culture in Japan has found resonance since the 1970s. The books that appeared during his lifetime were translated into Japanese, three of which were translated by the Japanese cultural scientist Yoshiaki Komai.

Independent writings

• The ideal of world destruction. Leipzig 1919/20 (small type)
• Europe and the soul of the east. Lucerne 1938, 1946 / new edition Pfullingen 1951, second edition 1979 with a foreword by Heinrich Böll
• Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. 1939, 2nd edition 1946.
• Spiritual change. From mechanics to metaphysics. Lucerne 1940
• Religion and eros. Munich 1941, new edition 1952, last edited by Friedrich Seifert, Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-44801-1 .

literature

• Michael Heymel: The cultural philosopher Walter Schubart (1897–1942). Searching for traces, Berlin 2015 (only existing monograph on Schubart's life and work)
• Lev Anninskij: Russkii zon Val'tera Shuberta [The Russian Aeon of Walter Schubart], in: Druzhba narodov, 2002, No. 8 ( http://magazines.russ.ru/druzhba/2002/8/ann.html )
• Hans Ester: De strijd der twee aim in het Werk van Walter Schubart, in: Literator; Vol. 33, No. 2 (2012), 5 pages, accessible at: http://www.literator.org.za/index.php/literator/ article / viewFile / 401/515
• Rainer Goldt: Devoured by myth. Work and Disappearance of Walter Schubart, in: Schweizerische Monatshefte 80 (2000), Heft 2, 39–43, accessible at: http://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?var=true&pid=smh-002:2000: 80 :: 687
• Michael Heymel: On the healing of Western people: The cultural philosopher Walter Schubart (1897–1942), in: Year books for the history of Eastern Europe 62 (2014), volume 3, pp. 371–400.
• Agita Lūse: Vel nenotikusi sastapšanas (par filozofu V. Šubartu) [An encounter that never took place. About the philosopher Walter Schubart], in: Kentaurs XXI Vol. 3 (1992), 89–94, 1 fig.
• Agita Lūse: “Встреча” [encounter. On the life and work of the philosopher Walter Schubart], in: Даугава [Daugava], 4 (1993), 126-133
• Agita Lūse: Intersubjectivity and Love: In Search of the Other, in: Analecta Husserliana. Yearbook XLVIII, Dordrecht 1996, 401-408
• Günter Neske: Epilogue to: Walter Schubart, Europa und die Seele des Ostens, Pfullingen 21979, 351–356 (contains biographical details that are not mentioned anywhere else)
• Wilhelm Schmid: Europe and the soul of the east. What a book from 1938 still has to say to us today, in: Herzattacke 7 (1995), Heft 3, 231-240
• Timofey Sherudilo: Val'ter Shubert o russkom narode [Walter Schubart on the Russian people, 2000] (www.pereplet.ru/text/schubart.html)
• Inge Schubart, I wish you the stars down from the sky, Berlin 1994, Munich 1999 (autobiographical novel of the stepdaughter)
• Michael Heymel: On the eventful history of a house: The Villa Hase in Jena and its inhabitants in the 20th century, in: Gerbergasse 18: Thuringian season magazine for contemporary history and politics, issue 4/17, pp. 25–28

Web links

• Calendar "Holy Russia" 15/09/1942 from Walter Schubart, in: Russische Idee, accessible from: http://www.rusidea.org/?a=25091512 (accessed July 24, 2012) (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ First communicated by Rainer Goldt: Vom Mythos devoured. Work and disappearance of Walter Schubart . In: Swiss Monthly Issues 80 (2000), Issue 2, p. 43.
2. ↑ Walter Schubart: Europe and the soul of the East . Pfullingen, 2nd edition 1979, foreword p. 9.
3. ^ Cf. Michael Heymel: The cultural philosopher Walter Schubart (1897-1942). A search for clues . Berlin 2015, pp. 47–61.
4. ^ Walter Schubart: Religion and Eros . Munich 2001, p. 278.
5. ↑ On the reception of religion and eros cf. Michael Heymel: The cultural philosopher Walter Schubart (1897–1942). Berlin 2015, pp. 80–85.