Walter Warnach

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Walter Warnach (born September 14, 1910 in Metz (Lorraine); † June 7, 2000 in Cologne ) was a German philosopher, lecturer, art critic, translator and editor who had been professor of philosophy at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1960 until his retirement worked.

life and work

As a student, Walter Warnach had contacts with anarchist-communist groups, where he gave Esperanto lessons. During his studies (philosophy of German and Romance studies) in Bonn, Munich and Cologne he frequented the Cologne poet and artist scene, where he met the poet Eugen Gottlob Winkler (1912–1936), with whom he became friends until his early death was. In 1935/36 he worked as a lecturer on behalf of the German Academy in Montpellier, where he associated with representatives of the later Renouveau catholique , as well as with Jean Hugo and Jean Cocteau . After returning to Cologne, he began his lively philosophical and theological debate with Edith Stein until she fled to the Netherlands in 1938. In the same year he did his doctorate with Heinz Heimsoeth on the subject of being and freedom with Maurice Blondel . From 1941 to 1945 he did military service on the Eastern Front.

After the war he lived for many years as a freelance writer, translator and publisher's editor in the Rhineland, wrote essays and lectures on philosophical, literary and art-theoretical topics (e.g. in magazines such as Hochland , Merkur , Christ und Welt ) and translated from French (including a selection of the Pensées by Blaise Pascal and other philosophical-theological works). 1952 appeared - also as a processing of the war - his work The world of pain . In it he formulates the necessity of "rejecting the illusion, with whatever political concepts that only force deeper and deeper into the chain of mediation to be able to remedy the situation, and the admission of our total perplexity."

At the center of his numerous writings were questions such as the poet's determination of the place of today, the fall of man in the modern world, the Babylonian captivity of nature and the reality of art today. He has written articles on Simone Weill , Charles Péguy , Edith Stein , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Georges Bernanos , Heinrich Böll , Joseph Beuys and Eugen Gottlob Winkler . Since 1946 he has been working as a responsible lecturer in the philosophy / theology department of Schwann / Patmos Verlag in Düsseldorf. Through this activity, which extended into the 1970s, he played a major role in the theological-philosophical debates of that time, including the debates surrounding the Second Vatican Council .

In 1960 he founded the magazine Labyrinth (1960–1962) together with Werner von Trott zu Solz, Heinrich Böll and HAP Grieshaber , which - in view of the criminal German past and the prevailing silence of the Adenauer period - saw itself as a forum for a cross-camp intellectual renewal. From 1960 until his retirement in 1975 he taught as a professor of philosophy at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf. During this time he cultivated an intensive philosophical-aesthetic debate and a close friendship with Joseph Beuys . In 1982 Walter Warnach's collected writings appeared under the title Paths in the Labyrinth - Writings at the Time with a foreword by Heinrich Böll. In his review, Peter Hamm wrote in Die Zeit :

Warnach burial site

“The reasons for ignorance of a man like Walter Warnach seem to me as puzzling as they are symptomatic; puzzling, because Warnach found memorable formulas like no other for the state of consciousness of German post-war society - I only mention here once that of the 'lost defeat' (which Warnach noted as early as 1955) and symptomatic, because it is precisely this that makes such definitions so precise hold on, so exactly nobody wanted to know. "

- Peter Hamm

Walter Warnach was married to Elisabeth Warnach, b. Hahn (1910-2001). The couple had four children. Walter Warnach died on June 7, 2000 after a long illness at the age of 89 in Cologne. The couple's grave is in the Melaten cemetery (corridor 56).

The estate, which was handed over to the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne in 2002 , brought together extensive correspondence, unpublished writings, lectures, some of which were available as copies and others only as manuscripts, and diaries spanning several decades, including the war diaries. His extensive correspondence encompassed extremely different spectrums of cultural life, especially of the Rhineland: on the one hand, philosophical-theological correspondence and the like. a. with Karl Rahner , Heinrich Spaemann and Erich Przywara , also with pictorial representatives of abstract modernism such as Georg Meistermann , Joseph Fassbender , Fritz Winter and Hann Trier , as well as Heinrich Böll , Carl Schmitt , Joseph Beuys, Edith Stein , Albert Camus . Based on the correspondence, the threads of z. Partly pursue very contradicting intellectual positions of the post-war period. It is uncertain to what extent the estate will be at least partially accessible to the public again in the foreseeable future following the collapse of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne in 2009 .

Honors

Warnach was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia on May 4, 1987 .

Fonts

author

  • The idea of ​​a real norm in Maurice Blondel's theory of being. On the problem of being and freedom (Diss. Univ. Cologne 1938), Innsbruck (Rauch) o. J. (1939).
  • The world of pain , Pfullingen (Neske) 1952.
  • The morning. Secular sequence in honor of the holy penitent Maria Magdalena von der Sainte Baume , Pfullingen (Neske) 1954.
  • Abstract art as an expression of time [Lecture, given at the Salzburger Hochschulwochen 1953, published Salzburg 1953, formulation of the title by the directorate of the Salzb. Hochschulw.].
  • On Consciousness in Art , Düsseldorf State Art Academy 1962.
  • Erich Przywara, Paul Schütz, Werner von Trott zu Solz, Warnach, Walter: Christ and Authority. A dialogue, Nuremberg, Glock and Lutz, 1962.
  • Paths in the labyrinth. Writings at the time , ed. v. Karl – Dieter Ulke, with a foreword by Heinrich Böll and an editorial note by Karl-Dieter Ulke, Pfullingen (Neske) 1982.

Editor (a selection)

  • Blaise Pascal: A selection from his writings by Walter Warnach, trans, v. W. Warnach, Düsseldorf (Schwann) 1947. New edition: Düsseldorf / Cologne (Dietrichs), 1962.
  • Eugen Gottlob Winkler: Letters 1932–1936 , ed. v. Walter Warnach, Bad Salzig / Boppard a. Rh. (Rauch) 1949.
  • Georges Bemanos: Vanguard of Christianity. A selection from the polemical writings , trans. Ume Nachw. W. Warnach, Düsseldorf (Schwann) 1950.
  • Jaques u. Rai'ssa Maritain: Situation of Poetry , über, u. with a post-v. W. Warnach, Düsseldorf (Schwann) 1950.
  • Eugen Gottlob Winkler: Seals. Shape and Problems , Estate, ed. v. Walter Warnach in Verb, with Hermann Rinn a. Johannes Heitzmann, Pfullingen (Neske) 1956.
  • Thucydides: The Melier talk , about, u. explains v. Clemens Ten Holder, ed. v. Walter Warnach, Düsseldorf (Schwann) 1956.

Associate Editor

  • The magazine Labyrinth, Issues 1-6 in 5 issues, edited by Werner von Trott zu Solz in collaboration with Walter Warnach, Heinrich Böll and HAP Grieshaber, Stuttgart 1960–1962.

literature

  • Ulrich Hommes : Maurice Blondel and the German philosophy of the present, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 69 (1961/62), pp. 255–281.
  • Peter Hamm: Into the heart of the labyrinth. A radical Christian in "Christian" society. Walter Warnach's collected writings, in: Die Zeit No. 33 of August 12, 1983.
  • Carl Amery: The fate of German conservatism and the new social movements, in: Merkur 37 (1983), pp. 640-651.
  • Alex Stock: Between temple and museum. Theological art criticism. Positions of Modernism, Paderborn / Munich a. a. 1991 (Chapter IV, 6: Abstraction and Sacrality. Walter Warnach, pp. 147–155).
  • Karl-Dieter Ulke: regaining reality. On the understanding of art in thinking by Walter Warnach, in: Orientation 63 (1999), No. 2, pp. 21–24.
  • Joachim Plotzek: Angel - if you are looking for it - it is earth. On the occasion of an exhibition with works by Walter Dohmen in the Maternushaus, in: Black on White. Information and reports from the Künstler-Union Köln , Issue 1 (1999), pp. 11-17.
  • Wolfgang Matthias Schwiedrzik: Conservative and rebellious. The magazine 'labyrinth' . Conversations with H. Böll u. W. Warnach, Neckargemünd 2000.
  • Christoph Lange: Mystery of Reality. Walter Warnach and the political mannerism of Carl Schmitt , Munich (Fink) 2003.
  • Hans Peter Thurn, About Walter Warnach, in: History of the Düsseldorf Art Academy since 1945 , ed. by Siegfried Gohr, Düsseldorf 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME After that, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher, lecturer, art critic, translator and editor, professor of philosophy at the Düsseldorf Art Academy
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Metz , Lorraine
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 2000
Place of death Cologne