Walther Classen

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Walther Classen (born April 24, 1874 in Hamburg , † September 8, 1954 in Reinbek ) was a Protestant theologian and educator .

Life

Walther Classen, the fourth and youngest child of the ophthalmologist August Classen , studied Protestant theology in Jena, Marburg and Berlin. Encouraged by his colleague Clemens Schultz , he founded an apprentice association in 1898 . After visiting the social work in the working-class neighborhoods in East London, another foundation followed, which made Classen known beyond Hamburg. In Hamburg Hammerbrook , the first settlement house in Germany was built as a result of his initiative , where students and workers were supposed to meet. Classen had a great influence on the Evangelical Social Congress and was closely connected to the publication of the magazine Die Christliche Welt . His work on racial theory, Das Werden des Deutschen Volkes , appeared in several volumes, the last one in 1944.

Classen was a member of the Pan-German Association .

Settlement Hammerbrocker Volksheim

After graduating, Classen went on a world tour. The industrialist and politician Heinrich Traun supported him financially . On this trip he visited Toynbee Hall in London, founded by Samuel Barnett , and thus came into contact with the settlement movement . The basic idea of this movement was that members of the higher classes their privileges share such as education with the members of the lower classes. In addition, rich and academic people moved to working-class and immigrant areas. In 1900 Classen published his experiences with the London settlement movement in his book "Social Chivalry in England". The attempt to establish a comparable settlement idea in Hamburg met with little success. He called the house in the Hamburg district of Hammerbrook, which was intended as a settlement, “Volksheim” and was used for cultural and educational work, especially for workers' children . The aim of the educational project, whose sponsoring association could only be filled by members of the Hamburg citizenship , was to defuse the class conflict. Without wanting to deny the different class interests, it is Volksheim's goal to bridge the contradiction through “the higher law of the historically developed national whole and the higher duty of integration into the community”.

Although the people's home was repeatedly presented as a "settlement", all club members except for Classen refused to live with the workers.

A particular concern of Classen was the “steeling” of the young people for the “military force” in the popular sense. In 1915 he wrote the essay "Defense Force and Education".

Nationality and national dignity

After the end of the First World War , Classen pleaded in his essay “National Dignity” for more humility “before the great spirit of nationality ”. Its “laws of life” are to be “served”. These legalities are "binding with the force of the categorical imperative ". The individual subject must be absorbed in the higher level of nationality so that “us Germans” would regain the “power to national dignity”.

Völkisch ideas also shaped his political criticism of the Social Democrats on the one hand and the bourgeoisie on the other hand, which aimed to reconcile class antagonism on the basis of the Volkish: “I also consider the wild hatred of the Social Democrats to be wrong. You have to live with them sometime. I know a lot of respectable men there, including real patriots. ”And the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, did not see that“ the thousands of narrow apartments in the six-storey houses in which the race of our people had to die out and the people's soul was poisoned in the dull air. ”

He began working on the racial theoretical work Das Werden des Deutschen Volkes in 1915. The volumes appeared in two editions during the interwar period and in a third edition from 1941 to 1944. His fourth volume could no longer be published. Classen acknowledged himself as an anti-Semite in his essay Anti-Semitism, Ethnology and Religion , but later distanced himself from colleagues such as Wilhelm Stapel and Adolf Hitler .

Honors

Fonts (selection)

  • Social chivalry in England. A travel agent. 1900
  • The historical Jesus of Nazareth. 1902
  • Cross and anvil. Contemporary novel. 1903
  • Christ today as our contemporary. 1905
  • Big city home. Observations on the natural history of the metropolitan people. 1906
  • Biblical story according to recent research for teachers and parents. Volume I: Life of Jesus, 1906
  • Biblical story according to recent research for teachers and parents. Volume II: Old Testament. 1907
  • Biblical story according to recent research for teachers and parents. Volume III: The early Christianity. 1908
  • Are we looking for a new god? 1907
  • Discipline and freedom. A guide for German youth care. 1914
  • Jesus of Nazareth. Words and deeds according to the three oldest gospels. 1917
  • The becoming of the German people. 1921/22
    • I. The origin of the German people. From the Stone Age to the High Middle Ages. 1941
    • II. Germany, the center of young Europe. From the high Middle Ages to the death of Frederick the Great. 1942.
    • III. The awakening of the German people. Poet, prince and worker among the nations. 1944
  • Entry of Christianity into the world. The victory of Christianity against the background of the declining ancient culture. 1930
  • 16 years in the workers' quarter. 1932
  • Despised prophets. Subject to a religious and historical introduction to Old Testament prophethood. 1936
  • (Ed.): Clemens Schultz , Gesammelte Schriften eines Jugendpflegers. 1918.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Götze: Volksheim (Hamburg). May 15, 2005 on: stadtteilarbeit.de , p. 3. (Report on the fifteenth year of the association 1915/16. Hamburg 1916)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Classen, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Protestant theologian and educator
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1954
Place of death Hamburg