Walther Schmied-Kowarzik

Walther Schmied-Kowarzik (born May 22, 1885 in Mödling near Vienna ; † July 24, 1958 there ) was an Austrian philosopher and professor of philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Vienna, Dorpat (Estonia) and Giessen as well as at the Pedagogical Academy in Frankfurt on the Main river.

Life

Walther Schmied-Kowarzik - son of the bank clerk and fencing sports historian Josef Schmied-Kowarzik and his wife Luise - studied philosophy, psychology and history at the University of Vienna after graduating from the Gymnasium in Mödling in 1904 . On the advice of his teacher Friedrich Jodl , he interrupted his studies in Vienna for a guest semester in Berlin in the winter of 1906/07, where he took part in Wilhelm Dilthey's private dissertation Fundamentals of the Humanities . In 1908 he started with the dissertation time and space. A psychological and transcendental-philosophical examination with Jodl is doing his doctorate.

In 1909 Schmied-Korwarzik enrolled in Jena and attended lectures by Rudolf Eucken . In 1911 he married Margarete Heinrich. Her son (Volker) was born in 1917. The marriage ended in divorce in 1923. In 1925 he married the Baltic German poet Gertrud von den Brincken (1892–1982), who came from Kurland , and they had three children: Wieland (1929), Ilse-Roswith (1934) and Wolfdietrich (1939).

In 1913 , Walther Schmied-Kowarzik completed his habilitation at the University of Vienna with the thesis Outline of a new analytical psychology , the foundation of a non-empirical, "phenomenological" psychology, the holistic design of consciousness - in the further development of Dilthey's psychology and in connection with Kant's philosophy - tried to understand. From 1913 to 1920 he was a private lecturer at the University of Vienna and until 1926 co-editor of the articles on the philosophy of German idealism .

During the First World War, in the course of which Schmied-Kowarzik's finances deteriorated, he began to get involved in popular education at the Vienna Urania and as a cultural and political journalist, especially in the interests of German abroad . From May 1917 he did military service in the infantry, where he was dismissed as a corporal in November 1918. After 1918 he was chairman of the Dürerbund for Austria, research assistant in the department for German-Austrian law and minority protection in the state chancellery (1918/19). Under the pseudonym Dr. In 1918, Robert Pfeifer campaigned for the annexation of Burgenland ("Heanzenland") to German Austria. He was the founder and director of the Völkische Fichte University in Vienna and speaker for the German School Association in Austria.

In the summer of 1920 he was a visiting professor in Marburg and from September to December 1920 at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden).

Services

In 1920 he was appointed full professor of philosophy and psychology at the Estonian University of Tartu (Dorpat). In addition to setting up the seminar for philosophy and psychology, he primarily pursued cultural-philosophical topics during these years. In 1927 his cultural-philosophical foundation appeared, The Objectivation of the Spirit . From 1924 to 1927 he was editor of the Estonian-German calendar under the pseudonym W. Albrecht . In the winter of 1925/26 he was a visiting professor at the University of World Trade in Vienna.

In 1927 Walther Schmied-Kowarzik was appointed professor of philosophy by the Prussian Minister for Science, Art and Public Education, Carl Heinrich Becker, with a special focus on ethics and psychology at the newly founded Pedagogical Academy in Frankfurt a. M. appointed, the only simultaneous pedagogical academy at which elementary school teachers for Protestant, Catholic. and non-denominational schools could be trained. This is where his second major work, Ethics, was written. Taking into account pedagogical problems (1932), in which he expressly committed himself to the free-democratic Weimar constitution . From 1927 to 1935 he was co-editor of the papers for German philosophy of the German Philosophical Society . The appointment proposal to get Schmied-Kowarzik to succeed Richard Hönigswald to the full professorship for philosophy, psychology and education at the University of Breslau was rejected by the Prussian Minister for Science, Art and Education, Adolf Grimme , who appointed Siegfried Marck in his place was not on the list.

On the occasion of the dismantling of eight Pedagogical Academies in Prussia in 1932, Schmied-Kowarzik was retired in April 1933. After a rehabilitation, he taught philosophy at the University of Giessen from 1933 to 1939 as a private lecturer (with the title of Prof.) . In 1933, the last publication for the time being was his Creed of a Free Protestant . To May 1, 1933 blacksmith Kowarzik was the NSDAP joined. In addition, on May 1, 1933, he joined the Nazi teachers' association and was a member of the Volksbund for Germanness Abroad . The appointment to a professorship for psychology and philosophy at the college for teacher training in Friedberg was terminated without notice in August 1934 after attacks by the NSD student union because of a lecture on Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler . Permission to print was withdrawn from a book, Education and Völkischer Idealismus , which was in print.

After that, Schmied-Kowarzik temporarily competed after previous courses at the Gauführerschule in Frankfurt a. M. earned his income as a völkisch lecture speaker, among other things at the district school Groß Linden and as a district training speaker and district leader for the Volksbund for Germanism abroad before SA , HJ , NSF and RAD . Here he lectured on German thinkers and on questions of ethics.

After the state examination , which he was allowed to do in 1935, Schmied-Kowarzik received a position for history and geography at the advanced school in Friedberg as the "oldest study assessor of the German Reich", while he held philosophical events at the University of Giessen. In September 1939, the Reich Ministry of Education accepted an application for appointment as lecturer of the new order, despite a negative opinion from the Giessen professor of philosophy Hermann Glockner . In 1939 Schmied-Kowarzik moved with his family to his hometown Mödling (at that time a district of Vienna), where he taught at the grammar school. In May 1941 he was appointed to the teaching staff at the Gymnasium in Mödling, which he also temporarily headed in 1944. Also in 1939 he was incorporated into the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna. At the University of Vienna he was attacked by Arnold Gehlen , who after his appointment to the professorship for philosophy in 1940, supported by the newly appointed professor for philosophy and psychology Gunther Ipsen , tried to implement a Nazi purge of the philosophy faculty in his favor . Many of the long-established professors, some of whom also professed National Socialism, opposed this. The dean Viktor Christian obtained a compromise for Walther Schmied-Kowarzik, which consisted of his appointment as associate professor of philosophy with simultaneous release from his duties in April 1942.

In 1945 the family fled from the Red Army to relatives in Unterruck Castle in Upper Palatinate. Schmied-Kowarzik was interned in Moosburg for a year by the Americans. After he was denazified as a “fellow traveler” in 1949 , the family moved to Regensburg, where Schmied-Kowarzik returned to scientific work. His last work, Early Symbols of the Cosmos, which was largely completed . Divine divination and knowledge of the world in mythology appeared posthumously in 1974.

Walther Schmied-Kowarzik died on July 24, 1958 during a visit to Mödling - three days before the arrival of the golden doctoral certificate, which Richard Meister and Friedrich Kainz instigated in recognition of his philosophical and scientific work by the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna had been awarded. He was buried in the family grave in the Mödlinger Friedhof.

On the occasion of the 100th birthday, a symposium “Objectivations of the Spiritual” was held in May 1985 at the University of Vienna and in the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna. Contributions to epistemology, ethics and cultural philosophy in memory of Prof. Dr. Walther Schmied-Kowarzik (1885–1958) ”.

Publications

• Time and room. A psychological and transcendental philosophical investigation , unpublished. Vienna dissertation 1908 [if reconstructable, ed. v. Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, Kassel 1986]. [1]
• View of space and view of time , Leipzig 1910.
• Intuition. A contribution to the psychology of aesthetic experience , Leipzig 1911.
• Outline of a new analytical psychology and its relationship to empirical psychology , Leipzig 1912.
• GW Leibniz 'Deutsche Schriften , ed. u. a. v. Walther Schmied-Kowarzik (Philos. Bibl. 161/162), Leipzig 1916.
• A World Federation of Germans , Leipzig 1917.
• Experience of God and Knowledge of the World , in: Festschrift for Johannes Volkelt , Munich 1918.
• The overall science of Germanness and its organization , Hamburg 1918.
• Das Heanzenland [Burgenland, published under the pseudonym Dr. Robert Pfeifer], in: German Austria IV / V (1918).
• Position and task of Wundt's Völkerpsychologie and the concept of the people , in: W. Wundt. An appreciation , ed. v. A. Hoffmann, Part 2, Erfurt 1924.
• Gestalt psychology and aesthetics , in: Atti del 5th Congresso internazionale di Filosofia 1924 , Napoli 1925.
• The objectivation of the spiritual. The objective spirit and its forms , Leipzig 1927.
• Outline of an Analytical Psychology. I: Foundation of a non-empirical psychology , 2nd expanded edition of the first part, Leipzig 1928.
• Phenomenology and non-empirical psychology , in: Introduction to Psychology , ed. v. E. Saupe 4./5. Edition Osterwieck 1931.
• Ethics. Taking pedagogical problems into account , Osterwieck 1932.
• Creed of a free Protestant , Görlitz 1933.
• The infinite being and the finite being , in: Journal for Philosophy, Psychology and Pedagogy , III, 4 (1951), Vienna 1952.
• Early symbols of the cosmos. Experience of God and Knowledge of the World in Mythology (1958), ed. v. Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, Ratingen / Katellaun 1974. [2]

literature

• Herbert Cysarz: "Obituary for Walther Schmied-Kowarzik". In: Wissenschaft und Weltbild 13, 1960, issue 2.
• Alexander Hesse: The professors and lecturers of the Prussian educational academies (1926-1933) and colleges for teacher training (1933-1941) . Deutscher Studien-Verlag, Weinheim 1995, ISBN 3-89271-588-2 , p. 657–659 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Jörg-Peter Jatho, Gerd Simon: Giessen historian in the Third Reich . Giessen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88349-522-4 , p. 73; 259-265
• Wieland Schmied: "Legacy of the Father", In: Word in Time , 4, 12 (1958).
• Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (Hrsg.): Objectivations of the spiritual. Contributions to cultural philosophy in memory of Walther Schmied-Kowarzik (1885–1958) , Berlin 1985.
• Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik: "Cultural nationalism - intentions and dangers. Comments on the cultural-political writings of Walther Schmied-Kowarzik". In: Nation and Nationalism in Standard Scientific Works Austria-Hungary approx. 1867–1918 , ed. v. Endre Kiss / Csaba Kiss / Justin Stagl, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1997.
• Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik: "The forms of the mind. On the consciousness-analytical philosophy of Walther Schmied-Kowarzik". In: Michael Benedikt u. a. (Ed.): Displaced Humanism - Delayed Enlightenment , Vol. 4: ... Philosophy in Austria (1880–1920) . Klausen-Leopoldsdorf 1998.
• Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik: "The great scandal at the University of Breslau about the successor to the philosopher Richard Hönigswald in 1930", in: Zbliżenia Polska - Niemcy Pismo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego 2 (26) 2000.
• Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik: "The philosophy of reality and its metaphysical edges. Walther Schmied-Kowarzik between Friedrich Jodl and Friedrich Kainz". In: Michael Benedikt u. a. (Ed.): Repressed Humanism - Delayed Enlightenment , Vol. V: ... Philosophy in Austria (1920–1951) . Vienna 2005, pp. 241-253.
• Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik: "On the work of the philosopher Walther Schmied-Kowarzik at the University of Dorpat (Tartu) 1921–1927", in: Deutsch-Baltisches Jahrbuch (Yearbook of Baltic Germans - New Series) , Lüneburg 2013, pp. 112–127 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Walther Schmied-Kowarzik in the catalog of the German National Library
• http://schmied-kowarzik.net/?page_id=31

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hesse: Professors and Lecturers , 1995.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Christian Tilitzki: The German university philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich . Part 1. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, pp. 749 ff. ISBN 3-05-003647-8 .
3. ^ Hesse: Professors and Lecturers , 1995.
4. ^ Hesse: Professors and Lecturers , 1995.
5. ^ Hesse: Professors and Lecturers , 1995.
6. ^ Hesse: Professors and Lecturers , 1995.
7. ^ Schmied-Kowarzik: Reality Philosophy , 2005, p. 246.
8. ^ Hesse: Professors and Lecturers , 1995.