Werner Altpeter

Werner Altpeter (born August 8, 1902 in Heilbronn , † 1985 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German life reformer and pioneer of alternative nutrition and the health food movement.

Altpeter was the son of an engineer and industrialist from Heilbronn. After the First World War he was a businessman in the agricultural cooperative system. At the same time he led a youth gymnastics group in Frankfurt am Main from 1921 . From 1925 he was editor of the magazine “Das Reformhaus” (later “Reform-Rundschau”), since 1932 sole editor, and remained in the editorial department until 1975.

Altpeter became a member of the NSDAP and wrote in 1939: "All life reforms in the National Socialist state have the purpose of increasing public health and thus the ability to fight, childbearing ability and productivity." In the health food stores' customer magazine, topics that were inspired by the ideas of National Socialism appeared again and again . In July 1934, Altpeter wrote an article on "The nose as a character trait". It was accompanied by a graphic with different nose types: the "child's nose", the "Slavic nose", the "German nose", the "Greek nose", the "Roman nose" and the "Jewish nose". His writing Become a Knower of People! was banned in 1937, presumably because racism was not radical enough.

He played a leading role in the organization of the “Public Health Weeks” in the 1950s. In addition to the " feeding wave ", he criticized the "mental oversaturation" in the Federal Republic. Politically, he was involved in the national-neutralist Action Group of Independent Germans , on whose Bremen state list he ran unsuccessfully in the 1969 federal election.

Fonts

• with Hans Gregor : The new nutrition theory. Frankfurt am Main 1930.
• Become a connoisseur! Human studies f. anyone. 1929, 1934 (Subtitle: Introduction to Face, Skull and Body Expression Studies on the basis of research by Carl Huter, Carl Gustav Carus, Franz Joseph Gall, E. Issberner-Haldane and others ), 1937 (ban), revised new edition 1949 , 1966.
• With Ernst Issberner-Haldane : Married life and choice of marriage according to body form studies and astrology. Siegismund, Berlin 1932.
• (Ed.): Yearbook of the German life reform. 1937-1941.
• What is life reform? Basic thoughts on all areas of today's life reform. Steinkopf, Stuttgart 1939.
• Reform advice. Publishing house d. Reform Review, 1952.
• Sign of time. 1956 (collected essays).
• On the history of life reform. Bad Homburg-Weinheim 1964.

literature

• Florentine Fritzen: Spinach milk, cancer prevention, happiness in life. In: Carsten Kretschmann (ed.): Knowledge popularization. Concepts of knowledge diffusion in transition. Akademie, Berlin 2003, p. 361 ff.
• this .: Living healthier: The life reform movement in the 20th century. Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-515-08790-7 .
• Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition: dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003 (p. 441 with evidence of NSDAP membership).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Altpeter, Werner . In: Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdB - The People's Representation 1946–1972. - [Abatz bis Azzola] (=  KGParl online publications ). Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties e. V., Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-020703-7 , pp. 18 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-2014070812574 ( kgparl.de [PDF; 187 kB ; accessed on June 19, 2017]).