Wilhelm August Berberich

Wilhelm August Berberich (born January 1, 1861 in Uissigheim , † October 9, 1929 in Karlsruhe ) was a German educator and poet. On May 16, 1926, he was the first to receive honorary citizenship of Uissigheim.

Childhood and youth

WA Berberich grew up in Uissigheim, later lived in his parents' farmhouse in Dörlesberg for two years and returned to his birthplace during his childhood, where he lived with his uncle, the innkeeper of the Gasthaus zum Strauss . He characterized himself as “always cheerful and yet carrying an abyss of unsatisfied longing in his soul” and left his uncle's house in late 1875 to attend the pre-seminar in Tauberbischofsheim for a year, where he “had the poetic happiness in to live in a noisy mill and sleep over a rushing brook ”.

Plaque on the house where Wilhelm August Berberich was born in Uissigheim

Teaching and club activity

In the teachers' college in Karlsruhe, where he continued his training, he was exposed to the liberal influences of the time and strived for the humanistic image. His models were Kant , Spinoza , Fichte and Rousseau . However, over the years he came to believe that a natural order and harmony without God was only vanity, and so came very close to the Catholic faith. His work as a teacher and educator was based on his religious convictions, and although he was respected and popular among colleagues, a longer career as a teacher was blocked because he was reluctant to subordinate his views. At Easter 1879 he got his first job as a teacher in Gernsbach , where he also conducted foreign language studies. In 1882 he became a teacher at the elementary school in Karlsruhe. On the occasion of the Catholic Day in Strasbourg in 1905, he and a few others in nearby Kehl founded the Catholic Teachers' Association in Baden (today the Association of Education and Upbringing (VBE) ), of which he became the first chairman and remained until 1913 or 1914 (Die Quelle - Anton Sack: Uissigheim , see literature - is contradicting at this point). From 1906 to 1908 he edited the "Badische Lehrerzeitung" which he founded. In 1924 he retired.

Writing activity

WA Berberich viewed writing as part of his profession and calling; This is how, for example, the three-part "German Spelling School" was created. Of greater importance are the works on natural and supernatural principles of upbringing, in which he emphasizes the importance of mothers for the success of upbringing. WA Berberich was also a romantic poet . His two larger epics "Tannenburg, a song from the Spessart" and "The Knight of Hohenrode, a poem from the Black Forest" prove that he was rightly called a "poet of silence". In his works, he often compares the human existence with the processes in nature:

Only everything is vain under the sun,

and all of death and fleeting dust

and hardly has man's life begun

so it sinks to the earth like falling leaves.

(from "Tannenburg, a song from the Spessart")

"Tannenburg, a song from the Spessart"

In this epic, WA Berberich describes how the robber baron Gebhard tries to appropriate the Tannenburg, which is owned by his niece Elsbeth. After the failure of a first attempt, he stayed at the castle as a guest after a hunting party and overpowered the castle rulers with the help of hidden servants. Albrecht, Elsbeth's husband, is brought to a tower on the Rhine and held prisoner there, Elsbeth himself finds refuge in a monastery on the Regnitz . Your child Irmogind is found and taken in by a hunter in the forest. Shortly before Rudolf von Habsburg wants to move out to punish Gebhard, Gebhard is killed in an act of revenge.

"The Knight of Hohenrode, a seal from the Black Forest"

In this work, WA Berberich describes the love story about Burkhard, the knight of Hohenrode, and his love Brigitta, whom he takes as his wife after he banned his first - proud and heartless - wife from Hohenrode, who had been chosen by his father . That first woman had pushed her rival into the Rhine and would have thrown herself into the Mummelsee afterwards , if Burkhard had not just come from the crusade at that time.

Fonts

• All alone. Signpost for Christian mothers. A textbook and devotional book for women, especially for members of Christian mothers' associations. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1906.
• Light and bread. For all who want to strive for Christian perfection. Junfermann, Paderborn 1912.
• The young mother in the Christian upbringing of her children and in prayer. Junfermann, Paderborn 1913.
• Under the sun. The elevation to holy contemplation in the school of the divine Master. Junfermann, Paderborn 1925.
• In the high forest. Junfermann, Paderborn 1926.
• Holy contemplation. In 5 books. Junfermann, Paderborn 1930.

literature

• Anton Sack: Uissigheim (No. 3 of the coat of arms and booklet series “Tauberland”). Self-published by the municipality of Uissigheim, 1926
• Helmuth Lauf and Otto Uihlein: Uissigheim as reflected in its 1200-year history . Self-published by the municipality of Uissigheim, 1966

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm August Berberich in the catalog of the German National Library