Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin

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Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin , actually Wilhelm Ludwig Weckherlin (* July 7, 1739 in Botnang , † November 24, 1792 in Ansbach ) was a German journalist and writer during the Enlightenment .

Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin

Life

Wekhrlin was born in Botnang in 1739 as the son of the village pastor. After his father's death in 1746, Wekhrlin's mother married the clerk Martin Heuglin in 1749 , who took up a position as clerk in Ludwigsburg that same year .

The false information - probably based on Wekhrlin's own claims - that he was court master in Strasbourg and Paris from 1757 to 1766 and Voltaire's private secretary was passed on by biographers into the 20th century. Instead, it is certain that Wekhrlin worked as an assistant to the clerk Heuglin in Ludwigsburg from 1757 to 1766. He then settled in Vienna , where he worked as a clerk and assistant to the French ambassador. In 1772 he took over the editing of the Wiener Diarium , a twice-weekly newspaper that was close to the ruling house. At the same time, Wekhrlin wrote and distributed handwritten newspapers in which he spread anecdotes from the imperial family, piquancy and court gossip - a forerunner of tabloid journalism . With the handwritten form, Wekhrlin was able to undermine the censorship on printed matter.

In 1773 Wekhrlin was arrested as the author of the handwritten newspapers. He was initially expelled from the Habsburg hereditary lands. After a short stay in Regensburg , he secretly returned to Vienna and returned to the service of the French embassy. After another arrest for an espionage affair, Wekhrlin was accepted as an informant in the diplomatic secret service of Empress Maria Theresa . Because Wekhrlin was of little use as an informant, the Empress ordered in 1776 to reward him for his services and to expel him from Austria. In the spring of 1776, Wekhrlin moved to Augsburg . There appeared the memoirs of Vienna , the first satirical travelogue of the Enlightenment . The mayor of Augsburg, Johann Baptist von Rehlingen, took the script as an opportunity to give Wekhrlin the eviction order in the spring of 1777.

Wekhrlin now turned to Nördlingen , the seat of the publisher Karl Gottlob Beck . Together they devoted themselves to the publication of another travelogue, Anselmus Rabiosu's Reise nach Oberdeutschland , and the twice-weekly newspaper Das Felleisen . Wekhrlin was expelled from Nördlingen in 1778 because of private disputes with the mayor of Nördlingen, Tröltsch. Now he settled in nearby Baldingen . The village was under the rule of the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein , who was initially well-disposed towards Wekhrlin. This is where his first magazine was created, a political-historical magazine called Chronologists . This was replaced after six years by the magazine Das Graue Ungeheur . Employees of the gray monster included Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and Gottfried August Bürger .

Because Wekhrlin published by Baldingen from armed and lampoons against the mayor of Nördlingen, about the mayor's office of the Harlequin and The affentheurliche Historia risible bed Master and Erzgauklers pips of coward , the City Council demanded in a letter to the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein the immediate delivery to Wekhrlin. On May 4, 1787, Wekhrlin was arrested and taken to the Hochhaus castle , which the prince used as an administration building. He was imprisoned there until 1792, most recently under milder conditions. Wekhrlin managed to finish the last four books of the gray monster in custody. Then he switched to philosophical considerations with the magazine Hyperborean Letters , which was replaced by the magazine Paragrafen .

In 1792 Wekhrlin received permission from the prince to leave Hochhaus Castle to publish a newspaper in Ansbach . The Prussian minister Karl August von Hardenberg granted him a royal privilege to publish the Ansbachische Blätter , which appeared twice a week from August 1, 1792. The Ansbachische Blätter differed from other newspapers in their attempt to report in a balanced manner despite all support for Prussia and against the French revolutionaries. However, the Ansbachers saw Wekhrlin as the "French friend". When more and more news of the invasion of the revolutionary army into Germany reached Ansbach, the angry mob gathered in front of Wekhrlin's house. The police placed him under house arrest for his protection and confiscated his papers. Nervous, Wekhrlin collapsed on November 24th and died shortly afterwards.

Services

Wekhrlin is considered to be one of the most combative and committed among German Enlightenment journalists . As one of the first full-time journalists in Germany, Wekhrlin lived exclusively from the earnings of his publications. In the foreground of his journalistic work is the struggle of this enlightener for civil equality , freedom of expression , tolerance and social justice. In this context stands his passionate advocacy for Anna Göldi , who was executed in Glarus in 1782 (“last witch of Europe”). He rejected a resulting summons from the Glarus authorities on the grounds that “a madman could only be expected to voluntarily place himself in front of a barrier where the party was also a judge”.

In his pastiche monologue of a mite on the seventh floor of an Edam cheese , Wekhrlin takes up the idea of the best of all possible worlds . He refers to a shorthand Leibniz ', in which he explains the following: Since the existence of God is irrefutable and God created our world, our world must also be the best of all possible worlds, because an almighty God would not be mediocre to be satisfied. Wekhrlin takes up this image and lets a mite inside a cheese philosophize about the fact that the creator of this cheese must be omnipotent if he had never created a second-class cheese.

Wekhrlin advocated free journalism aimed at the general public rather than just academics. The intellectual role model was Voltaire , whose works Wekhrlin translated and published in extracts into German.

Works

Travelogues

  • Memories of Vienna. Nördlingen: Beck, 1777.
  • Anselmus Rabiosus journey through Upper Germany. Nördlingen: Beck, 1778.

Newspapers

  • The Felleisen . Nördlingen: Beck, 1778. twice a week.
  • Ansbachian leaves . Ansbach: Hiller, 1792. twice a week

Magazines

  • Chronologists. Nuremberg: Felsecker, 1779–1783. monthly, later irregular.
  • The gray monster. Nuremberg: Felsecker, 1784–1787. per month.
  • Hyperborean letters. Nuremberg: Felsecker, 1788–1790. per month.
  • Paragraphs. Nuremberg: Felsecker, 1790–1792. non-periodic.

literature

  • Böhm, Gottfried: Ludwig Wekhrlin (1739-1792): a publicist's life in the eighteenth century. Munich: Beck, 1893.
  • Hampp, Bernhard: Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin and Karl Gottlob Beck. A publicist and his publisher at the time of the Enlightenment. Eichstätt (Dipl.), 2001.
  • Mondot, Jean: WL Wekhrlin. Un publiciste des lumières . 2 volumes. Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires, 1986.
  • Wilke, Jürgen: spy of the public, moral judge and advocate of mankind. Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin (1739-1792) and the development of journalism in Germany. In: Journalism. 38th volume (1993). Book 3, pp. 322-334.
  • Garlic v. Hatzbach:  Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, pp. 645-652.

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Ludwig Wekhrlin  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eveline Hasler : Anna Göldin. Last witch. 23rd edition, Munich 2009 (= DTV 10457), p. 221 (follow-up remarks).
personal data
SURNAME Wekhrlin, Wilhelm Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weckherlin, Wilhelm Ludwig (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1739
PLACE OF BIRTH Botnang
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1792
Place of death Ansbach