Wilhelm Schwaner

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Christian Louis Wilhelm Schwaner (born November 10, 1863 in Korbach , † December 13, 1944 in Rattlar ; pseudonyms: Christian Bach , Wilm Har (d) t , Wilm Schwan ) was a German elementary school teacher , journalist , publicist and publisher who worked within the Volkish movement played an important role in the first half of the 20th century. He was chairman of the Federation of German People's Educators and for many years publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine Der Volkserzieher .

Life

youth

Wilhelm Schwaner was born in 1863 as the son of master saddler Heinrich Schwaner and Christiane Schwaner, née Schönhardt, born in Korbach in the Principality of Waldeck . His mother died as a result of childbirth on November 18th. The father's second marriage resulted in ten more children. From 1877 Schwaner attended the Fürstlich Waldecksche Gymnasium in Korbach and in April 1881 was accepted into the Herborn preparatory institute . From 1882 to January 1885 he attended the teachers' college in Homberg an der Efze . He started his first job as a primary school teacher on April 1, 1885 in the Waldeck mountain village of Schweinsbühl . In 1887 Schwaner was transferred to Rattlar ( Upland ). He married his cousin Auguste Schwalenstöcker in Korbach in 1889 at the age of 25. The marriage resulted in a son named Friedrich (1890–1930). From the fall of 1890, Schwaner also taught in the neighboring village of Usseln .

Schwaner began a little later to get involved in Moritz von Egidy and his fight for a non-denominational and undogmatic national Christianity. His commitment led to conflicts with the church school authorities. A little later his wife Auguste died. In this critical life situation Schwaner joined the Prussian Masonic lodge "Kaiser Friedrich zur Bundestreue" ( Berlin ) in 1893 , which he left after six weeks out of disappointment with the attitude of the other members. A year later, Schwaner married Hermine Kraus in Mönchengladbach , the stepsister of a foster child whom Schwaner had taken in in the spring of 1894. Since his wife was mentally ill, the marriage was divorced after a few years.

Volkish writer

On October 1, 1894, Schwaner left the unpopular school service and became editor of the General-Anzeiger for Schleswig-Holstein (since May 1895: Kieler Latest News ) in Kiel . The newspaper was published by Johannes Lehmann-Hohenberg , an employee of Moritz von Egidys. Two years later Schwaner took over the chief editor of the daily newspaper Berliner Reform in Berlin. When editor Martin Glünicke committed suicide, the newspaper was discontinued in March 1897. From March to May 1897, Schwaner spent three months in Plötzensee prison because, under his editorial responsibility, a school councilor had been insulted in the Kieler Latest News . After serving his prison sentence, Schwaner devoted himself to a new project: in the summer of 1897 he called up the magazine Der Volkserzieher. Journal for family, school and public life into life.

In 1899, the 36-year-old Schwaner married the painter Antonie Pfüller (October 5, 1860 - April 3, 1928), who was also a follower of Moritz von Egidys, in Berlin. The marriage resulted in a daughter, Anneliese called Annlies (April 4, 1901 - February 22, 1985), who later married Alfred Ehrentreich . Together with Wilhelm Bölsche , Otto Feld , Theodor Kappstein and Bruno Wille , Schwaner founded the Free University in Berlin-Friedrichshagen in 1902 . In 1904 Schwaner withdrew from this adult education institution - also because of political differences. His first publication The book Schulmeister, Volkserzieher, Self-educator. Trains and letters from the life and writings of a German Volkserzieher , which contained not only texts from Schwaner but also contributions from employees of the Volkserzieher , appeared in December 1902. Two years later Schwaner published a compilation of folk texts he had compiled under the title Germanenbibel , which quickly closed a sales success. In 1906 Schwaner was one of the founders of the German Monist Association , of which the zoologist Ernst Haeckel became the honorary chairman . In autumn 1906 Schwaner moved with his family, the Volkserzieher-Verlag and the Volkserzieher-Buchhandlung to Berlin-Schlachtensee , Mariannenstraße 3.

In 1907 the (clockwise) swastika appeared for the first time in the title of Volkserzieher . In 1909, the 46-year-old Schwaner and his family moved into their own villa in Berlin-Schlachtensee, Krottnaurerstraße 7. On April 23 of this year - after a failed establishment two years earlier - the Association of German People's Educators was reconstituted . In the same year Schwaner had a holiday home called Svantehus built near Rattlar , where he regularly withdrew during the summer months in the following years.

In 1912 Schwaner became a member of the ethnic-religious " Teutonic Order " (founded in 1911 by Otto Sigfrid Reuter ) and of the German National Writers' Association (founded in 1910 by Philipp Stauff ). Schwaner also joined the ariosophic Guido von List Society and its inner circle, the High Armanian Order . In the same year, under the leadership of Schwaner and Ludwig Fahrenkrog in Rattlar, the Germanic-German religious community (GDRG) was founded and renamed the Germanic Faith Community in August 1913 . On the 705 meter high Hermannsberg near Rattlar, at Pentecost 1912 the Hermannstein (preserved to this day) was inaugurated, a large square fire altar with a sun wheel and a (not preserved) wooden rune gate. This altar complex was built as a place of celebration for the “Association of German People's Educators” and the “Germanic-German religious community”. In addition to Schwaner, Karl Engelhard , Ludwig Fahrenkrog, Gustav Simons , Philipp Stauff and Carl Weißleder were present at the inauguration .

After disputes that sparked, among other things, that Schwaner adhered to a Christian conception of God, he left the Germanic-German religious community and severed all connections to ethnic-religious groups. In December 1913, he instead contacted Walther Rathenau by letter , with whom he subsequently met at regular intervals and with whom he began intensive correspondence. Schwaner increasingly distanced himself from the worst excesses of anti-Semitism . Assumptions that there was a homosexual relationship between the two have been refuted by the now complete correspondence between the two.

In the Hermannshaus near Rattlar from 1914

On May 31, 1914, the Hermannshaus near Rattlar, financed by donations from members and built in the previous year, was inaugurated as the federal home of the people's educators . Schwaner welcomed the beginning of the First World War like many of his like-minded people. In December 1916 he published the war-glorifying text Weltscheiding. Experience and result . He had the magazine Der Volkserzieher appear under the new title Der Deutschmeister in 1917 , before returning to the original title at the end of the year. This was due to Schwaner's “conversion”, within which he - stimulated by reading Malwida von Meysenbugs , Giuseppe Mazzini and Alexander Herzens - overcame his nationalist-positive view of the war at that time. At Christmas 1917, Schwaner and Adolf Richter founded the Deutschmeister-Orden (DOM), whose first "Grand Master" was Schwaner. At Schwan's instigation, Walther Rathenau - who was otherwise aloof from the undertakings of his friend Schwaner - also joined this association, which led to renewed irritation within the völkisch movement.

The murder of Rathenau, the leading figure he revered as a “figure of light”, in June 1922 plunged the 58-year-old Schwaner, who had received considerable support during the years of their friendship, into deep despair, which he overcame only slowly in the following years. His commitment to the democratic state increased, and in December 1926 he finally declared himself explicitly in the People's Educator for the Weimar Republic , and a little later the swastika also disappeared from the title of People's Educator .

After the death of his wife in 1928 and the loss of their son in 1930, Schwaner left Berlin and finally moved to Svantehus near Rattlar. For the Volkserzieher-Verlag he had its own publishing house built there in 1929. As a result, the people's educator intensified his criticism of National Socialism , and at the same time Schwaner showed sympathy for Artur Mahraun's Young German Order . In 1933 he and other representatives from the Volkish camp called for the establishment of the German Faith Movement .

In the Nazi state

In the wake of the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”, which he observed with mixed feelings, the 70-year-old Schwaner became a member of the Reichsschrifttumskammer in December 1933 in order to be able to continue his journalistic activities. The sixth edition of his Germanic Bible appeared in 1934 with a foreword by the “Reichsleiter of the Nazi Teachers Association” Hans Schemm . A year later, under pressure from the National Socialists , the Federation of German People's Educators was renamed Bund für Deutschtum on a Christian basis . Despite this courtesy, Schwaner remained in a threatening position from then on. The Hessian Gauleitung denounced him as a "fanatical Nazi opponent, Freemason, Jew friend and pacifist" at the relevant Nazi authorities. At this point in time, the Nazi functionary Wilhelm Kube , who had been known as Schwaner since the 1920s , was Gauleiter and head of the province of Brandenburg at the time, campaigned for Schwaner. Nevertheless, Der Volkserzieher was finally banned in 1936, the Bund für Deutschtum was dissolved on a Christian basis and the association's assets were confiscated (but released again in 1937). From November 1936 to 1940 Schwaner sent out printed or reproduced circular letters - the so-called swan letters - to his remaining followers. At the same time, in the winter of 1936, at the age of 73, he completed his autobiography Wilmhart the Upländer , which remained unpublished.

On his 75th birthday, Schwaner received Hitler's birthday greetings and a "birthday present" of 200 Reichsmarks . The 7th and final edition of the Germanic Bible appeared with a foreword by Reich Church Minister Hanns Kerrl . From 1942, the 79-year-old Schwaner received a monthly permanent pension of 100 Reichsmarks from the Reichsschrifttumskammer, which was paid out through the German Schiller Foundation. Schwaner died in 1944 at the age of 81 in Rattlar and was buried in the local cemetery on December 18.

literature

  • Wilhelm Schwaner and Walther Rathenau : A friendship in contradiction. The correspondence 1913-1922. Edited by Gregor Hufenreuter and Christoph Knüppel. Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86650-271-0 .
  • Uwe PuschnerSchwaner, Christian Louis Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 783 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Günter Hartung: German fascist literature and aesthetics. Collected studies and lectures. Leipziger Universitätsverlag , 2001 ISBN 3934565921
  • Felix Saure: Peripheral negotiations. Wilhelm Schwaner's homeland literature between folk utopia, regional ethnography and culture-critical life reform . In:  The literature of life reform. Cultural criticism and optimism around 1900 . Eds. Thorsten Carstensen and Marcel Schmid. transcript, Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-8376-3334-4 , pp. 153-172.
  • Felix Saure: The ghost on the barn wall. Places and discourses of the life reform movements in the Upland. In: Geschichtsblätter für Waldeck 104 (2016), pp. 79–96
  • Wolfgang Medding: Korbach - The history of a German city, 1955, pp. 379–382.

Web links

proof

  1. Stefan Breuer : The Völkische in Germany . Darmstadt 2008, p. 259
  2. Hartung believes that the widespread Goethe book Houston Stewart Chamberlains was an influential attempt at the time to see Goethe as the creator of a quasi-religious "cult of personality". This culminated in the opinion that the artistic act ultimately "creates" the artist himself. This religious appropriation of Goethe was, as it were, "völkisch canonized" through his inclusion in Schwaner's "Germanic Bible"