Wilhelm Smets

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Wilhelm Smets, engraving in a volume of poetry, ca.1844

Wilhelm Smets (born September 4 . Jul / 15. September  1796 greg. In Reval ; † 14. October 1848 in Aachen ) was a German late-Romantic writer, journalist, pastor and member of the Frankfurt National Assembly .

Life

Philipp Karl Joseph Anton Johann Wilhelm Smets von Ehrenstein, who appeared as a poet under the names Lenz von Prag, Justus Walter and Wilhelm von Reval, was the son of the actor and former Bonn criminal judge Johann Nikolaus Smets von Ehrenstein (or Jakob Wilhelm Smets, born in 1764 Born in Eynatten near Eupen; artist name: Stollmers), and his second wife, the famous actress Sophie Schröder (then still: Sophie Bürger) in Reval. In 1798 the family moved to Vienna and in 1799 to Breslau, where their marriage ended in divorce. After the divorce, the father left the son to the care of a guard, with whom he lived in Breslau until 1802. Then he moved to Aachen with his father, who had resumed his former profession as a judge. The son received lessons from his father and a private tutor, learned easily and at an early age took over his dislike of Napoleonic foreign rule from his father. In 1804, at the age of eight, he met Napoleon Bonaparte at an audience about a widow's pension for his nanny, who, as a German, was the widow of a French officer. From 1805 Smets attended secondary school in Aachen and had German lessons from the teacher Christian Quix .

After his father's death in 1812, he was given half a vacancy at the French Lyceum in Bonn. Because of alleged fraternity activities and the establishment of a German connection, he had to flee to Aachen in 1813 and hide there. In the autumn of 1814 he took over a position as private tutor for the family of Baron von Mylius at Reuschenberg Castle in Bürrig . Supported by Mylius, who was the Imperial and Royal Austrian General Field Sergeant, he joined the Lower Rhine volunteer group. In this he had an inspiring effect on his comrades through his poems and stories. In 1815 he took part in the campaign against France as a volunteer hunter with the (Lower Rhine) 3rd Rhenish Landwehr Infantry Regiment (established in Cologne in April 1814) and, because of propaganda services, was appointed by the governor of the Rhine province, Johann August Sack , who is based in Aachen had, promoted to Landwehr lieutenant, assigned to the Gneisenau staff and participated in the battle of Waterloo and the train to Paris.

After the Peace of Paris he joined his family in Aachen and in 1816 made his “Gesammelte Gedichte” known. In the summer of the same year he became tutor of Baron Max Friedrich von Forst-Gudenau and in autumn, after a two-month stay with the sons of the baron at Harff Castle near Bedburg , he traveled up the Rhine and down the Danube to Vienna , where he played in the celebrated actress Sophie Schröder met his mother, who had been declared dead by his father. Now Smets tried his hand at the theater as an actor, then became a private tutor and, on the mediation of friends, got a teaching position at the Koblenz grammar school in 1817. Together with Christian von Stramberg he worked here until March 14, 1819 for the liberal newspaper Rheinischer Herold , which continued the tradition of the newspaper Rheinischer Merkur published by Joseph Görres . With a scholarship from the Jewish community in Koblenz, for which he took sides the day before he ended his work as editor, he studied Catholic theology in Bonn and Münster from 1819. In Bonn he became friends with Heinrich Heine in 1820 . Wilhelm Smets was ordained a priest in Cologne on May 8, 1822, worked as a religious teacher at the royal Catholic grammar school and became pastor in Hersel in 1828 , chief pastor in Münstereifel in 1832 , in Nideggen in 1835 , in Blatzheim ( Bergheim district (Erft) ) in 1836 . After only four months, Smets retired on June 30, 1837 and returned to Cologne, where he continued to shape the Rhenish cultural life, especially as a feature editor of the Kölnische Zeitung , with literary works. In Aachen around 1836 he belonged to the round table around the Aachen novelist Carl Borromäus Cünzer in the Imperial Crown.

Gravestone in the Ostfriedhof

On a trip to Rome in 1841 he was met by an Aachen compatriot, the papal personal physician Dr. Clemens August Alertz , Pope Gregory XVI. and not least because of this he was appointed canon at the cathedral of Aachen on June 19, 1844 . For his commitment to expression and press freedom , the city chose him Aachen 1848 as Deputy Members of the 20th constituency Rhineland in the Frankfurt National Assembly , whose members he only stayed on 27 June 1848 to 24 July 1848th On medical advice he went to Bad Soden for a cure and returned to Aachen at the beginning of September, seriously ill. There he died, as canon of Aachen, in his own words “broken-hearted” on October 14th, 1848. A memorial erected by friends and admirers in Aachen's East Cemetery shows the place where he was buried.

Works (selection)

Wilhelm Smets was a. a. Poet (Gesammelte Dichtungen, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1840), translator, theological writer, preacher and pulpit speaker, writer, historian, author of plays, editor, collaborator and founder of magazines, which is why he left behind numerous works, such as:

As an author

Poetry
  • Iffland 's death victim . Vlieckx publishing house, Aachen 1814.
  • Poems . Publisher Rommerskirchen, Cologne 1816.
  • Poetic fragments from Theobald's diary . Hölscher, Koblenz 1818.
  • New seals from the years 1824-1830 . Habicht Verlag, Bonn 1831.
  • Sayings . 2. verb. and possibly edition Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne 1835.
  • The Crown Prince of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm , jubilee trip on the Rheine on October 30, 1833. Romantic poem in three songs . Renard & Dübyen publishing house, Cologne 1833.
  • Lament for the death of Franz the First , Emperor of Austria and last German Emperor . In: Kölnische Zeitung , 1835 (Supplement No. 5).
  • The kings in Israel. Oratory in two sections . Mompour Verlag, Bonn 1837 (set to music by Ferdinand Ries ).
  • Epheu wreaths. Latest seals . Roschütz Verlag, Aachen 1838.
  • Poems. New collection . Sauerländer Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1847.
prose
  • Paperback for travelers on the Rhine. Historical, topographical and poetic . Heriot, Koblenz 1818 (digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf ).
  • Hieroglyphics for the mind and heart . New edition Spitz Verlag, Cologne 1823.
  • To my mother when I visited her in Vienna during the autumn break this year . Thiriart, Cologne 1824.
  • Memories of the First Holy Communion . A youth present in proverbs . Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne 1830.
  • The Catholic Rosary . Defended in the form of a sermon . Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne 1830.
  • The child's prayer. A devotional book for the youth . Bonn 1834.
  • Minor epic seals . Cologne 1835.
  • Maria help! Complete prayer and hymn book in the spirit of the Catholic church year for all devotees of the Blessed Virgin Mary . 6th edition Benziger Verlag, Einsiedeln 1905.
  • We are helping to build Cologne Cathedral . A speech before the election of the board of directors of the Aachen Filial-Dombau-Verein, which took place on November 6, 1845, in the Aachen Cathedral Church . Aachen 1846.
  • Jesus Christ and the symbol of the apostles. Celebrated in chants and songs . Schrag Verlag, Nuremberg 1848.
Non-fiction
  • Ferdinand Franz Wallraf . A biographical- panegyric attempt . Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne 1825.
  • The Catholic church year is represented in letters after its main moments . Schlösser Verlag, Cologne 1827.
  • Brief history of the Popes . Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne 1829.
  • The fairy tale of Popess Joan discussed again . 3rd edition Pappers & Kohnen, Cologne 1835.
  • What did the Jesuit Order do for science? Answered in a list of the finest writers of this order in their writings; with the addition of biographical and biological notes . Mayer Verlag, Aachen 1834.
  • Joseph von Görres . A biographical sketch . Aachen 1848.
theatre
  • The Blood Bride. Tragedy in four acts . Hölscher, Koblenz 1818.
  • Tasso 's death. A tragedy in five acts . Koblenz 1819.

As editor

  • Catholic monthly . 1826-1828.
  • Friedrich Spee : Pious songs . Funcke publishing house, Krefeld 1845.

As an employee

  • Cordelia: violet wreath from the Siebengebirge. Introduced with a poem by Wilhelm Smets . Dumont-Schauberg, Cologne 1841.

As translator

  • Canons of the Most Holy, Ecumenical and General Concilium of Trent and resolutions. (...) ("Sacrosancti oecumenici et generalis Concilii Tridentini canones et decreta"). Verlag, Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld 1843 (along with a historical outline of the Concilium).
  • The Roman Catechism. According to the decision of the Council of Trento and on the orders of Pope Pius the Fifth ("Catechism Romanus"). Velhagen & Klasing publishing house, Bielefeld 1845 (2 volumes).
  • Denis Auguste Affre : Philosophical introduction to the teaching of Christianity . Boissérée Verlag, Aachen 1846.

Poetry

An example from the poem "Des Dichters Lebensbilder" (last of 15 stanzas):

Thus speaks from thirteen pictures / My serious life,
Like noble coats of arms / they make a good sound;
The sound that I have listened to, / which will soon be gentle as a vest,
Soon as the forest stream rushes / resounds in my songs.

swell

  1. ↑ Steffen Schneider (director): Napoleon, the revolutionary (Napoleon and the Germans; 2/4). (TV film by MDR , 2006)
  2. ↑ http://www.archive.nrw.de/LAV_NRW/jsp/findbuch.jsp?archivNr=185&tektId=999&id=0358&klassId=54&seite=1
  3. ^ Paul Kuetgens (ed.), Carl Borromäus Cünzer (author), Bert Heller (ill.): Folie des Dames . Verlag Mayer, Aachen 1975, ISBN 3-87519-074-2 , p. 11 (reprint of the Aachen edition, 1932).
  4. ↑ with an appendix on the primacy of Petri and the fairy tale from Popess Johanna
  5. ↑ Excerpts from Spee's work Trutz-Nachtigall
  6. ^ Pseudonym of the author Antonie Schaefer

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Smets  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Smets, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smets von Ehrenstein, Philipp Karl Joseph Anton Johann Wilhelm (full name); Walter, Justus (pseudonym); Prague, Lenz von (pseudonym); Reval, Wilhelm von (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Reval
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1848
Place of death Aachen