Willibald Hentschel

Willibald Hentschel (born November 7, 1858 in Łódź , Poland , † February 2, 1947 in Leoni am Starnberger See ) was a German scientist, writer and agitator of the ethnic movement in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic . Early on he suggested fantastic, utopian breeding plans.

life and work

Hentschel's parents had moved from Bürgstein and Johannesdorf in northern Bohemia to Lodz, where their father ran a textile factory. He moved with his parents to Dresden in 1874 , where he passed his Abitur in 1875 and began studying chemistry and physics. In 1877 he moved to Jena, where he studied biology with Ernst Haeckel . In November 1879 he received his doctorate with the dissertation on the current status of causal explanation in the inheritance phenomenon . In chemistry and physics he was examined by Ernst Abbe as a minor .

Hentschel initially stayed as an assistant at Haeckel, then returned to the Technical University of Dresden . There he was involved with Rudolf Schmitt in the development of a new process for the production of salicylic acid and became acquainted with Wilhelm Ostwald . From the income resulting from his work, he bought two manors in Silesia .

At the age of 23 he married Hellen Zimmermann in Dresden, the daughter of German-English parents. Together they had five daughters and in 1947 they left 13 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.

From 1885 to 1886 Hentschel took part in an expedition to Zanzibar and East Africa. On his return he went to the University of Jena and made a considerable fortune as a chemist through patents and inventions in the field of indigo production. His next stop was the University of Heidelberg , then industrial research there.

In Baden he met anti-Semitic circles. In 1890 he became a board member of the German Social Party . His anti-Semitic agitation met with resistance there, which is why he retired to his manor Seiffersdorf in Silesia (today Radomierz, municipality of Janowice Wielkie ). He dealt with fertilizer research and wrote the books Varuna (1901) and Mittgart (1904), in which he propagated projects for Aryan breed breeding, which, however , were rejected as unrealistic by the leading representatives of the Society for Racial Hygiene , in particular Alfred Ploetz . His friend Theodor Fritsch stayed in Seiffersdorf several times and for long periods of time. Varuna also appeared in his publishing house . Erich Matthes was the publisher of later books in Leipzig . Hentschel wrote numerous articles for the magazine Hammer published by Fritsch and the German Social Papers , in which he propagated and explained his human breeding plans.

According to Hentschel's ideas, a primarily agricultural production site should become a “human garden”, a “place of high racial culture” with the aim of creating a “new national upper class”. Recourse to the alleged forms of marriage of the ancient Germanic peoples (in which, in Hentschel's opinion, “the strong and capable slew nine of his weaker opponents and claimed the women for himself”), a single marriage for a time between about one thousand women and one hundred should be in a Mittgart settlement Men rule. The practical implementation of such plans failed because there were not enough women for such settlements.

During and after the First World War, Hentschel's stock assets became worthless. In the "Keim-Siedlung Niegard ", located in a peat area near Westerwanna , he built a new existence and in 1923 called for the formation of the Artam League . He thus triggered the founding of the Bundischen youth movement of the Artamans , which Heinrich Himmler and Walther Darré also joined.

He gave up his party membership in the NSDAP ( membership number 144.649) on August 1, 1929, according to reports from the NSDAP district in East Hanover, in December 1932.

Hentschel had numerous followers. His teacher Ernst Haeckel z. B. shared his views on racial hygiene . Further admirers were Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler , who handwritten congratulations to the Hentschel couple on their diamond wedding in 1941 - despite leaving the party. Hentschel's influence on National Socialism consisted in addition to the nationalist ideas, as it was finally expressed in Lebensborn , above all in the implementation of the Hitler salute initiated by him .

literature

• Dieter Löwenberg: Willibald Hentschel (1858-1947), his plans for human breeding, his biologism and anti-Semitism . University of Mainz, Mainz 1978 (dissertation).
• Gregor Pelger: Willibald Hentschel . In: Handbook of the Volkish Sciences. People - institutions - research programs - foundations. Edited by Ingo Haar , Michael Fahlbusch . Among employees v. Matthias Berg, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-11778-7 , pp. 239–243
• Uwe Puschner: Volkish intellectuals? The example of Willibald Hentschel. In: Intellectuals and Anti-intellectuals in the 20th Century. Edited by Richard Faber , Uwe Puschner . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2013, pp. 145–184
• Günter Hartung: German fascist literature and aesthetics. Collected studies and lectures. Leipziger Universitätsverlag , 2001 ISBN 3934565921

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Uwe Puschner : Mittgart - a national utopia . In: utopias, visions of the future, thought experiments. Literary concepts from another world in western thought from antiquity to the present . Edited by Klaus Geus . Frankfurt / Main: Peter Lang, pp. 153–181 (= civilization and history 9)
2. ↑ Matthias Piefel: Anti-Semitism and Völkisch Movement in the Kingdom of Saxony 1879-1914 . V and R Unipress, Göttingen 2004, p. 40.
3. ^ Uwe Puschner: Hentschel, Willibald . In: Handbook of Antisemitism: Anti-Semitism in Past and Present . Edited by Wolfgang Benz . Volume 2/1 People A – K, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, pp. 351–353, here: p. 353.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Gregor Pelger: Willibald Hentschel . In: Handbook of the Volkish Sciences. People - institutions - research programs - foundations . Edited by Ingo Haar u. Michael Fahlbusch. Among employees v. Matthias Berg, Munich 2008, pp. 239–243, here: p. 243.