Willy Schlueter

Willy Schlueter (full name: Friedrich Wilhelm Martin Schlueter , pseudonyms Pico and Samitasa ) (born July 18, 1873 in Hamburg Neustadt , † November 5, 1935 in Mengerskirchen ) was a German author and speaker. From 1903 he worked for several years as an amanuensis with Ferdinand Tönnies in Eutin . From 1933 at the latest, Schlüter's writings clearly showed anti-Semitic features.

Life

Schlueter was born as the seventh child of Friedrich Heinrich Schlueter and his wife Anna Schlueter (née Albers) in Hamburg's Neustadt district. His father, a farmer's son from the Lüneburg Heath , had initially been a porter in Hamburg and had managed to run his own wagon . The mother was the daughter of an Elbe shipper. After his parents moved, Schlüter grew up in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort and attended a high school from 1884 to 1889 , which he graduated with the one-year- old. His parents did not fulfill his wish for further education and study. Instead he became a postal worker in the Hamburg-Hammerbrook telephone exchange . After six years, on September 1, 1895, he left the postal service at his own request. An older brother soon got him a job as a trainee merchant at a wine shop in Hamburg's old town . Since Schlueter was absent from business for a fortnight during the Hamburg dockworkers strike because he agitated and picketed, he was dismissed. In 1897 he worked for a few months as an assistant in offices and then concentrated exclusively on his journalistic and philosophical work. Schlüter was married twice, both marriages suffered from the precarious economic conditions that his lifestyle had brought with it since 1897.

Immediately after his employment at the post office, Schlueter had obtained inexpensive editions of ancient philosophers and poets as well as some of Shakespeare's dramas from a book cart and began self-taught studies. He was particularly impressed by the Greek skeptic Lukian . From 1897 he dared to give lectures to the public, his first articles appeared as early as 1895 under a pseudonym in the Hamburger Echo .

Gustav Landauer published his lecture Nietzsche as a Mystic , which he had given on September 22, 1897 in the Hamburg Theosophical Society , in the literary supplement of the newspaper Der Sozialist . By April 1898, at least ten other articles by Schlüter appeared there, the significant titles of his texts were: The redemption from vengeance , soul nobility next to spiritual nobility, Jesus and Zarathustra .

Hermann Graf Keyserling, he first called Schlueter a “genius”, then a “sacred tramp”.

Since then, until the end of his life, Schlüter worked (almost always at short notice and often without payment) as a speaker, author and editor for various life reformist , neo-religious and ethnic sects and associations. For example, there was cooperation with Walther Wilhelm ( Reich Party of the German Mittelstand ), Othmar Spann (theoretician of the corporate state ) and Hermann Graf Keyserling . Keyserling called Schlueter "undoubtedly a genius" in an article in the Vossische Zeitung . In 1925 Keyserling changed his mind and called Schlueter, who had begged him (like others) bluntly, a "sacral tramp". Ferdinand Tönnies, on the other hand, continuously supported Schlüter and reacted to the begging letters with financial donations until his death.

Ferdinand Tönnies, Schlueter served him as an amanuensis for several years .

Personal contact with Tönnies began in 1899 when Schlüter visited him in his Altona apartment, followed by several visits in 1900, during which Schlüter saw himself as a student. But already at this point it becomes clear that Schlüter wanted to popularize Tönnies' typological analysis ( community and society ) for a new metaphysics. After Tönnies moved to Eutin in 1901, the contact intensified. Tönnies reported in retrospect in 1922: "As an Amanuensis, Willy Schlüter was a loyal companion here for several years." Even after the end of the collaboration, Schlüter wrote regular letters to the Kiel sociologist, in which he described his projects and in which "narcissistic megalomania" showed that he had long been at eye level with Tönnies.

In 1933 Schlueter visited his friend Karl Brunner , who had failed in the Weimar Republic with an exaggerated campaign against junk and dirty literature and was hoping for recognition from the now ruling National Socialists . During this visit, Schlüter wrote a biographical appraisal of Brunner, which did not appear until 1937. In this document it becomes clear that Schlueter welcomed the new state. In National Socialist diction, he branded “Jewish junk and filthy capital”. Jewish lawyers and journalists have denigrated Brunner's noble aspirations. In particular, the "Jewish and Jewish comrades" Stefan Grossmann , Wolfgang Heine , Siegfried Jacobsohn , Alfred Kerr , Hans Kyser , Carl von Ossietzky and Kurt Tucholsky were attacked by Schlueter.

In the introduction to his detailed biography, Christoph Knüppel asks what prompted Tönnies to first promote Schlüter's journalistic career, later to support him financially and to maintain the relationship until the end of his life. He suspects that Tönnies at least tolerated a völkisch-life-reforming interpretation of his sociologically founded philosophy of history up to the time of the Weimar Republic.

Fonts (selection)

• Psychosophical sketchbook . Hermann Walther, Berlin 1901, OCLC 253137948 . (Second edition as: Towards the sun! Psychosophy or evolutionary theosophy . Karl Rohm, Lorch 1904, OCLC 953317774 )
• Why die? A Critique of the Doctrine of Death . Excelsior-Verlag, Leipzig 1911, OCLC 66541912 .
• German deed thinking. Suggestions for a new way of research and thinking . O. Laube, Dresden 1919, OCLC 906510959 .
• with Walther Wilhelm : The mission of the middle class. 99 theses for the creative people . Laube, Dresden 1925, OCLC 247072841 .
• Guide. The foundations of doing and leading . 2 volumes. Meiner, Leipzig 1927, OCLC 1995383 .
• with Walther Wilhelm: On the spirit of the German estates. List, Leipzig 1936, OCLC 72389748 .
• Life issues of German character in the mirror of Karl Brunner's life's work . House Seefried, Prien am Chiemsee 1937, OCLC 72103802 .
• Willy Schlüter's German faith. A Willy Schlueter breviary . Edited by Ewalt Kliemke. Wernitz, Berlin 1937, OCLC 72103800 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical information is based on Christoph Knüppel: Vom Anarchisten zum Deutschen Tatdenker. Willy Schlueter's life and his friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. In: Tönnies forum . Issue 2/1998, pp. 3–103, and Issue 1/1999 (continued), pp. 36–75.
2. ↑ Hermann Graf Keyserling : Two important minds. In: Vossische Zeitung . May 23, 1920, quoted from Christoph Knüppel: From anarchist to German thinker. Willy Schlueter's life and his friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. Part 2. In: Tönnies-Forum. Issue 1/1999, pp. 36–75, here p. 55.
3. ↑ Christoph Knüppel: From anarchist to German crime thinker. Willy Schlueter's life and his friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. Part 2. In: Tönnies-Forum. Issue 1/1999, pp. 36–75, here p. 56.
4. ^ Arno Bammé , Rolf Fechner (ed.): Ferdinand Tönnies complete edition. Volume 7: 1905–1906: Schiller as a temporary citizen and politician. Criminal law reform . Philosophical terminology from a psychological-sociological point of view. Fonts. Reviews. Berlin / New York 2009, p. 557.
5. ↑ Schlüter is the correspondent from whom most of the letters and postcards in the Tönnies estate have been preserved.
6. ↑ Christoph Knüppel: From anarchist to German crime thinker. Willy Schlueter's life and his friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. Part 2. In: Tönnies-Forum. Issue 1/1999, pp. 36–75, here p. 58.
7. ↑ Willy Schlueter: Life questions of German kind in the mirror of the life work of Karl Brunner . House Seefried, Prien am Chiemsee 1937.
8. ↑ Christoph Knüppel: From anarchist to German crime thinker. Willy Schlueter's life and his friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. Part 2. In: Tönnies-Forum. Issue 1/1999, pp. 36–75, here p. 65.
9. ↑ Christoph Knüppel: From anarchist to German crime thinker. Willy Schlueter's life and his friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. In: Tönnies forum. Issue 2/1998, pp. 3–103, here p. 8.