Eduard Baltzer

Eduard Baltzer ( born October 24, 1814 Hohenleina, † June 24, 1887 in Durlach ) was a Democrat and Protestant theologian. He founded the first vegetarian Club in Germany and was the first President of the Federal Free Religious communities in Germany. In 1852 he coined the term " initiation rites ".

Life and work

After studying Protestant theology 1834-1838 Baltzer 1841 deacon and preacher Hospital in Delitzsch. In 1842 he joined the " Protestant Friends" ( Friends of Light ), which had been formed for the defense of rationalism against the Prussian -winding Neuorthodoxie. Because of his opposition to the Apostles refused the President of the Government in Merseburg in 1845 his election as pastor at St. Ulrich's Church in Halle / Saale. A first confirmed election to the Nikolai Church in Nordhausen was overturned by the Ministry of Culture in Berlin. After exhausting all legal options he gave in January 1847 his parish and founded churchwardens and parishioners of St. Nicholas Church, the Free Protestant community Nordhausen, as their preacher and superintendent he worked until 1881. Despite the so-called Edict of March 1847, which was to crowd out the rationalists of the official Church, was the first time the municipality, but also the years of Reaktionsära after 1849, marked by violent conflicts with the authorities, including to the establishment of a Froebel kindergarten. Baltzer noted this:

"Our free commune, which openly committed to the innermost principles of this educational way, has the kindergartens recommended alone and especially the free communities. In kindergarten, the voluntary nature is in all that happens, the driving force, as it is the principle of our free community at large. "

In 1848 at the Pre-Parliament Baltzer of the first German National Assembly in Frankfurt's St. Paul's Church and was a deputy of the then Prussian Constituent National Assembly in Berlin.

Like most other independent communities turned the Nordhäuser community under Baltzer soon from Protestant rationalism from a pantheistic nature and religion. Christian celebrations were continued in the free religious movement, but reinterpreted (such as the confirmation for Jugendweihe ). 1859 Eduard Baltzer was elected the first President of the Federal Free Religious communities in Germany.

Through a vegetarian already living counterparts Baltzer got 1866 knowledge of the Book Theodor Hahn Practical Guide to healthy lifestyle. He became a vegetarian, and called Easter 1867 the "German Association for natural way of life ", 1869 renamed " German club company for natural lifestyle ( vegetarian ) " and thus the vegetarian movement in Germany to life. The association's newsletter for friends of the natural way of life was the first vegetarian magazine. After the death Baltzer, a new name for the sheet was selected with Thalysia. Baltzer Thalysianismus called the "natural life " of vegetarians, according to Thalysia, the ancient harvest festival in honor of Demeter and Dionysus.

Three years before his death, he was sentenced to one month imprisonment, because he accused the Crown Prince because of his participation in a newspaper article on a hunt of barbarism.

Works

  • Delitzsch - Hall - Nordhausen or my way out of the Church in the free Protestant community, Nordhausen 1847
  • German Church. Messages from the free community in Nordhausen, Nordhausen 1847
  • Old and new world view. Lectures, held in the free religious community to Nordhausen, Nordhausen 1850-1859
  • From the work. Or human labor in personal and volkswirthschaftlicher relationship. First edition, Nordhausen 1864
  • Pythagoras, the sage of Samos. A picture of life Nordhausen 1868 (Reprint Heilbronn 1991 - ISBN 3-923000-58-8 )
  • God, man and the world. Systematically set out basic lines of Religious Studies in position and design, Nordhausen 1869
  • Ideas for social reform, Nordhausen 1873
  • Apollonius of Tyana. From the Greek of Philostratus, Rudolstadt 1883 ( Reprint, Aalen 1970)
  • Vegetarianisches cookbook for lovers of natural lifestyle
  • Memories - pictures from my life, Frankfurt 1907
  • Georg Herrmann ( eds): Eduard Baltzer: theologian and revolutionary. Pictures from my life. - For the centenary of the founding of the federal free religious communities in Germany ( = The small cultural journals, Episode 4 ), Konstanz 1959
  • Vegetarianism and social reform. Long live the Vegetariat, Osnabrück 1994

Honor

The sculptor Adolf Jahn created in 1910 for Nordhausen an Eduard Baltzer Fountain.

Krostitz Friends of the Light Edict of toleration Frankfurt Parliament Pantheism Die Gartenlaube Neue Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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