Saul Ascher

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Saul Ascher
Born
Saul ben Anschel Jaffe

(1767-02-06)6 February 1767
Berlin
Died8 December 1822(1822-12-08) (aged 55)
Berlin
NationalityGerman
OccupationWriter and Translator

Saul Ascher (6 February 1767 in Berlin – 8 December 1822 in Berlin) was a German writer, translator and bookseller.

Life[]

Saul Ascher (born Saul ben Anschel Jaff), was the first child of Deiche Aaron (c. 1744 Frankfurt – 1820 Berlin), and bank broker Anschel Jaffe (1745 Berlin – 1812 Berlin).

In 1785, he attended high school in Landsberg an der Warthe (today Gorzów Wielkopolski). Ascher married Rachel Spanier on 6 June 1789 in Hanover. Spanier was the daughter of Nathan Spanier, the head of the Ravensberg Jewish community. On 6 October 1795, their only child, a daughter Wilhelmine, was born. On 6 April 1810, Ascher was arrested in Berlin, and was released on April 25 due to political pressure. On 6 October, he was awarded a doctoral degree in absentia from the University of Halle. In 1812, the year his father died, Ascher received his letter of citizenship. Ascher stepped forward in 1816 in the Jewish reform-oriented Gesellschaft der Freunde (Society of Friends). At the book burning at the Wartburg festival on 18 October 1817, Ascher's writing "Die Germanomanie" ("The German Mania") was also burned.[1] In October 1822 Saul Ascher fell ill, and on 8 December 1822 he died of "exhaustion."

Activity[]

Ascher met and befriended Heinrich Zschokke in 1789. He also became friends with Solomon Maimon, Johann Friedrich Cotta and Marx's teacher Eduard Gans. Throughout his life, Ascher was rejected as a Jewish theorist and writer. Leopold Zunz remarked in 1818 that Ascher was an "enemy of all fanaticism, against the Deutschtümler ("those displaying jingoistic Germanness"), and his that his upstanding moral character was often not appreciated".

Ascher was a prolific writer. His work can be divided into three different areas: author, translator, and editor/publisher.

Early on, Ascher worked as a publisher. His editorial work, as well as his authored works, bore various pseudonyms.

Ascher was a member and correspondent for various magazines, including the , Berlin Archive of Time and Taste, , Literary Newspaper Hall, Morning Paper for the Educated Classes of Cotta, Miscellany for New World Client by Zschokke, Journal de l'Empire.

Ascher founded and distributed at least two magazines himself. In 1810, a politically difficult year for Ascher, he founded the "World and Spirit", which was published until 1811 in six issues.

Teaching[]

In his first publication, "Bemerkungen über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden" ("Remarks on the Civil Improvement of the Jews"), Ascher noted:

"Repression creates despondency of the spirit, contempt suppresses every germ of morality and education, tracking every germ of morality. No nation is more persecuted and despised than the Jewish."

Unlike other Jewish writers, Ascher was against Jews being forced to military service as this would only involve Jews of limited means, and not the upper classes. In 1799, his ideas on natural history of the political revolutions were banned.

Legacy[]

Illustration by C. E. Brock for The Ghost of Dr. Ascher as depicted in The humour of Germany (1909)

Historically effect emancipation is Ascher behind other contemporary representatives of the fallen significantly. In his "Harz Journey", Heinrich Heine speaks of him. Ironically, he describes Ascher as a "reason doctor" and leaves him after his death as a ghost appears, with the help of the teachings of Kant's "witching hour" the non-existence of ghosts seeking to prove-in. At the same time, Heine points out, however, Ascher had influenced him in his development. The literature professor Reinhold Steig addresses in his book, "Heinrich von Kleist's Berliner struggles" (Stuttgart 1901) the one-sided and distorted view of Ascher and his disputes with Kleist.

Based on a dissertation by Fritz Pinkuss of 1928, Walter Grave in 1977 was the first to represent an in-depth essay by Ascher. Even Peter Hacks has in 1989 and 1990 in two papers, the title "Ascher against Jahn" were grouped under the order political classification and appraisal Asher tried one. An important role as a counter-figure to Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim played Ascher in the context of recent research on the relationship between romance and anti-Semitism (see "Literature" the study by Puschner).

In his two-part essay, "The Falcon" André Thielelast in his collection "A world in ruins," (2008) has presented preliminary work for a comprehensive biography of Ascher, as well as a bibliography of the primary title, 50% more extensive compared to previously known titles.

In 2010, two new editions of works by Saul Ascher announced a one-volume selection from the work in the Böhlau Verlag, Bonn, and the first volume of a comprehensive edition of works published by André Thiele, Mainz.

Works[]

  • Leviathan oder über Religion in Rücksicht des Judentums (Leviathan or religion in respect of Judaism) (1792)
  • Eisenmenger der Zweite (Eisenmenger the Second) (1794)
  • Philosophische Skizzen zur natürlichen Geschichte des Ursprungs, Fortschritts und Verfalls der gesellschaftlichen Verfassungen (Philosophical sketches of Natural History of the Origin, Progress and Decline of Social Constitutions) (1801)
  • Orientalische Gemälde (Oriental Paintings) (1802)
  • Ideen zur natürlichen Geschichte der politischen Revolutionen (Ideas for the Natural History of Political Revolutions) (1802)
  • Kabinett Berlinischer Karaktere (Berlin Cabinet Character) (1808)
  • Napoleon oder über den Fortschritt der Regierung (Napoleon or the Progress of the Government) (1808)
  • Rousseau und sein Sohn (Rousseau and His Son) (1809)
  • Historisch-romantische Gruppen (Historic-Romantic Groups) (1809)
  • Romane, Erzählungen und Märchen (Novels, Short Stories and Tales) (2 Bde, erschienen 1810)
  • Bagatellen aus dem Gebiete der Poesie, Kritik und Laune (Bagatelles of the Areas of Poetry, Criticism and Humor) (2 Bde, erschienen 1810–1811)
  • Die Entthronung Alfonsos, Königs von Portugal (The Dethronement of Alfonso, King of Portugal) (1811)
  • Die Germanomanie (The Germano Mania) (1815) online
  • Idee einer Preßfreiheit und Censurordnung (Idea of Freedom of the Press and Censorship Regulation) (1818)
  • Die Wartburgsfeier (The Wartburg Celebration) (1818)
  • Ansicht von dem künftigen Schicksal des Christenthums (View of the Future Fate of Christianity) (1819)

Translations

  • Henri Grégoire, Die Neger. Ein Beitrag zur Staats- und Menschenkunde. (1809)
  • Auguste Lambert, Praxède oder der französische Werther. (1809)
  • Charles Ganilh, Untersuchungen über die Systeme der politischen Ökonomie. (1811, anonym)
  • Auguste Lambert, Schwärmereien der Liebe. (1816)
  • Bernard v. Mandeville, Fabel von den Bienen. (1818, kommentiert)

Published post-mortem

  • Ideen zur natürlichen Geschichte der Revolutionen, Kronberg/Ts. 1975
  • 4 Flugschriften, Berlin und Weimar 1990
  • Ausgewählte Werke. Hrsg. , Köln 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20451-8 (umfasst vier Texte)
  • Werkausgabe. Theoretische Schriften, Band 1: Flugschriften, Hrsg. , Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-940884-27-5 (umfasst sieben Essays)

Literature[]

  • Fritz Pinkuss: "Saul Ascher, ein Theoretiker der Judenemanzipation aus der Generation nach Moses Mendelssohn", in: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland VI (1936), S. 28–32.
  • Walter Grab: "Saul Ascher. Ein jüdisch-deutscher Spätaufklärer zwischen Revolution und Restauration", in: Ders.: Ein Volk muss seine Freiheit selbst erobern. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Jakobiner, Frankfurt 1984, S. 461–494.
  • Peter Hacks: Ascher gegen Jahn. Ein Freiheitskampf, Berlin: Aufbau 1991.
  • Christoph Schulte: Die jüdische Aufklärung: Philosophie, Religion, Geschichte, C.H. Beck, 2002, ISBN 3-406-48880-3.
  • André Thiele: "Der Falke", in: Ders.: Eine Welt in Scherben, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-940884-06-0, S. 39–64.
  • Marco Puschner: Antisemitismus im Kontext der politischen Romantik. Konstruktionen des "Deutschen" und des "Jüdischen" bei Arnim, Brentano und Saul Ascher, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008 (Conditio Judaica; 72).

References[]

  1. ^ Deborah Sadie Hertz (2007). How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin. Yale University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-300-11094-4.

External links[]

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