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Theodor Haecker: In the Footsteps of John Henry Newman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Günter Biemer
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There was nearly a contradictory impression between the intensive influence Haecker exercised with his writings and the atmosphere he created as a person. And even after half a century it is not easy to approach him as a historical personality. He left little about his personal life in the sense of autobiographical notes. Richard Seewald, a painter and friend of his for several decades who has left us two portraits of Haecker, describes him in a farewell article: “He was one of the most quiet and most taciturn men I knew.” Most people who met him may have had “great respect for his uprightness and a little fear to be pierced through by his clear blue eyes radiating with an unusual power ... They seemed to ask all the time: Do you quite seriously mean what you are saying? Does your life correspond to your words?” On the other hand Sophie Scholl, one of the “White Rose” martyrs, told her friend about the “impressive hours” she spent with Haecker in the afternoon of February 4th 1943, when he read for a circle of friends from his theodicy Schopfer und Schopfung (Creator and Creation): “His words fall slowly like drops which you can see gathering in advance and which fall under this expectation with a very special weight. He has a very quiet face, a look as though he would look toward the inside. Nobody ever convinced me with his countenance as he did.”

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 81 , Issue 957 , November 2000 , pp. 412 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Seewald, R., Abschied von Theodor Haecker, in: Der Brenner 16 (1945) 25Google Scholar9

2 1st edition: Leipzig 1934; WW vol IV, München 1965.

3 Cf. T. Haecker, TNB p. 15.

4 Leipzig 1931; München 1952; Engl, transl. by A. W. Wheen, London 1934.

5 Walter Benjamin. Privilegiertes Denken. Zu Theodor Haeckers Vergil. in: Schriften vol II Frankfurt a M 1955, 315–323.

6 Matthias Laros, Theodor Haecker, in: Literarischer Handweiser 1927/28, 165–170; 167

7 Mann, Thomas. Tagebücher 1933–1934. Ed. Mendelsohn, Peter de. Frankfurt a M 1974. 252 and 513Google Scholar. “Was ist der Mensch?” appeared in 1933 the year of Hitler's Machtübernahme.

8 Haecker, T.. Der Christ und die Geschichte. Leipzig 1935. 264Google Scholar

9 Ibid. 252

10 C. Hilty, Glück, 3 vols, 1891–1899

11 Haecker, T., S. Kierkegaard und die Philosophie der Innerlichkeit, München 1913, 57fGoogle Scholar.

12 T. Haecker. Satire und Polemik, l.c. 11

13 Excerpts from Haecker's letters made by Henry Tristram in the Archives of the Birmingham Oratory.

14 From a letter by H. Tristram to the Editor of Hochland in August 1939 as a contribution for a Festschrift in honour of Th. Haecker on the occasion of his 60th birthday (June 4, 1939). H. Tristram used his manuscript which is still preserved in the Oratory Archives for an obituary on T. Haecker in The Tablet:“Newman in Germany. A Note on Theodor Haecker” (Oct. 6th, 1945. p. 165). Tristram surmises rightly that the Festschrift was “perhaps never published, owing to the outbreak of the war”. However a personal copy of all the articles including H. Tristram's letter was made for Haecker:

15 Cf. manuscript of H. Tristram's letter of 1939

16 Cf. above note 13. As regards Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen, 3 vols. Tübingen 1900–1901: vol. II/1 deals with “newer theories of abstraction”, including Mill, Spencer, Locke, Berkeley and Hume.

17 Letter to Fr. F. J. Bacchus November 30th. 1920.

18 Letter November 14. 1922.

19 Letter January 13, 1923.

20 Having completed the translation of the Grammar Haecker started translating the Essay on the Development: Die Entwicklung der christlichen Lehre una “der Begriff der Entwicklung, München 1922; second edition: Über die Entwicklung der Glaubenslehre. Durchgesehene Neuausgabe der Übersetzung von Th. Haecker… von Joh. Artz, Mainz 1969.

21 cf. note 17

22 Kard, J. H.. Newman, , Philosophie des Glaubens München 1921, 429–448Google Scholar.

23 Ibid. p.437.

24 Ibid. 439.

25 Ibid. 441.

26 Ibid 441, cf J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons. Uniform Ed. vol. IV 82f.

27 Newman, J. H.. Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, ed. Ker, I., Oxford 1985. 232Google Scholar =Philosophie des Glaubens. München 1921. 307.

28 Nachwort. in: Philosophie de Glaubens, l.c. 442.

29 Ibid. 442–443.

30 Cf. Sielken, T.H. 19 “Übertritt in die katholische Kirche.” There is no entry in any Parish Register traced so far, neither in St. Boniface nor in St. Ursula, München, the parishes to which Haecker would have belonged. The baptismal entry of his second son Reinhard, born in 1927. in St. Peter, calls him a Catholic.

31 T. Haecker, Nachwort. in: Philosophic des Glaubens, l. c. 444 and 447f.

32 Haecker, T.. Satire und Polemik. Innsbrück 1922, VorwortGoogle Scholar.

33 Haecker, T.. Der Begriff der Wahrheit bei S. Kierkegaard, in: Hochland 26, 1929. 476–493Google Scholar: 476. An expanded form was published in 1932, and again in T. Haecker. Opuscula, Olten 1949, 153–223.

34 Opuscula Ic. 177.

35 Cf. ibid. 21 If.

36 Cf. ibid. 223. ‘Man's truth is in becoming’, Haecker interprets Kierkegaard's concept of truth (ibid. p. 195), and again cf. Newman's notion of realizing: truth is something to be done rather than to be said. Cf. Parochial and Plain Sermons vol. 1 p.27.

37 T. Haecker. Der Buckel Kierkegaard's, in: Opuscula Ic. 225–310, 257f.

38 Ibid. 258

39 J. H. Newman, Entwicklung der christlichen Lehre Ic. 464

40 Haecker, T., Geist und Leben. Zum Problem Max Scheler. in: Hochland 2, 1926. 129–155Google Scholar: cf. WW Vol I Essays 238 and 254f: Haecker criticizes his fellow countrymen: it is “not a good sign for the German Catholics that this man and his works find astonishingly little echo”.

41 Haecker, T., Christentum und Kultur. München 1927: cf WW vol.1Google Scholar. Essays 194. Haecker refers to Newman's Philosophie des Glaubens 293ff (ch. IX on “The Illative Sense”).

42 T. Haecker, Nachwort. in: Belloc, H.. Die Juden. München 1927 215–232Google Scholar. (Haecker refers to Philosophie des Glaubens 370 ff. cf ed. Ker p. 278.)

43 Ibid. p.230. Cf 232: “Der Übersetzer… hat das Werk für das deutsche Volk und die Juden in Deutschland übersetzt mit keiner anderen Absicht als eben dieser: Friede sei Israel!” Analysis of hidden Anti‐Judaism (!) in Newman's as well as in Haecker's writings does not yet exist; cf. Günter Biemer ‐ Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich. eds., Lernprozelzlig; Christen Juden. 10 vols., Düsseldorf‐ Freiburg, 1980–1995.

44 Cf. above n. 36–39.

45 T. Haecker. Opuscula l. c. 334.

46 Ibid. 394 f. Wahrheit und Leben in: Hochland 2, 1930, H.7, 1–26, Haecker has recourse the Essay on Development:“When Cardinal Newman considered which principle of Christian doctrine he could place in the beginning of his systematic summary… he chose the reality of the doctrine of the incarnation (WW I Essays, p. 295).

47 T. Haecker, Vergil (1931) in WW vol. V 141 f; cf. the same passage in: Schönheit (1936). in: WW vol.V264 f.‐J.H Newman, Grammar. ed. I. T. Ker. l.c. p.57.

48 Haecker, T.. Schöpfer und Schöpfung (1934), in: WW vol. IV 419Google Scholar.

49 Ibid. 420.

50 Ibid. 365–367, quoted from Grammar ed. I. Ker, I.c. 255 f.

51 Haecker, T.. Der Christ in der Geschichte, Leipzig 1935Google Scholar : Cf. WW vol. IV 277 f, 295 f; cf. Grammar, l. c. 275.

52 Siefken, T.H. 52 f.

53 Haecker, T.. Schönheit. Em Versuch, Leipzig 1936Google Scholar. cf. WW vol V 258.

54 Haecker, T.. Der Geist des Menschen und die Wahrheit, Leipzig 1937Google Scholar: cf. WW vol.111, Satire und Polemik, 1961. p. 375f.

55 Newman, J. H., Die Kirche und die Welt. München 1/1938: 3/1951Google Scholar; cf Sermons on Subjects of the Day, Uniform Edition 111.

56 J. H. Newman Der Traum des Gerontius. l. c. p.4.

57 Ibid. 9 f.

58 T. Haecker, Nachwort, in: Newman, J. H., Das Mysterium der Dreifaltigkeit und der Menschwerdung Gottes, München 1/1940, 2/1950, 209–217Google Scholar.

59 Ibid. 213 f.

60 Ibid. 217 f.

61 Der Antichrist nach der Lehre der Väter, mit einem Nachwort von Werner Becker, München 1951. Historische Skizzen. deutsch von Th. Haecker und einer Übersetzung von Else Seelenfreund. mit einem Nachwort herausgegeben von Werner Becker, München 1948.

62 Haecker, T.. Wahrheit und Leben. Ein Vortrag. Hellerau 1930Google Scholar; cf. Opuscula l. c. 93–152: 141.

63 Siefken, T.H. p. 57.

64 TNB p.71 f. n. [297].

65 J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 11 360–363: cf. Kirche und Welt. l. c. 194–196.

66 J. H. Newman. Essays Critical and Historical. Uniform Edition, vol. II 86–248: cf. G. Biemer. L'historiographie selon Newman: une reconstruction de la vie, in: Lepelley, Claude, Veyriras, Paul. Newman et l'histoire. Lyon 1992. 147–168Google Scholar.

67 Essays Critical. l. c. 192.

68 TNB p. 23 n. [20].

69 Ibid. p. 21 n. [2f].

70 Ibid, p.52 f. n. [194]. “Colloquial language” stands for “wie ihnen der Schnabel gewachsen ist”= as their beak is grown.

71 Ibid. p. 145 n. [683] December 30, 1940.

72 Ibid. p.144n [679].

73 Ibid, p.52 n. [192]

74 Ibid. p.197 n.[916] July 15th, 1941. We omit n. [569]. where Newman is mentioned in connection with the problem of classic languages for students of economy, and n. [898] where the “stupidity” of philosophical arguments is compared with the arguments of Christian faith.

75 cf. above n. 17.

76 Seewald, R. Wo würde Haecker heute stehen? In: Hochland 63. 1971. 92Google Scholar.

77 cf I. Ker. Newman the Satirist, in: Ker, I. ‐ Hill, A. G., Newman after a hundred years. Oxford 1990, 1–20Google Scholar.

78 Cf. TNB n.[452] p.101 and the commentary p. 287.