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1 -
Hebel's birthplace on Basel's Totentanz. A year before his death,
Hebel wrote to his friend Gustave Fecht: “As you know, I live in Basel, in
the second house in front of the Sandehansemer Schwibbogen” (decorative
arch). Since 1928, the house has borne the commemorative plaque that was
previously mistakenly affixed to a building on Hebelstraße with the text
specified by Jacob Burckhardt and Friedrich Becker: “JOH. PETER HEBEL BORN
HERE X. MAY MDCCLX” [May 10th, 1760].
2 - The world-famous
Dance of Death opposite Hebel's birthplace, known as “Death of
Basel” stands out as an unforgettable impression of his youth (not
only) in “Die Vergänglichkeit” (The Transience). In a letter from July
1805, Hebel, not knowing the address of a letter, says he is “worse off
than the blind man in Basel's Dance of Death, whose little dog has been
cut off.”
3 - The Predigerkirche
opposite Hebel's birthplace - the surrounding wall of its cemetery bore
the Dance of Death - until it was demolished in 1805.
4 - The Markgräfler Hof - for a long time, the garden house
of the Faesch estate at Petersplatz 14, located opposite, was considered
to be Hebel's birthplace - and so the commemorative plaque was originally
affixed to that building in 1861.
5 - The original “Neue Vorstadt” was renamed
“Hebelstrasse” in 1871 - and it remained so even after the error
regarding the houses had been recognized by Fritz Liebrich, a Basel-based
Hebel expert and long-time president of the Hebel Foundation.
6 - St. Peter's Square, not
only as a playground in Hebel's childhood, but also as the location of the
Basel Fair, was a central point of reference in Hebel's family: Ursula
Örtlin had brought Johann Jakob Hebel home a “Messkrom”, a gift from the
Basel Autumn Fair, and he in turn sent her “A small box inside another box
for Ursula with shells” from France. With his characteristic humor, which
was entirely compatible with his serious intentions, he now asked for her
heart as a “Messkrom.” He got it.
7 - The desire to see Hebel immortalized by a monument came
to fruition in 1899. Voluntary and state contributions made it possible to
commission the sculptor Max Leu for the work. Leu enthusiastically set
about the task and was able to complete the work on time, but
unfortunately did not live to see the monument's inauguration, which took
place on May 3, 1899, ahead of Hebel Day, “with a huge crowd of onlookers.”
Now the people of Basel have Hebel with them at all times – in one of
their most beautiful squares, Peterskirchplatz, he smiles kindly at
every passerby as they go about their daily lives.
8 – St. Peter's Church. It was here that the first child of
Ursula and Johann Jakob Hebel was baptized on May 13, 1760, and given the
name Johann Peter. During the summer months of 1766 to 1768, he attended
the parish school at St. Peter's, approximately where his monument stands
today.
9 - The Mittlere Brücke
- the “breite Bruck” (broad bridge) from the Basel city anthem and the
only bridge across the Rhine (exept rheinfelden) far and wide - must have
made a deep impression on the young “Hanspeter” - not only as a place for
Basel residents to stroll. It appears as the “lustigi Rhibruck” in a
fragment of a poem, as well as in his dream records: "An enormous wheel
turned, its rim crowded with people and carters... The wheel grew larger
and larger. Suddenly it came to a halt, and a cut-off arc at the top was
the Basel Rhine bridge... I could clearly see the Kappeler Joch and the
sentry on the bridge..."
10 - At the end of 1760/beginning of 1761, the family moved across
the Rhine to Kleinbasel, perhaps to escape the typhus epidemic that was
beginning in Großbasel. When a girl was born on June 20, 1761, she was
baptized Susanne in St. Theodore's Church. Happiness seemed to have
returned to the Hebel family. But just a few weeks after Susanne's birth,
the family fell seriously ill – presumably with typhoid fever after all –
and, although they immediately fled to Hausen for the healthy air, the
father died on July 25, 1761, at the age of only 41, and Little
Susanne on October 22, 1761.
11 - Basel Cathedral. In
the cloister there is a bronze sculpture engraved with Hebel's “Die
Vergänglichkeit” (The Transience), created by Bettina Eichin on the
occasion of the Schweizerhalle chemical fire in 1986. This oppressive,
even dystopian depiction of the end of the world is one of Hebel's most
impressive and significant works.
12 - The “Latin School at Burg,” later and today the
Humanistic Gymnasium on Münsterplatz. In 1772, Hebel attended third grade,
where he ranked in the middle of the class—he was twelfth out of
twenty-five students. As a classmate of many sons of Basel citizens, he
also gained access to their parents' homes. The boy knew the city down to
its most remote alleys and corners; later, he proudly boasted that he was
one of the most knowledgeable locals. So it comes as no surprise when
Hebel writes from Karlsruhe: "A few days ago, I met Mr. Huber, an engraver
from Basel. He's my kind of guy. He had to slip through all the alleys and
lanes with me. In the end, he admitted to me that I knew Basel better than
he did."
13 - In the First Coalition War (1792-97), the armies of Austria
and France faced each other. The battlefields also included the areas of
the “Oberland,” i.e., the Margraviate of Baden from the bridgehead in
Hünigen northward down the Upper Rhine Plain. There was also fighting at
times in the Wiesental and Kandertal valleys, especially in the Battle of
Schliengen. In 1796, Hebel made his first trip to his native Oberland and
witnessed the French retreat across the Rhine. He processed this
experience in his poem “Vergänglichkeit” (The Transience): "The sky
reddens, and thunder rumbles everywhere, at first quietly, then loudly,
like back in 1789 when the French unrestrained fired their cannons."
14 - Weil [am Rhein] /
Tüllingen. In 1788, he began a friendship with Gustave Fecht
(1768-1828), Tobias Günttert's sister-in-law. In the hamlet of
Pfarrhaus, where the Günttert couple and Gustave Fecht had been living
since the summer of 1790, Hebel had his own little room on the first floor
facing the garden and the Tüllinger hill, and his own place in the dining
room and a special plate for his accompanying Spitz dog. A memorial plaque
on the church commemorates Gustave. In 1787, Hebel made the acquaintance
of Friedrich Wilhelm Hitzig (1767-1849), parish vicar in Rötteln and later
dean in Lörrach, who would remain Hebel's best friend until the end of his
life. Tüllingen and the church, which offers a fantastic view of the
entire border triangle, played an important role in the lives of both men
– as evidenced, for example, in a letter from Hebel dated 1805: "...my
dear Zenonides... Now be so kind as to take care of everything, and be
well and friendly when I, with Italian dust on my boots, take a step away
from the little church in Tüllingen and into the Röttler rectory, and
perhaps trample a couple of chickens. J. P. Parm." [Zenonides =
Proteusername Hitzigs, Parmenides = ditto Hebels].
15 - Röttler Castle, probably the central building and the place
around which Hebel's thoughts revolved when writing the Alemannic poems -
which is not surprising: His mother died in 1773 in front of the castle
on the highway in his presence while traveling home from Basel to Hausen.
In ‘Die Wiese’ (The Meadow): "Do you see Röttler Castle over there – the
ruined walls? In the paneled room, decorated with golden moldings, princes
once lived, along with beautiful princely ladies, lords and their servants,
and joy was at home in Röttle. But now everything is silent. For an
unimaginable amount of time, no lights have burned in its dilapidated
rooms, no fire has flickered on its sunken hearth...“ And in ‘Die
Vergänglichkeit’ (The Transience): ”The
boy says to his father: Almost
every time,
father, when the Röttler Castle
stands before my eyes, I think about it,
whether our house will really be like that one day. Doesn't it stand
there, as gruesome as death
in
the Basel Dance of Death? It makes you shudder,
the
longer you look at it" ...are
reproduced most impressively.
16 - The Hebel monument in
Lörrach was created in 1910 by Wilhelm Gerstel as a naturalistic,
larger-than-life statue of the poet and was inaugurated on May 10, 1910.
It is located in the middle of the city in Hebel Park.
17 - In 1783, he was appointed assistant teacher at the
Pädagogium in Lörrach. This position also involved preaching in
Grenzach; however, the salary was so meager that Hebel had to supplement
it by giving private lessons. At the Pädagogium on Basler Straße - since
1761, previously a tobacco factory, from 1893 to 1960 the Hebelgymnasium,
today the “Dreiländermuseum (Three-Country-Museum) Lörrach” - he also had
room and board with Vice-Rector Günttert, and it was here that he met
Gustave Fecht.
18
- The Protestant church in Hausen. On the north side there are four
epitaphs, including one commemorating the grave of Ursula and Johann Jakob
Hebel in the former cemetery.
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19 - The sculptor Friedolin Fechtig modeled Johann Peter
Hebel in Karlsruhe in 1820. Five copies were probably made based on this
model, four for his closest friends and one for the Karlsruhe Art Academy.
Privy Councilor Karl August Seubert, one of Hebel's friends and family
doctor, made his model available to the Grand Ducal metallurgical
administrator Rudolf Gyßer. Ludwig Kachel, the director of the Grand Ducal
Mint, then produced the design for the monument. The “Hebel Monument”
was cast at the ironworks in Hausen, and its ceremonial
inauguration on May 10, 1860, was the highlight of the first Hebel
Festival.
20 - Hebel's parents' house in Hausen im Wiesental. The house bears
the inscription on the gable end: “When envy and hatred burn like fire,
wood and coal are not so expensive ~ U. 1763 H.” It comes from his father
Johann Jakob Hebel, who was born in Simmern (Hunsrück) in 1720 – and the
original text is therefore not Alemannic, but in the dialect of his father!
His mother Ursula Hebelin, née Örtlin, born in Hausen in 1727, married the
“Dragunerjobbi” (Dragoon-Jakob) in Hauingen in 1759. Two years after the
death of her father, the widow U. (rsula) H. (ebel) had the saying affixed
– apparently the young family had experienced a great deal of envy and
resentment in the village and still had to contend with it.
21 - Since 1860, the
Hebelfest has been celebrated on May 10 in memory of Johann Peter
Hebel (1760 - 1826). Every two years, one of the state literary prizes of
Baden-Württemberg, the Johann Peter Hebel Prize, worth 20,000 euros,
is awarded in Hausen im Wiesental during the Hebelfest. The prize is
awarded to writers and poets from the Alemannic-speaking region (Baden,
Alsace-Lorraine, Vorarlberg, German-speaking Switzerland). It is presented
by the Minister of Art and Culture of Baden-Württemberg during a ceremony.
Since 1860, a central part of the festival has been the Parade, in
which the official guests are picked up at the train station and escorted
to the festival hall. The 12 oldest men and 12 oldest women in the village
are invited to the “Hebelmähli” (Hebel-Meal) by the
“Hebelstiftung Basel” (Hebel Foundation Basel) – a tradition that
dates back to J. P. Hebel himself and has been part of the Hebel Festival
since 1861. Since 1960, the municipality of Hausen has awarded the Johann
Peter Hebel Commemorative Plaque every year on “Hebelabend” (the
Saturday before the Hebel Festival) to deserving personalities from the
Upper Rhine region, including writers, dialect poets, painters, local
historians, and local historians.
22 - Since 1766 Hebel attended elementary school in Hausen and, at
the instigation of the Hausen pastor Karl Friedrich Obermüller, also
attended Latin school in Schopfheim from 1769. After his
mother's death in 1773, he lived in the Obermüller house in Schopfheim so
that he could complete Latin school. His days in Schopfheim are reflected
both in his poems and in his letters. In Sengelenwäldchen there is another
Hebel monument, which is hardly known or visited due to its remote
location.
23 - J. W. Goethe created a “Literary Monument” to Hebel by
reciting his poems. Even though Hebel was not entirely happy with it, it
contributed decisively to his being able to write in a letter in 1809:
“At certain moments, I can become inwardly proud and feel intoxicated with
happiness that I have succeeded in making our otherwise despised and
ridiculed language classical and singing its praises to such celebrity.”
24 - The Belchen.
Hebel revered this mountain in the Black Forest: “It is true that the
first stop from earth to heaven is on the Belchen.” In the early 1890s, he
and his friends founded a “secret circle,” the “Proteus League”.
They elevated the Belchen to the seat and altar of Proteus, a figure from
Greek mythology, whom they elevated to the rank of a god, and devised a
secret language, Belchism. The members of the circle had to undergo
certain rituals in order to be accepted. Hebel describes the initiation
ceremonies: "On Ramsberger, strip yourself of your clothes, drown your
soles, cut off your nails, and dip yourself three times in the fountain
trough. Say: 'In the holy name of Proteus, I consecrate myself to the high
Belchian magic. Now anoint yourself with ink and powder your curls with
sprinkled sand, stand outside in the night, your gaze turned toward
Belchen..."
25 - On the Feldberg, at 1492m the highest mountain in the
Black Forest, springs the source of the ‘Wiese’: "Where
the Dengel spirit in the midnight hour on a silver harness whets his
golden scythe, (Todtnau's boys know it well) on the wooded Feldberg, where
with a lovely face from deep hidden crevices the Wiese looks out, and
boldly jumps down into the valley towards Todtnau, my cheerful gaze hovers
and my thoughts float." On the
other hand, it was the destination of many of Hebel's hikes and was
immortalized in his poem “Geisterbesuch auf dem Feldberg” (Ghost Visit on
the Feldberg).
26 - In 1806, Hebel was
offered the position of Lutheran pastor and university preacher in
Freiburg. Two friends (Ittner and Jacobi) lived here, and he greatly
appreciated the city, as can be read in “Der Schwarzwälder im Breisgau” (The
Black Forest man in the Breisgau):
“To Freiburg in the city, it
is clean and cheerful; Rich gentlemen, money and goods, maidens like milk
and blood, to Freiburg in the city.”
However, Hebel decided to follow the wishes of Grand Duke Karl Friedrich
and remain in Karlsruhe.
27 - After his confirmation in 1774, Hebel entered the
“Gymnasium illustre” in Karlsruhe at the instigation of the
former Hausen pastor Gottlieb August Preuschen. Preuschen, court preacher
in Karlsruhe since 1769, cared for Hebel “like a father,” according to
Hebel's testimony. His early transfer to Prima 1775, the three-year final
course for prospective theologians, is followed in 1776 by his membership
in the “Marchio-Badensis Societas Latina,” a society for the cultivation
of Latin. Hebel gives four Latin speeches and receives the prize of 25
guilders donated by Crown Prince Karl Ludwig. In March 1778, he passed his
final examination with a public disputation and a sermon (and subsequently
studied theology in Erlangen).
28 - In Karlsruhe, his
career took off in 1791: he was appointed subdeacon at the Karlsruhe
Gymnasium illustre. Hebel teaches Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and geography at
his former school, as well as mathematics and natural history at the
secondary school of the Gymnasium. In 1798, he is appointed associate
professor with exemption from preaching duties. In 1799, he becomes an
honorary member of the Mineralogical Society in Jena. 1805 - Appointment
to the church council. In 1809, he became a member of the Protestant
Church and Examination Commission. In 1814, he joined the Protestant
Ministerial Section, the highest church and school authority in the state.
In 1819, he was appointed Prelate of the Protestant Regional Church,
the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the state, which was conferred for
the first time. Hebel thus also became a Member of the First Chamber of
the Baden State Parliament. As a parliamentarian, he championed school
and church issues, freedom of the press [!], and social concerns. In 1820,
he was awarded the Knight's Cross and the Commander's Cross of the Order
of the Zähringer Lion. 1821 - Participation in the General Synod and
significant involvement in the merger of the Lutheran and Reformed
churches in Baden and the award of an honorary doctorate from the Faculty
of Theology at the University of Heidelberg.
29 - Johann Jakob Hebel's interests went far beyond the horizons of
a typical dragoon of the time. This is evidenced by the handwritten
documents from his estate: a “Rechenkunst” (arithmetic) written while he
was still in Simmern and, in particular, the pocketbook he kept from 1753
onwards, in which he noted all kinds of curious things he had heard and
read on neatly bound pages. In fact, the son included the recipes for
“making red, blue, and green ink” from his father's pocketbook in the
“Rheinländischer Hausfreund ... auf das Jahr 1810” (The Rhineland Family
Friend ... for the Year 1810).
30 - The Johann Peter Hebel monument is located in the
palace gardens in Karlsruhe. The monument, in neo-Gothic style, was
designed by architect Joseph Berckmüller planned it, and Friedolin Fechtig
created the bust in 1835. It was initially located at the northern
entrance to the botanical garden, but has been in its current location
since 1965.
31 - In 1826, despite being
ill, Hebel went on a business trip to Mannheim to take exams. His students
honored him with a trip on the Rhine. He then traveled to Schwetzingen to
visit his friend Johann Michael Zeyher, the garden director of
Schwetzingen Palace. Hebel had met him in Basel, where Zeyher had
found his wife, “the good Basel blood,” in the daughter of the city
gardener.
32 - On September 22, 1826, Hebel died in Zeyher's official
residence in the palace and was buried in Schwetzingen. His friend
had a simple plaque placed on the grave, which was replaced by the current
tomb on May 10, 1859. The cemetery was abandoned in 1970 and all the
graves were moved, except for the “Hebel tomb”, which remained in
place. Today, the burial site is located in the wider area of
Schwetzingen's city center, in the vicinity of a senior citizens' center—the
“Johann-Peter-Hebel-Haus.”
“It is a beautiful resting place under a tree, like a weary wanderer
finding coolness and refreshment under a shady tree. He sleeps for an hour
or so and then gets up again.”
(J. P. Hebel, Biblical Stories)
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