250th birthday of Matthias Claudius - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1990 - 100 Pfennig

Matthias Claudius was born on 15 August 1740 in Reinfeld (Holstein). Coming from a pastor's family, he turns after the visit of the Plön Latin School in 1759 in Jena also to study theology. However, he soon switched to jurisprudence, but without finishing his studies, and in 1762 returned to his parents' house. After an intermezzo as secretary to Count Holstein in Copenhagen and literary collaboration with the »Hamburger Adreß-Comptoir-Nachrichten«, he has been living in Wandsbek near Hamburg since 1771. Here he publishes the »Wandsbeker Boten« until 1775, a hitherto undemanding newspaper, which he coined by his own contributions. The first two parts of his major literary work appear under the title "Asmus omnia sua secum portans, or Complete Works of the Wandsbek Messenger," consisting of "poems, a few letters, and other prosaic pieces, the latter partly my simple judgment on one and another book contain". After giving up his editorial office, Claudius has been working as a private secretary and editor in Darmstadt since 1776. In 1777, however, he returned to Wandsbek, where he developed a lively literary activity. The remaining six parts of his "Asmus" appear, as well as contributions in the magazine "Vaterlandisches Museum", which his son-in-law F. C. Perthes publishes. Forced to flee to Lübeck and Kiel in 1813 by the Napoleonic Wars, the man who returned to Wandsbek in 1814 died on January 21, 1815 at the house of his son-in-law Perthes in Hamburg. Modest are the external circumstances of Claudius, but his horizon reaches far. He is friends with the composer C. Ph. E. Bach and the painter Ph. O. Runge. Partners of his literary dialogue are the greats of his time: Lessing, Hamann, Herder, Goethe and Schiller, philosophers like Jacobi, writers like the Homer translator Voss. He becomes a contender in the dispute between Lessing and the Lutheran pastor Goeze in Hamburg; Goethe and Schiller deal critically with him in their "Xenien"; interested in theosophy and mysticism, he deals with C. de Saint-Martin and Fénelon and translates their writings z. T. into German. Claudius is an independent spirit. In a time of increasing dissolution of the traditional denominations, in the tensions between "Orthodox" Lutherans, "Enlighteners," "Pietists" and "Romantics," he did not allow himself to be taken in by schools and schools. He remained skeptical of literalism and dogmatic Stubbornness of the Orthodox (and thus he took sides for Lessing against Goeze), but also against the rational faith of many enlighteners. He has maintained literary sobriety in the pious emotional exuberance of many Pietists, and despite his sympathy for Catholic mysticism, unlike his friend Schlegel, he did not go the way to the Catholic Church. Basically, Claudius was probably a pious conservative, who followed the radical political innovations of his time (especially the French Revolution) as the changes in worldview and piety with increasing discomfort. He could therefore meet towards the end of his life with the representatives of the awakening romanticism to greater acclaim than some of his older contemporaries. But perhaps this conservative trait of his nature and his works is the reason why he has conquered a permanent literary place in the bourgeoisie: with the letter "to my son John," to sing the "song behind the stove," which became a hymn "Bauernlied" ("We plow and we scatter"), the song that has become a folksong "The moon has risen". (Text: Dr. Gustav Adolf Krieg, Workplace for Worship and Church Music, Dusseldorf)