Hochland was a German Catholic magazine, published in Munich from 1903 to 1941 and again from 1946 to 1971. Founded by Carl Muth, it was regarded critically by the church, and published work by authors regardless of denomination on topics related to religion and culture. [1]
Hochland was, according to its subtitle, a monthly magazine for all areas of knowledge, literature, and art. In the inaugural volume, Muth stated that the magazine was not to be the newsletter for any party, group, or existing movement. He envisioned a magazine focused on religion and art, and had great faith in the educational power of art and aesthetics to help alleviate cultural and political problems. [2] Though the magazine itself was not to be specifically political, [3] Muth developed close friendships with politically active people such as Hans and Sophie Scholl. [4] From 1903 to 1932 it was edited by Carl Muth, then, until 1935, by Friedrich Fuchs, and from 1935 to 1939 again by Muth, and from 1939 until 1941, when it was banned by the Nazis, by Franz Joseph Schöningh. Its circulation in 1939 was 12,000. [5]
Its regular contributors formed a "Hochland circle," which included Catholic philosophers and authors such as Carl Schmitt, [6] Theodor Schieffer, [7] Theodor Haecker, Gertrud von le Fort, Sigrid Undset, Werner Bergengruen, Max Scheler, Romano Guardini, Peter Wust, Alois Dempf, Philipp Funk, Otto Karrer, Joseph Wittig, Joseph Hengesbach, and Heinrich Lützeler. [8]
During the Nazi period, Hochland published a number of controversial articles critical (though sometimes covertly so) of the government, such as an essay by Theodor Schieffer praising Alexis de Tocqueville and his love of liberty. [9] According to Konrad Ackermann, the magazine was the most important magazine for the intellectual resistance against the government. [10] In 1939, the publication of an essay by Joseph Bernhart ("Hodie," Latin for "Today") led to a ban on and pulping of the edition. The author, who had denounced the limitations placed on the press after Georg Elser's attempt on Adolf Hitler's life, was forbidden to publish anymore. The magazine was banned again in April 1941, after Friedrich Nietzsche was denounced as a killer of God. The attack on the Soviet Union gave the authorities a reason to ban the magazine definitively.
In November 1946 the magazine was reestablished. In 1971 it was renamed Neues Hochland, and in 1974 ceased publication.
The magazine's position within its culture is complex, since Muth's mission in many ways went against the confessionalism of the times: Muth promoted and even demanded a "catholic spirit" in literature that was neither confessional nor party-political. [11] On the one hand, the magazine was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum (the "List of Prohibited Books") in 1911; on the other hand, leading theologians published their work in it. The editors were eager to disengage from the reigning confessionalism of the period; they were critical of Nazism as well as of theological liberalism. The magazine was considered the official journal of the Renouveau catholique movement in Germany, the originally French effort to modernize and enlighten traditional, conservative Catholicism. [12] According to Derek Hastings, Hochland was "by common acclaim the leading Catholic journal in the German-speaking world." [13] Politically, it functioned as the opposite of the "ultraconservative" Catholic journal Gral, promoted by Martin Heidegger (who in 1909 was reported as publicly denounced Hochland as "going too deeply into the waters of modernism" [14] ) and Viennese ideologue Richard von Kralik. [15]
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century. He has been widely criticized for supporting the Nazi Party after his election as rector at the University of Freiburg in 1933, and there has been controversy about the relationship between his philosophy and his Nazism.
Hermann Broch was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: The Sleepwalkers and The Death of Virgil.
Ernst Klee was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concerned with the Action T4 or involuntary euthanasia program. He is the author of "The Good Old Days": The Holocaust Through the Eyes of the Perpetrators and Bystanders first published in the English translation in 1991.
Werner Catel, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Leipzig, was one of three doctors considered an expert on the programme of euthanasia for children and participated in the Action T4 "euthanasia" programme for the Nazis, the other two being Hans Heinze and Ernst Wentzler.
Philosopher Martin Heidegger joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) on May 1, 1933, ten days after being elected Rector of the University of Freiburg. A year later, in April 1934, he resigned the Rectorship and stopped taking part in Nazi Party meetings, but remained a member of the Nazi Party until its dismantling at the end of World War II. The denazification hearings immediately after World War II led to Heidegger's dismissal from Freiburg, banning him from teaching. In 1949, after several years of investigation, the French military finally classified Heidegger as a Mitläufer or "fellow traveller." The teaching ban was lifted in 1951, and Heidegger was granted emeritus status in 1953, but he was never allowed to resume his philosophy chairmanship.
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Karl Theodor Maria Georg Achaz Eberhardt Josef Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg was a German politician of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU). He was parliamentary secretary of state in the Chancellor's Office in the government of Kurt Georg Kiesinger from 1967 until 1969, as well as the foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag. Guttenberg was perceived as a hardline conservative anticommunist as well as a convinced proponent of European integration. His work was mostly within the field of foreign policy.
Erich Kern, was a far-right Austrian journalist, war-time propagandist, and a post-war Nazi activist. He became a writer of revisionist books that sought to glorify the activities of the German soldiers during the Second World War.
Karl Borromäus Johann Baptist Muth was a German writer publisher, best known for founding and editing the religious and cultural magazine Hochland.
Theodor Schieffer was a German historian. He was professor of medieval history at the University of Mainz, then at the University of Cologne, and since 1952 he was president of the Association for Middle Rhine Church History. He is the author of Winfrid-Bonifatius und die christliche Grundlegung Europas, the authoritative biography of Saint Boniface.
Peter Wust was a German existentialist philosopher.
Heinrich Lützeler was a German philosopher, art historian, and literary scholar. He presided over a number of institutes and was dean at the department of philosophy at the University of Bonn.
Rudolf Schieffer was a German historian specializing in medieval history. From 1994 to 2012 he was president of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
Georg Thurmair was a German poet who wrote around 300 hymns, a writer, journalist and author of documentary films.
"Nun, Brüder, sind wir frohgemut" is a German Catholic hymn. It was written by Georg Thurmair as both a pilgrimage song and a Marian hymn. The melody was composed by Adolf Lohmann, who wrote a choral setting in 1936. Related to youth pilgrimages to an image of Mary at the Altenberger Dom, it is also known as "Altenberger Wallfahrtslied". The song is regarded as an Oppositionelles Lied, in subtle protest against the Nazi regime.
"Mein Gott, wie schön ist deine Welt" is a German Catholic hymn. It was written by Georg Thurmair in 1936. The melody was composed by Heinrich Neuß the same year. It was part of Thurmair's 1938 hymnal Kirchenlied, and it is part of regional sections of the Catholic hymnal Gotteslob (2013).
Hartmut Steinecke was a German literary critic and university lecturer.
Joachim Kaiser was a German music, literature and theatre critic. From 1959 he worked as a senior editor in the feuilleton of the Süddeutsche Zeitung; from 1977 to 1996 he was professor of history of music at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.
Theodor Heinrich Mayer was an Austrian writer and chemist. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1936 Summer Olympics.
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