Theodor Haecker (4 June 1879 – 9 April 1945) was a German writer, translator and

cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions o ...

Life

Haecker was a translator into German of Kierkegaard and

Cardinal Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English Catholic theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet. He was previously an Anglican priest and after his conversion became a cardinal. He was an ...

. He wrote an essay, ''Kierkegaard and the Philosophy of Inwardness'' in 1913 at a time when few had heard of Haecker and even fewer had heard of Kierkegaard. After that he translated Newman's ''Grammar of Assent'' and became a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

convert in April 1921. Haecker is known for his consistent opposition to the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

regime and his connections with the German resistance, such as the

White Rose The White Rose (, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich ...

. From 1935 he was not allowed to speak in public and from 1938 he was forbidden to publish books. It was during this time that he wrote his most important work, the journal titled collectively as ''Journal in the Night''. They are the documents of an intellectual's inner resistance against National Socialism. Haecker's achievement can be considered an important foundation of Christian resistance to National Socialism. Haecker had links with the circle around the Scholl siblings, where he read excerpts from his ''Journal in the Night''. In early 1944, Haecker's house was completely destroyed during the bombing of

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. With his sight failing due to worsening diabetes, he left Munich to live the last months of his life in the small village of Ustersbach near

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

. His daughter visited him but his son, Reinhard had been sent to the Russian front in early 1945, and was shortly after reported missing. Theodor Haecker died on 9 April 1945 and is buried in Ustersbach. There is a bust by sculptor atop a fountain dedicated to Haecker in Laupheim near Ulm, paid for by the local citizens.

Work

Among his papers was a manuscript possibly written in 1943 and published in English in 1950 as ''Kierkegaard The Cripple''. Haecker questions the claim by Rikard Magnussen, in his two books ''Søren Kierkegaard seen from the Outside'' and ''The Special Cross'', that Kierkegaard was a

hunchback Kyphosis () is an abnormally excessive convex curvature of the spine as it occurs in the thoracic and sacral regions. Abnormal inward concave ''lordotic'' curving of the cervical and lumbar regions of the spine is called lordosis. It can ...

. Haecker asks: 'What significance can be attached to an exterior, physical examination of someone whose work and achievements lie solely in the intellectual and spiritual realms of memory and of historical tradition and experience, as in the case of Kierkegaard? (...) Is there any point in trying to explain the connection between Kierkegaard's physical appearance and his inner self, the purely materially visible and spiritually non-sensual and invisible? Would not this make the inner man, the outer, and the outer man, the inner, which is precisely what Kierkegaard so passionately protested?" Yet, Haecker goes on "to examine the thesis that Kierkegaard's psychological structure was influenced by his deformity."Kierkegaard The Cripple, p. 6 He tried to relate Kierkegaard's inner life to his outer appearance. The translator, Alexander Dru, says about Haecker's ''Journal in the Night'', "This book, reminiscent in form of Pascal's ''Pensées'', is his last testimony to the truth and a confession of faith that is a spontaneous rejoinder to a particular moment in history. It is written by a man intent, by nature, on the search for truth, and driven, by circumstance, to seek for it in anguish, in solitude, with an urgency that grips the reader." In the opening to Dru's translation,

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aqui ...

(misspelled "Jacques Maratain") is quoted as saying, "Theodor Haecker was a man of deep insight and rare intellectual integrity — a

Knight of Faith ''Fear and Trembling'' () is a philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym ''Johannes de silentio'' (Latin for ''John of the Silence''). The title is a reference to a line from Philippians 2:12, which says ...

to use Kierkegaard's expression. The testimony of this great Christian has an outstanding value."

References

Publications in English

* ''Virgil, Father of the West''; translated by Arthur Wesley Wheen (Sheed & Ward: London, 1934) * ''Søren Kierkegaard'', by Theodore Haecker, translated, and With a Biographical Note, by Alexander Dru (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1937). (The first part was given in the form of a lecture in Zurich in 1924 and the second part the epilogue to his translation of Kierkegaard's ''Discourses at Communion Service on Friday'', 1851.)
''Journal in the Night''; translated by Alexander Dru; With a biographical and critical introduction by the translator (Pantheon Books, 1950)
* ''Kierkegaard The Cripple'', by Theodor Haecker, translated by C. Vasn O. Bruyn, With an Introduction by A. Dru, Published 1950 by the

Philosophical Library Philosophical Library is a publisher, based in United States, specializing in psychology, philosophy, religion, and history. It was founded in 1941 by Dagobert D. Runes with the intention of publishing the works of European intellectuals fleeing ...

Inc.

External links

"Theodor Haecker" on archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haecker, Theodor 1879 births 1945 deaths People from Eberbach (Baden) People from the Grand Duchy of Baden German non-fiction writers Converts to Roman Catholicism German Roman Catholics Roman Catholics in the German Resistance German anti-fascists White Rose members 20th-century German translators 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers Translators of Virgil

Life

Work

References

Publications in English

Further reading

External links