|
November
1 in German History
---------------------------------
November 1
Allerheiligentag (All Saints Day). Allerheiligentag is a legal holiday
in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Northrhine-Westphalia, Rhineland Palatinate
and Saarland.
November 1, 1607
Birth of Georg Philipp Harsdörfer in Nürnberg, Germany. Harsdörfer
was a Baroque poet and theorist. In the Baroque period in Germany many
literary societies were founded to promote the arts. Harsdörfer was
one of the founders of one of the more important of these, the Pegnitzer
Hirtengesellschaft. His book on theory became one of the more significant
of the period, Poetischer Trichter, die Teutsche Dicht und Reimkunst,
ohne Behuf der Lateinischen Sprache, in sechs Stunden einzugiessen. (Baroque
writers liked long titles.) Among his collections of poetry is Pegnesisches
Schäfergedicht (1644).
November 1, 1757
Birth of George Rapp in Iptingen, Germany. Rapp was a preacher who immigrated
to the U.S. in 1803 and founded the Rappite sect, a pietist community
which was located sequentially in Pennsylvania, Indiana and again Pennsylvania.
Largely due to a value for celibacy, the community dwindled and disappeared.
November 1, 1823
Death of Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg in Altona, Germany. Gerstenberg
was a musician of some note, but is remembered primarily as the early
theorist of the "Sturm und Drang" movement in German literature.
His Briefe über die Merkwürdigkeiten der Literature sets the
basic principles of "Sturm und Drang" thinking. During a period
in which he lived in Copenhagen he was a personal friend of Friedrich
Gottlieb Klopstock.
November 1, 1855
Birth of Guido Adler in Eibenschütz, Austrian Empire (now Czech
Republic). Adler was one of the founders of the modern science of musicology.
His family moved to Vienna when he was 9. In 1864 he began to study with
Anton Bruckner at the Vienna Conservatory. After earning his doctorate
in Vienna, he became a professor of music at the University of Prague
and later at the University of Vienna.
November 1, 1879
Birth of Oskar Barnack in Lynow, Germany. Barnack designed the first
precision miniature camera, the Leica I, 1924. His camera initiated the
era of 35mm cameras.
November 1, 1880
Birth of Alfred Wegener in Berlin, Germany. Wegener was a professor of
meteorology at the Universities of Marburg, Hamburg and Graz. He became
convinced that the land masses of the earth had once been one supercontinent
and gave the name Pangea to the continent. He further concluded that continent
had broken and drifted apart (die Verschiebung der Kontinente). He published
his theories on continental drift in 1912 with the title, Die Entstehung
der Kontinente und Ozeane. At the time most found his theory to be preposterous
and for decades his work was ignored. Finally during the 1960's the concept
of plate tectonics arose to justify Wegener's insights.
November 1, 1885
Birth of Anton Flettner in Eddersheim, Germany. Flettner invented the
rotor ship, the Flettner trim-tab control for aircraft and the Flettner
marine rudder. In 1926 he founded a company which built helicopters for
the Luftwaffe in World War II. After WWII he immigrated to the U.S. and
became president of the Flettner Aircraft Corporation in New York.
November 1, 1886
Birth of Hermann Broch in Vienna, Austria. Broch was a novelist known
for his "multidimensional novels". Among his works are Die Schlafwandler,
Der Versucher (1953) and Die Schuldlosen (1950). In 1940 he immigrated
to the United States.
November 1, 1903
Death of Theodor Mommsen in Berlin, Germany. Mommsen won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1902. His monumental Römische Geschichte was a
masterpiece. Even more important is his Römisches Staatsrecht in
which he organized Roman constitutional law from the myriad of legal details
of Roman constitutional tradition. He served as a professor at the Universities
of Zürich, Breslau and Berlin.
November 1, 1914
Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee defeats the British 4 Cruiser Squadron
near the coast of Chile. (WWI)
November 1, 1914
German general, Von Hindenburg with chief of staff Ludendorff is appointed
commander in chief of Austrian-German forces on the eastern front.
November 1, 1932
Wernher von Braun is named head of the German liquid fuel rocket program.
November 1, 1945
Death of Blessed Rupert Mayer (1876 1945) Rupert Mayer was born
in Stuttgart on January 23, 1876. In 1899 he became a priest. In 1900
he became a Jesuit. He worked as a domestic missionary in Switzerland,
Germany and Holland. He was a military pastor in World War I. In that
capacity he was awarded the Iron Cross. (He was wounded and lost a leg
while protecting a soldier with his own body.) For the remainder of the
war and after its end he worked in Munich. He spoke out against the rising
Nazi party early on. In 1937 he was arrested by the Nazis. He spent seven
months in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen in solitary confinement.
Thereafter he was released but forbidden to preach. He was confined at
the monastery at Ettal, Bavaria for the remainder of the war. He died
on November 1, 1945. He was buried at the monastery cemetery at Ettal.
His grave was soon visited by tens of thousands of pilgrims. His remains
were then moved to the Jesuit church in Munich. Thousands still visit
his gravesite in Munich. In 1987 Mayer was beatified by Pope John Paul
II. His day of remberance in the Church is November 1. In Munich, however,
his day of remembrance is November 3.
November 1, 1946
Announcement of verdicts of the Nürnberg Trials.
November 1, 1957
Erich Mielke is named the minister of state security in East Germany
(DDR).
November 1, 1962
Greece enters the European Common Market.
November 1, 1988
Helmut Kohl and the French President, Francois Mitterrand jointly receive
the Charlemagne Prize (Karlspreis) of the city of Aachen for their efforts
on behalf of European unity.
November 1, 1993
The Maastricht Treaty comes into force and the European Union begins.
November 1, 1996
The German shop closing law is relaxed. (Stores may stay open until 8:00
p.m.)
Back to Today in German History Calendar
|