Gerhard von Schulze-Gaevernitz: (1864-1943)

Abstract

GERHARD VON SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ75 Joshua Knight.35 A small meeting was still in existence, but it had no official connections with the Society. As Joshua Evans declared, many of the people had had a Friendly education but were "as sheep without a shepherd." 36 A census in 1803 reported only fifty-four inhabitants in the parish of Pennfield, most of them Quakers. Concerning these it was noted that they were excellent farmers located on good tracts of land and in good circumstances. Those who left Pennfield helped settle other harbors further west, many of which had already been started, and continued to contribute to the development of their adopted country.37 GERHARD VON SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ (1864-1943) By Goetz A. Briefs, translated and adapted by Hans Buchinger THE DEATH of Gerhard von Schulze-Gaevernitz deprives the world of a notable German Friend and of a great liberal. The British historian P. G. Gooch concluded a recent tribute to his German colleague with the following summary: "In his own country he sought wisdom not from Hegel or Marx but from Kant and Goethe. His last book, Zur Wiedergeburt des Abendlandes, published shortly after the Nazi revolution, was in essence a reply to Spengler's pessimistic and once celebrated treatise The Decline of the West. But it was also something more—a personal confession of faith in the indestructibility of Western civilization, a summons to co-operation in many fields, a plea for the adoption of the simple life which he practiced himself. Such an idealist in our iron age was bound to be a lonely figure, but he was never embittered by the apparent failure. He followed the light as he saw it and died in the sure faith that it would shine again." If such was the culminating thought and practice of his life, what was the career that led up to it? 35Dorland, History of Friends in Canada, p. 49 ; Evans, Joshua, Journal (Byeberry, Pa., 1837), p. 87. 36Evans, Journal, p. 87. 37Siebert, Loyalists of Pennsylvania, p. 103. Vol. 32, Autumn 1943 76 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION "As a young man," writes Gooch in the Manchester Guardian, "Gerhard von Schulze-Gaevernitz studied and described the social history of England, making Toynbee Hall his headquarters. ... Even more valuable was his detailed analysis of social and economic conditions in Russia, for which purpose he learned Russian, traveled all over the country, and studied in the University of Moscow. The middle decades of his life were spent in fruitful professorial activity in Freiburg, where generations of grateful pupils came under his influence. ... "Entering the Reichstag as a Democrat shortly before the first world war, he co-operated with his intimate friend Friedrich Naumann in the struggle for Christian democracy, opposed by tongue and pen the annexationist demands of the Vaterlandspartei , and helped to draw up the Weimar Constitution. When Germany had to be rebuilt on new foundations after the shattering experience of 1918 he became a professor at the newly founded Hochschule für Politik at Berlin, where teachers and learners of all shades of opinion strove harmoniously for the political education of the new generation." It was in his capacity as legislator and as adviser to the "Fight-the-Famine Council" that he met with leading British and American Friends and entered into a close personal relation with some of them. And yet the question arises: Why did Gerhard von SchulzeGaevernitz join the Society of Friends? The mere facts of his acquaintance with Quaker relief activities and of his friendship with prominent members of the Society do not in themselves offer a sufficient explanation. We are at this point much indebted to his former pupil, Professor Goetz A. Briefs of Georgetown University, Washington, for the following observations : Gerhard von Schulze-Gaevernitz was born in Silesia, a region foreordained to be a seedbed of mysticism by reason of its strong Slavic element and the veiled and brooding aspect of its landscape . This was the home of Saint Hedwig and of Angelus Silesius, to whom our friend felt so much indebted. It was also the home of the Protestant mystics Weigel, Boehme, and Zinzendorf. Germanic introspectiveness and Oriental theosophies of an almost...