Ludwig Börne
Encyclopedia
Karl Ludwig Börne was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 political writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and satirist.

Early life

Karl Ludwig Börne was born Loeb Baruch on May 6, 1786, at Frankfurt am Main, son of Jakob Baruch, a banker. His grandfather had been a government bureaucrat.

Education

Börne and his brothers were privately tutored by Jacob Sachs, and later by Rector Mosche. At age fourteen, he studied medicine with Professor Hetzel at Gießen
Gießen
Gießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen...

. After a year, he was sent to study medicine at Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 under a physician, Markus Herz
Markus Herz
Marcus Herz , was a Jewish German physician and lecturer on philosophy.Born in Berlin to very poor parents, he was destined for a mercantile career, and in 1762 went to Königsberg, East Prussia...

, whose house he lived in. At age sixteen, Baruch became infatuated by his patron's thirty-eight-year-old wife, Henriette Herz
Henriette Herz
Henriette Herz née De Lemos is best known for the "salonnieres" or literary salons that she started with a group of emancipated Jews in Prussia....

. After her husband died in 1808, he expressed his adoration in a series of letters. When he enrolled at Halle University, she was influential in his boarding with Professor Reil. He studied constitutional law and political science at University of Heidelberg and Giessen. There he received his PhD in 1809 with the dissertation Ueber die Geometrische Vertheilung der Staatsgebiete.

Career

On his return to Frankfurt, now constituted as a grand duchy under the sovereignty of the prince bishop Karl von Dalberg, he received (1811) the appointment of police actuary in that city.

In 1814 and he had to resign his post due to his ethnicity. Embittered by the oppression suffered by Jews in Germany, he took to journalism and edited the Frankfurt liberal newspapers Staatsristretto and Die Zeitschwingen.

Later life

In 1818 he converted to Lutheran Protestantism, changing his name from Loeb Baruch to Ludwig Börne. From 1818 to 1821 he edited Die Wage, a paper distinguished by its lively political articles and its powerful but sarcastic theatrical criticisms. This paper was suppressed by the police, and in 1821 Börne took a pause from journalism and led a quiet life in Paris, Hamburg and Frankfurt.

After the July Revolution
July Revolution
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...

 (1830), he hurried to Paris, expecting to find society nearer to his own ideas of freedom. Although to some extent disappointed in his hopes, he did not look any more kindly on the political condition of Germany; this lent additional zest to the brilliant satirical letters (Briefe aus Paris, 1830–1833, published Paris, 1834), which he began to publish in his last literary venture, La Balance, a revival of Die Wage. The Briefe aus Paris was Börne's most important publication, and a landmark in the history of German journalism. Its appearance led him to be regarded as a leading thinker in Germany.

Death and legacy

He died in Paris in 1837.

Börne's works are known for brilliant style and for thoroughly French satire. His best criticism is to be found in his Denkrede auf Jean Paul (1826), a writer for whom he had warm sympathy and admiration; in his Dramaturgische Bltter (1829–1834); and the witty satire, Menzel der Franzosenfresser (1837). He also wrote a number of short stories and sketches, of which the best known are the Mono graphie der deutschen Postschnecke (1829) and Der Esskunstler (1822).
Two portraits of him, by the Jewish painter Daniel M. Oppenheim,are in the Israel Museum Collection.

Legacy

The city of Boerne, Texas
Boerne, Texas
Boerne is a city in the Hill Country of Texas in the United States. It is the county seat of Kendall County. Boerne was named in honor of Ludwig Börne, a Jewish German author and publicist, and its population was 10, 471 in the 2010 census. The city is noted for the landmark U.S. Supreme Court...

, founded by German liberal immigrants (Forty-Eighters
Forty-Eighters
The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the German people, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights...

), is named after him.
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