Introduction

The catastrophy

Philipp Jaffé's public statement and a handwritten list of recipients, 05.05.1869

Even after recieving an official document from Minister von Mühler clearing him from Georg Heinrich Pertz’s absurd insinuations that he been a police spy, Philipp Jaffé still felt his name besmirched; on May 5 1869 he wrote the statement here on display entitled a „nothgedrungene Abwehr“ (forced act of self defence) and sent it to the persons named in the appended list of recipients. Jaffé’s handwritten drafts for this declaration cover several pages and reveal how Pertz’s machinations quailed him. Additionally, he suffered from an increasing sense of loneliness and isolation from his family arising from his way of life. In his letters, Schwartz also found indications that Jaffé had suffered a burn-out in spring 1864 (p. 58).

On April 3 1870, Philipp Jaffé committed suicide, shooting himself in the room in a guest-house in Wittenberge where he had taken up lodgings some two weeks previously. Presumably a number of factors had come together and culminated in a crisis.

In an obituary on Philipp Jaffé, his student Alfred Dove sought to explain his suicide with the following grounds: “And this brooding over possible misinterpretations of his acts, the fear for his honour in his scholarly and private life, this all grew in him as he withdrew to rest his soul from its overburdoning. His scholarly conflict with the president of the Monumenta Germaniae unfortunately took a personal turn; in intemperate uproar, Jaffé arose against a horrible suspicion to write his „nothgedrungene Abwehr“ (forced act of self-defence), whereby hardly anyone could really say that it was forced, since everyone who knew him knew that he was incapable of falling under such a suspicion. It is a matter of great sadness that he never revealed his inner turmoil to his friends who might have given him strength by reminding him of the many things that he himself had achieved (Nationalzeitung Nr. 171, 1870).

Also the words of Jaffé’s friend Otto Lorenz suggest that he suffered under serious pschological problems: "It was grievous for Jaffé that, although he had outwardly and inwardly emancipated himself from Pertz, the latter’s secret and public attacks nevertheless gave him the feeling that he was being persecuted and that his avoued enemy would somehow find a way to destroy him (...) and despite the fact that the ministry of education examined the charges, on his own wish, and found them untenable, not even his own act of „nothgedrungene Abwehr“ gave him back an inner sense of peace. (...) His condition was worrysome. He made no effort to conceal his thoughts of suicide; he seemed to believe that it was his ineluctable fate to be destroyed by his terrible foe" (Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien 21, 1870, S. 283f.).

To top it all, a highly critical 28-page review of Jaffé’s „Monumenta Bambergensia“, the fifth volume of his „Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum“ had been printed in January 1870, turning Jaffé’s own claim of publishing better source editions than the MGH now against him. Serious questions were raised about the scholarly quality of Jaffé’s series. The critic found that Jaffé’s new editions in volume 5 of this series made no real improvement to the existing MGH editions and concluded thus that they were superfluous. According to Schwartz, this criticism may have been a catalysator for the major crisis that befell Jaffé shortly thereafter(Schwartz, p. 67). Other factors could have been a heated controversy with his colleague Georg Waitz and an unknown incident that occured at an academic ceremony of the Berlin university on March 22 1870 (see Schwartz, pp. 67ff.). On that very day, it seems that Philipp Jaffé boarded a train to Wittenberge, a town on the River Elbe some 150 km south-west of Berlin, and took up lodgings in the guest-house where he shot himself 12 days later.

Transcription

Nothgedrungene Abwehr.

Der Herr Dr. Georg Heinrich Pertz, Geheimer Regierungsrath und Herausgeber der Monumenta Germaniae historica, als deren Mitarbeiter ich fast neun Jahre lang, von 1854 bis 1863, mit ihm in dem engsten Verkehr gestanden, hat, nachdem meinerseits dieses Verhältniss durch Kündigung gelöst worden war, späterhin die Andeutung ausgehen lassen, dass ich ehedem im heimlichen Dienste der Polizeibehörde gewesen sei.

Während meines ganzen Lebens, sei’s vor meiner Thätigkeit an den Monumenta Germaniae historica, sei’s während oder nach derselben, habe ich weder dauernd noch in einem einzigen Falle, weder heimlich noch öffentlich, weder unmittelbar noch mittelbar, weder in politischer noch in irgend einer andern Richtung zu einer staatlichen Sicherheitsbehörde, welche sie auch sei, eine Beziehung gehabt, die nur im Allerentferntesten Anlass zu jener Behauptung hätte darbieten können. Der gesammte Inhalt derselben ist durchweg und in allen seinen Theilen völlig unwahr, grundlos und erfunden.

Ich habe den mir befreundeten Herrn Buchhändler Hans Reimer veranlaßt, am 10. April d[ieses] J[ahres] durch ein recommandirtes Schreiben den Herrn Geh[eimen] Rath Dr. Pertz aufzufordern, sich binnen drei Tagen über jenes von ihm ausgegangene Gerücht mir gegenüber schriftlich zu erklären. Da dieses Verlangen erfolglos blieb, so erging an denselben, ebenfalls unter Stellung einer dreitätigen Frist, in meinem Auftrag am 14. April d[ieses] J[ahres] eine zweite auf das nämliche Ziel gerichtete recommandirte Aufforderung von Seiten des Herrn Rechtsanwalts John Simson.

Seitdem sind drei Wochen verstrichen, ohne dass der Geh[eimer] Rath Dr. Pertz sich zu einer Erklärung herbeigelassen hat, die mich möglicher Weise in Stand ge- setzt haben würde, den Urheber jener Aufstellung zu ergründen und gegen denselben die erforderlichen Schritte zu thun.

Wenn nun auch für meine näheren Bekannten es einer Aufklärung in dieser Angelegenheit nicht bedarf, so finde ich doch überhaupt meinen Standesgenossen wie in’s Besondere der Hochschule gegenüber, welcher anzugehören ich die Ehre habe, mich verpflichtet, diesen Gegenstand nicht ohne Erledigung zu lassen.

Ich erkläre daher den Urheber jener am Eingang dieses Schreibens näher bezeichneten, wider meine Ehre gerichteten Aufstellung, wer es auch sein mag, für einen ehrlosen Verleumder.

Berlin, den 5. Mai 1869.

Dr. Philipp Jaffé
Professor an der Universität.

Auswärtig bestimmt

[Spalte 1]

Dümmler in Halle

Wattenbach in Heidelberg

Bernays – Bonn

Bluhme “

v. Sybel – “

Varrentrapp “

Kampschulte “

Schäfer – “

Simson – Düsseldorf

Harless – “

Keinz – München

Giesebrecht “

Muffat – “

Hofmann – “

Rockinger – “

Föringer – “

Löher – “

Halm – “

Sauppe – Göttingen

Waitz – “

Droysen – “

Hauss [?] – “

Steindorff “

Müller [?] “

Cohn “

Hahnsche Hofb[uchhandlung] Hannov[er]

Grotefend “

Klempin Stettin

Gosche – Halle

Her[t]zberg “

Keil “

Rector u[nd] Senat “

Zarncke Leipzig

Voigt – “

Ritschl “

Rector u[nd] Senat “

Gersdorf “

[Spalte 2]

Dressel – München

Roth – “

Friedrich [?] “

Kluckhohn “

v. Döllinger “

Rector u[nd] Senat “

Rector u[nd] Senat – Bonn

Rector u[nd] Senat – Greifswald

v. Noorden – “

Hirsch – “

Franklin – “

Rector und Senat – Kiel

Hinschius – “

Universitätsbib[liothek] “

Rector u[nd] Senat zu Heidelberg

Universitätsbib[liothek] “

Roepell – Breslau

Lindner – “

Grünhagen “

Rector u[nd] Senat “

Universitätsbib[liothek] “

Akademie der Wissenschaften München

Maurenbrecher in Königsberg

Hopf – “ “

Rector u[nd] Senat “ “

Ruland Würzburg

Wegel[e] – “

Rector u[nd] Senat “

Contzen – “

[Spalte 3]

Stälin in Stuttgart

Kausler “

Pauli Marburg

Herrmann “

Rector u[nd] Senat “

Universitätsbib[liothek] “