Paul de Lagarde

His anti-Semitism, anti-Slavism, and aversion to traditional Christianity were influential precursors of Nazism.

Paul de Lagarde studied at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. William Robertson Smith is recorded as having studied under Paul de Lagarde. The recorded working language is German, Latin and Ancient Greek. The field of work recorded is oriental studies and history. Employment is recorded with University of Göttingen and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

• Birth Name — Paul Bötticher • Born — 2 November 1827 • Birthplace — Berlin, Prussia • Died — 22 December 1891 • Place of death — Göttingen, Germany • Father — Wilhelm Bötticher • Occupation — Orientalist, Biblical scholar

Paul Bötticher was born in Berlin on November 2, 1827. His father, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Bötticher, was a philologist who taught languages at the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium. His mother, Luise, was only eighteen years old. Luise died several days after Paul was born. Wilhelm was bereft. He blamed his newborn son for the loss and treated him miserably. Paul's woeful upbringing led him to feel nothing upon his father's death. Two aunts of Luise nurtured Paul emotionally and financially. One of them, Ernestine de Lagarde, eventually adopted Paul. Bötticher attended Humboldt University of Berlin from 1844–1846 where he studied Oriental languages, theology, and philosophy under professors like Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, who was a friend of his father. His primary mentor was Friedrich Rückert. He attended the University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1846–7. In 1852, Bötticher received a 1,000 thaler grant from King Frederick William IV to study abroad. He used it to travel to London to work at the British Museum. He lodged at the Prussian Embassy in London and worked part time as Ambassador von Bunsen's secretary. On his way home in January 1853, Bötticher stayed in Paris to work in the Bibliothèque nationale. He relied on Ernest Renan to check out manuscripts for him. The Syriac texts he studied while abroad led to the publication of Didascalia apostolorum syriace in 1854. That year, Bötticher married Anna Berger. He also decided to change his name to Paul de Lagarde in honor of his mother's family and to move past his painful childhood. He had already published several volumes under his birth name. In 1855, Paul de Lagarde taught languages at Köllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin where his duties included teaching gymnastics. He continued to publish scholarly work, much of it at his own expense. In 1858, he transferred to the Friedrichswerdersches Gymnasium. In 1866, he was given three years leave for research. In 1869, he took over Heinrich Ewald's professorship of oriental languages at the University of Göttingen. The decade it took to become a professor deepened the bitterness Lagarde already felt over his childhood. He was dogmatic and distrustful of others. Lagarde shunned professional affiliations and frequently attacked colleagues and peers. In a letter to Adolf Hilgenfeld, Lagarde described himself as an "anchorite", simultaneously lamenting and imposing his self-isolation. Lagarde was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1891 and kept the diagnosis secret. He had an operation to treat it on 19 December. It was unsuccessful, and he died three days later. His own eulogist, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, described Lagarde as a lonely man who sowed the wind and reaped the storm.

Lagarde was a member of the Prussian Conservative Party until 1849 when it fabricated evidence of treason against Benedikt Waldeck. He became deeply disenchanted and politically unaligned. Lagarde supported the unification of Germany in 1871, but the spirit of the new country dissatisfied him. He began to write about politics, and in 1874, Lagarde published Politische Aufsätze (Political Essays). He sent a copy to Thomas Carlyle who responded with an admiring letter. The opening essay was first delivered as a lecture in November 1853. It proposes a German colonization of Europe to create a Mitteleuropa. Though he also writes with the casual antisemitism that was widespread at the time, Lagarde expresses admiration for the discipline of Jewish life. He specifically points to Judaism as an example of how a national religion benefits a population. The book's second essay plays out this theme of a national religion. Lagarde calls for a radical morality where actions are solely "duty or sin". Lagarde's views of religion were incoherent. He prized the rituals of religion and ongoing revelation. He viewed the Bible as a bricolage of dubious texts. He admired the early iteration of Christianity but despised what Catholicism had become, and he ridiculed Protestantism as an elaborate fantasy. Lagarde had a similarly vague sense of national identity. In 1875, he wrote, "Germany is the totality of all German-feeling, German-thinking, German-willing Germans: In this sense, every one of us is a traitor if he does not consider himself personally accountable in every moment of his life for the existence, fortune and future of the fatherland, and each is a hero and liberator if he does." As Lagarde aged, the bitterness he felt about so much of life also hardened his antisemitism. His rhetoric advanced well beyond the prevailing prejudice into a conspiratorial fever. He corresponded with Adolf Stoecker, the founder of the antisemitic 1880s Berlin movement. He also showed interest in Völkisch antisemitic societies, including Bernhard Förster and Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg's Deutscher Volksverein, and Theodor Fritsch's Deutschsoziale Partei. Lagarde considered Jews to be the greatest barrier to German greatness, and he suggested they be moved to Madagascar. In 1887, he wrote, "One would have to have a heart of steel to not feel sympathy for the poor Germans and, by the same token, to not hate the Jews, to not hate and despise those who – out of humanity! – advocate for the Jews or are too cowardly to crush these vermin. Trichinella and bacilli would not be negotiated with, trichinella and bacilli would also not be nurtured, they would be destroyed as quickly and as thoroughly as possible." He also despised Slavs and wrote, "the sooner they perish the better it will be for us and them". In 1878, Lagarde first collected his political essays in Deutsche Schriften (German Writings). He published a second volume in 1881 and a combined edition in 1886. Fritz Stern zeroed in on the aimless nature of these writings: "He wrote as a prophet; he neither reasoned nor exposited, but poured out his excoriations and laments, his intuitive truths and promises. There was nothing limpid or systematic in his work; within each essay he skipped from subject to subject, alternating abstract generalities and concrete proposals. The pervasive mood of the book was despair and the dominant tone a kind of whiny heroism."

• As Paul Boetticher: • Horae aramaicae. Berlin: prostat apud C. Grobe, 1847. • Rudimenta Mythologiae Semiticae Supplementa Lexici Aramaici. Berlin: G. Thome, 1848. • Initia Chromatologiae Arabicae. Berlin: Excudebant Trowitzschius et filius, 1849. • Arica. Halle: J.F. Lippert. 1851. • Hymns of the Old Catholic Church of England. Halle: J.F. Lippert. 1851. • Acta Apostolorum. Halle: J.F. Lippert. 1852. • Epistulae Novi Testamenti, Coptice. Halle: E. Anton. 1852. • Wurzelforschungen. Halle: J.F. Lippert. 1852. • As Paul Lagarde: • Zur Urgeschichte der Armenier: Ein philologischer Versuch. Austria, W. Hertz, 1854. • Didascalia Apostolorum Syriace. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1854. • Libris Veteris Testamenti Apocryphi Syriace. Lipsiae: F.A. Brockhausen, 1861. • Die Vier Evangelien Arabisch. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1864. • Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhause, 1866. • Der Pentateuch Koptische. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1867. • Onomastica Sacra, Vol. I & II. Gottingae, 1870. • 2nd edition, 1887. • Armenische Studien. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1877. • Semitica I & II. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1878/9. • Symmicta I & II. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1877/80. • Orientalia I & II. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1879/80. • Veteris Testamenti. Gottingae: W.F. Kaestneri, 1880. • Aegyptiaca. Gottingae: A. Hoyer, 1883. • Mittheilungen I & II, & III. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1884/7/9. • Deutsche Schriften. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1892. As editor: • Alcalá, Pedro de. Petri Hispani de Lingua Arabica libri duo. Göttingen: Arnoldi Hoyer, 1883.

The authorities additionally record the headings Paul A. de Lagarde and Paul Anton de Lagarde. His recorded languages were German, Latin, Ancient Greek and Coptic. His recorded confession was Protestantism. He was the child of Wilhelm Bötticher. He married Anna de Lagarde. One child is recorded: Luise Bötticher.

Paul de Lagarde worked in oriental studies and history. He was employed by University of Göttingen and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He belonged to Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony and Russian Academy of Sciences.