Who was Elisabeth Blochmann?

While some have suggested that Heidegger is present in Blochmann’s scholarship, she was far more influenced by the German pedagogy scholar, Herman Nohl, whose influence on German academic pedagogy she would later immortalize in a biography.2 In 1923, Blochmann finished her doctoral dissertation in history under the supervision of Karl Brandi and was appointed to a teaching post at a ‘Social Women’s School’ in Thale. Following this, Blochmann held a lectureship in pedagogy at the Pestalozzi-Fröbel House from 1926 to 1930. She collaborated with her mentor, Nohl, on the journal ‘Die Sammlung’, and published her own work on the idea of ‘kindergarten’, the history of women’s education in German, and the philosophy of education. In 1930, she was appointed by the Prussian Minister of Culture to serve as a Professor of Social and Theoretical Pedagogy at a newly established academy in Halle. Blochmann took up this post but was forced to leave the university three years later due to the ‘Aryan paragraph’ that drove a wave of Jewish emigres abroad.

Like many of her contemporaries, Blochmann settled in Oxford where she took up a post teaching German literature and language at the women’s college, Lady Margaret Hall. Her time at Oxford lasted from 1933 to 1952 during which time she also attained a university lectureship, an Oxford MA, and British citizenship.3 After the war, Blochmann became involved in the ‘German Educational Reconstruction’ where she worked alongside other emigres in England to develop the reform program of public education after the fall of the Third Reich.4 In 1952, she was invited back to Germany to chair the newly emerging field of academic pedagogy at the University of Marburg. Blochmann accepted this post and became a leader for education scientists and pedagogical theorists throughout Germany. She would later be dubbed the ‘First Lady of Academic Pedagogy’ given her influence on the field.5  

Despite her eminence in German academia, Blochmann has been forgotten in English scholarship. Or worse, remembered only as the ‘other’ other woman of Martin Heidegger. The most readily available information on her life is from a short Wikipedia article stating:  

Of some importance for, and great interest in, the history of philosophy is Blochmann's affair (over many decades) with her philosophical teacher Martin Heidegger. It is probably fair to say that, after that with Hannah Arendt, she had one of the most important extramarital affairs with Heidegger […] 6 

Indeed, the edited collection of correspondence has informed a great deal of scholarship on Heidegger though the work of its recipient is rarely considered. In contrast to Arendt who was a 17 year-old undergraduate when she met Heidegger (then 35 years-old), Blochmann was only three years his junior and had already began her doctoral dissertation under Karl Brandi.7 In whatever form it took, this friendship continued throughout Blochmann’s early career and survived both her exile to England and the war. The letters begin in 1918 when Blochmann was a graduate student in Strasbourg and ended in 1969, three years before her death.

Heidegger’s half-hearted support of Blochmann when she lost her university post due to her Jewish heritage, is subject to criticism. One review of the edition suggests that the Heidegger Archive published these letters in an attempt to exonerate the philosopher of his anti-semitism and unfaithfulness to Jewish friends. His continued correspondence with Blochmann, who was half-Jewish, would hopefully disabuse notions that he was an unfaithful friend at an hour of need.9 Yet, as Karl Jaspers, another contemporary of Heidegger, said: ‘He seemed like a friend who betrayed you when you were absent, but who was unforgettably close in moments that had no consequences as such.’10 The letters to Blochmann are neither a confirmation nor an outright challenge of this well-established narrative. In order to understand their meaning, it is necessary to first understand the persons involved.  

References

1. Juliane Jacobi, “Elisabeth Blochmann : First-Lady Der Akademischen Padagogik,” in Mutterlichkeit Als Profession? Lebensl ¨ Aufe Deutscher P ¨ Adagoginnen in Der ¨ Ersten Halfte Dieses Jahrhunderts, ed. Ilse Brehmer (Pfaffenweiler, 1990), 256–63, https://d-nb.info/1218391766/34.

2. Elisabeth Blochmann, “Herman Nohl in Der Pädagogischen Bewegung Seiner Zeit. 1879 - 1960” (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht : Göttingen, 1969), https://doi.org/10.25656/01:5312.

3. Martin Heidegger and Elisabeth Blochmann, Martin Heidegger, Elisabeth Blochmann : Briefwechsel, 1918-1969, 167 p. : ports. ; 24 cm, ed. and trans. W. Joachim, 2., durchgesehene Aufl., Marbacher Schriften 33 (Marbach am Neckar: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, 1990), https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=oxfaleph016158112&context=L&vid=SOLO&lang=en_US&search_scope=LSCOP_ALL&adaptor=Local Search Engine&tab=local&query=any,contains,Heidegger-Blochmann&offset=0.

4. Wolfgang Klafki, “Elisabeth Blochmann,” in Pädagogisch-Politische Porträts: Herausgegeben Und Eingeleitet von Karl-Heinz Braun, Frauke Stübig Und Heinz Stübig, ed. Wolfgang Klafki (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2020), 149, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-26751-3_5.

5. Jacobi, “Elisabeth Blochmann : First-Lady Der Akademischen Padagogik.”

6. Wikipedia contributors, “Elisabeth Blochmann,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, November 10, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elisabeth_Blochmann&oldid=1121070382.

7. Jacobi, “Elisabeth Blochmann : First-Lady Der Akademischen Padagogik,” 257.

8. ‘…kam oft zu uns Jungverheirateten zu kürzeren oder  längeren Besuchen nach Freiburg, später auch nach Todtnauberg. In dieser Zeit entwickelte sich auch ein sehr schönes Freundschaftsverhältnis zu Martin Heidegger.’ Heidegger and Blochmann, Martin Heidegger, Elisabeth Blochmann : Briefwechsel, 1918-1969.

9. Nicholas V. Festenberg, “»Ein Freund, Der Einen Verriet«,” Der Spiegel, April 1, 1990, https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/ein-freund-der-einen-verriet-a-43238e24-0002-0001-0000-000013497745.

10. ‘Er schien ein Freund, der einen verriet, wenn man abwesend war, der aber in Augenblicken, die als solche folgenlos blieben, unvergeßlich nah war.’ Karl Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie, 2nd ed., Piper Taschenbuch (Munich, Germany: Piper, 1984), 97.

Elisabeth Blochmann, “GERMANY TODAY,” German Life and Letters 1, no. 2 (January 1948): 150–55, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0483.1948.tb00022.x.

Deutsch

14. April 1892

Geburt von Elisabeth Friederike Emma Blochmann in Apolda als erstes von drei Kindern

1899 – 1908

Schülerin des Großherzoglichen Sophienstifts in Weimar; anschließend: Besuch einer Höheren Töchterschule, des Lyzeums und des Oberlyzeums

1911

Reifeprüfung

Studienwunsch der Medizin konnte nicht realisiert werden

1912 – 1913

Ausbildung zur Hilfsschwester beim Deutschen Roten Kreuz

1913 – 1914

Ausbildung am Lehrerinnenseminar in Wiesbaden

Abschluss der Ausbildung: Lehrerinnenexamen

1914

Schwesterndienst im Kriegslazarett in Weimar

1915 – 1917

Kriegsvertretung  am Großherzoglichen Sophienstift in Weimar

1917 – 1922

Studium an den Universitäten in Jena, Straßburg, Marburg an der Lahn und in Göttingen der Fächer Geschichte, Germanistik, Französisch, Soziologie, Philosophie und Pädagogik

1922

Staatsexamen für das Höhere Lehramt (Deutsch, Geschichte, Französisch)

1922 – 1923

Referendararbeit in Weimar

1923

Promotion an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (bei Karl Brandi)

1923 - 1926

Dozentin an der Sozialen Frauenschule in Thale (Harz)

1926 – 1930

Studienleiterin am Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus Berlin (Ausbildungsstätte für weibliche Sozialberufe)

1930 – 1933

Professorin für Pädagogik an der Pädagogischen Akademie in Halle (Saale) (Ausbildung von Volksschullehrern)

1933

Entlassung aus der Pädagogischen Akademie Halle aufgrund des Gesetzes zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums und des Arierparagraphen

Januar 1934

Emigration über Holland nach England. Répétitrice for German am Frauen-College Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford

1934 – 1952

Tutor of German und Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

1952

Ruf auf die neuerrichtete Professur für Pädagogik an der Philipps-Universität in Marburg. Rückkehr nach Deutschland.

Erste Frau auf einer Pädagogikprofessur an einer deutschen Universität

1960

Emeritierung – danach Lehrstuhlvertretungen in Göttingen und Marburg

27. Januar 1972

Tod von Elisabeth Blochmann

Biographical Timeline

Source: [From Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 'Preußische Pädagogische Akademie Halle', 'Elisabeth Blochmann'], [Accessed 20/06/2023], <https://schulpaed.philfak3.uni-halle.de/grundschule_bereiche_mitarbeiter/128202_3259567/wenzel/1156317_2284325/pahalle/blochmann/>