Johann Peter Hebel - Early Life

Early Life

Johann Peter Hebel was born on 10 May 1760 in Basel, where his parents were employed in a patrician household during the summer. He spent half of his childhood in Basel and the other half in the village of Hausen im Wiesental, where his father worked as a weaver during the winters. As he wrote in an autobiographical sketch, "there I learned early on what it meant to be poor and rich ... to have nothing and to have everything, to be happy with the happy people and to be sad with those who cried". Memories of both places had a deep influence on his literary work. Hebel's father, who had moved to southern Baden from the Hunsrück area, died of typhus early in 1761, as did his younger sister, who was only a few weeks old. Hebel went to primary school in Hausen in 1766, and in 1769 went on to the Latin school in Schopfheim, where his teacher was the theologian August Gottlieb Preuschen. During the summer months he went to a parish school in Basel, and later to the prestigious cathedral school (Gymnasium am Münsterplatz). His mother died when he was thirteen.

In 1774, with financial help from friends, Hebel joined the Gymnasium illustre in Karlsruhe (now the Bismarck-Gymnasium), where he graduated in 1778. After studying theology in Erlangen from 1778 to 1780, he became a home tutor and assistant preacher in Hertingen, Bad Bellingen, and was appointed Präzeptoratsvikar (assistant teacher) in 1783 at the Pädagogium in Lörrach, now called the Hebel-Gymnasium in his honour. He became friends with the headmaster, Tobias Günttert, and through him met Gustave Fecht, Günttert's sister-in-law, with whom he had a long-lasting, platonic relationship and to whom he sent numerous letters. Hebel remained unmarried all his life, although in later years he adored the actress Henriette Hendel-Schütz. In 1791 he returned to Karlsruhe to take up a position as a deacon at the Karlsruhe Gymnasium, but was instead only named a "subdeacon". Apart from teaching, Hebel occasionally preached at court, where he enjoyed great popularity.