Johann Peter Hebel - Later Life

Later Life

In 1798 Hebel became a professor and court deacon. He taught several other subjects in the Gymnasium, among them botany and natural history. He took a broad interest in botany; he maintained a herbarium and rearranged the botanical terms and diagnoses in Flora badensis alsatica, written by his friend, botanist Karl Christian Gmelin. In his honour, Gmelin named a plant Hebelia allemannica, though it was later renamed Tofieldia calyculata. Hebel became an honorary member of the mineralogical society in Jena in 1799, and three years later a corresponding member of the "Vaterländischen Gesellschaft der Ärzte und Naturforscher in Schwaben". In his youth he enjoyed the works of Klopstock and Jung-Stilling. Later he especially liked Jean Paul and Johann Heinrich Voß.

Hebel lived in Karlsruhe until his death, but made occasional journeys to other regions. His wish to become a parish priest in Wiesental was never fulfilled, though he wrote an inaugural sermon for a rural parish in 1820. In this sermon he wrote, "to live and die as a pastor in a peaceful country town, among honest people, has always been my sole wish, up to this hour; it was what I wished for in the happiest and in the darkest moments of my life". Instead, he was "led higher and higher by an invisible hand, ever further away from my modest goals". In 1805 he was offered the Lutheran parish of Freiburg im Breisgau, but he declined it at the behest of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden. He was rewarded in 1808 with his appointment as director of the Gymnasium in Karlsruhe. In 1819 he became a prelate of the Lutheran regional church, a leading position that brought with it a seat in the Upper House of the Parliament (Ständeversammlung) of Baden. As a member of parliament he devoted himself mainly to education, the church and social policy. He later gave a speech at the consecration of the statehouse in Karlsruhe. Even though the Lutheran and Reformed regional churches of Baden merged in 1821 with strong support from his side, into today's Evangelische Landeskirche, his position as the prelate of the unified Protestant church was not endangered.

Hebel's health deteriorated after 1815. In 1826 he travelled to Heidelberg and Mannheim to oversee school exams, and he died on 22 September 1826 in nearby Schwetzingen. His grave is there. Johannes Bähr succeeded him as prelate in the regional church of Baden.