Auguste Nefftzer

File:Auguste Nefftzer-Colmar Journalist.jpgAuguste Nefftzer was born in Colmar, France, which is in the Haut-Rhin department of the Alsace region. The city of Colmar placed a memorial plaque on the front of Nefftzer's home, which is located in the old city. He studied Protestant theology at the University of Strasbourg. While studying theology, Nefftzer and his collaborator at the Revue Germanique, were influenced by Pastor Édouard Reuss and German criticism, which would influence their translation of Life of Jesus.

Auguste Nefftzer considered himself a Hegelian and was attracted to German criticism in Biblical studies.

Nefftzer summarized his political position as a liberal Republican as follows: "Anything that promotes education, work, savings and acquisition, and ownership is liberal." ("Tout ce qui favorise l'éducation, le travail, l'épargne et l'acquisition, de la propriété est libéral."){{cite book|last=Crăiuțu|first=Aurelian|title=Liberalism Under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires|year=2003|publisher=Lexington Books|location=Lanham, MA|page=241|isbn=9780739106587|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fgNcun3q7NYC|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

Nefftzer was opposed to universal suffrage at a time when the right had been granted in France for males but was still controversial, and he believed the vote should be reserved for those who are capable of making decisions.{{cite book|last=de Dijn|first=Annelien|author-link=Annelien de Dijn|title=French Political Thought from Montesquieu to Tocqueville|year=2008|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|page=170|isbn=9781139470384|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a3SFelqBLw8C|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

After his graduation, Auguste Nefftzer started his journalism career in 1842 at the Courrier du Haut-Rhin.

Auguste Nefftzer then moved to Paris, where he was employed by Émile de Girardin in the editorial department of La Presse in 1844. In 1848, restrictions on the press were relaxed. Girardin was at first a supporter of Prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte before joining the opposition. His newspaper was part of the French penny press and had a large circulation of more than 50,0000. Another factor in its large circulation was the clampdown on the press by the government of the Second French Empire that allowed for only four opposition newspapers, of which La Presse was one choice.{{cite book|last=Chapman|first=Jane|title=Comparative Media History: An Introduction: 1789 to the Present|year=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r2CW06McqKoC|accessdate=2 April 2013|publisher=Polity Press|location=Malden, MA|pages=45–47|isbn=9780745632438}} Nefftzer worked at La Presse until 1857.

While at La Presse, Nefftzer wrote a regular column about politics, foreign policy and religious issues. In 1851, Nefftzer was sentenced to one month in prison as the listed manager of the newspaper for publishing an article critical of Napoleon III. Imprisoned with him at the time at the Conciergerie was Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Charles Hugo (son of Victor Hugo), and other journalists such as Eugene Pelletan.{{cite book|last=Barbou|first=Alfred|title=Victor Hugo and His Times|year=2001|publisher=University Press of the Pacific|location=Honolulu, Hawaii|page=330|isbn=9780898754780|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fh6jWuroER4C&q=Nefftzer|accessdate=2 April 2013}}{{cite book|first=Phyllis |last=Stock-Morton|title=The Life of Marie D'Agoult|url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofmariedagou00stoc |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifeofmariedagou00stoc/page/182 182]|location=Baltimore, MD|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2000|isbn=9780801863134 }}{{cite book|first=André|last=Encrevé|title=Les Protestants |page=360 |location=Paris |publisher=Beauchesne |year=1993 |isbn=9782701012612|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W14H-ZKO9lAC|accessdate=2 April 2013}} Nefftzer was appointed political editor of the newspaper in 1856, and he supported the leading opposition candidates in the French legislative election in February 1857. Girardin sold the newspaper in November 1857 at which time Nefftzer left.

In 1858, Nefftzer founded the French-language magazine Revue Germanique (1858-1865) with Charles Dollfus. The journal was influential for introducing German thought and culture into French society.{{cite book|first=Lilian R|last=Furst|title=Counterparts: The Dynamics of Franco-German Literary Relationships 1770-1895|page=111|year=1977|publisher=Methuen|location=London|isbn=9780416673609|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JLgNAAAAQAAJ|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

After Napoleon III relaxed press controls in 1859, Nefftzer left the publication to found with Edmund Chojecki the influential, Parisian newspaper Le Temps in 1861. The paper was financed with money from the Dollfus and Koechlin family businesses. Nefftzer led the newspaper for the next 10 years. This newspaper reflected Nefftzer's liberal, opposition, and Protestant perspective. Under his direction, the newspaper attracted writers such as Louis Blanc, Edmond Scherer, Henri Brisson, Jules Ferry, Francisque Sarcey, Auguste Villemot, George Sand, and Alexandre Erdan.{{cite journal|last=Clarke|first=Jack A.|title=Review of Tables du Journal "Le Temps," Vol. 1: 1861-1865|journal=Library Quarterly|date=July 1967|volume=37|issue=3|page=303|doi=10.1086/619562}}

While publishing and editing Le Temps, Nefftzer asserted the French Republican opposition views about the key events of his times. In foreign policy, he was critical of the US Confederacy and its support of slavery.{{cite book|last=Laurent|first=Dominique A.|title=National Stereotypes in Perspective: Americans in France, Frenchmen in America|year=2001|publisher=Rodopi|location=Amsterdam|page=191|isbn=9042013656|author-link=The American Civil War in the French Press|editor=William L. Chew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cTvtekwVZWsC|accessdate=2 April 2013}} In French politics, Nefftzer was instrumental in forming a coalition for the 1863 elections, called Comite de l'Union libérale, representing the Republicans, who were in favor of a parliamentary system of government.{{cite book|last=Price|first=Roger|title=People and Politics in France, 1848-1870|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|pages=107–108|isbn=9781139454483|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yzjtsty0Ai0C|accessdate=2 April 2013}} Jules Ferry's criticism of the government were published by Nefftzer in Le Temps.{{cite book|last=Price|first=Roger|title=The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|page=307|isbn=9781139430975|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l0LMNRvWaLIC|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

Sometime after 1862, Nefftzer joined Alexandre Massol's freemason organization, La Renaissance par les Emules d'Hiram, and he employed members of the organization at Le Temps.{{cite book|last=Nord|first=Philip|title=The Republican Moment: The Struggle for Democracy in Nineteenth-century France|year=1995|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, MA|page=101|isbn=9780674762718|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RDo7CFULR74C|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

Auguste Nefftzer was a member of a literary circle hosted by the Goncourt brothers in Paris.{{cite book|last=Gildea|first=Robert|title=Children of the Revolution: the French, 1799-1914|year=2008|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=236|isbn=9780674032095|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yQrXaL4ojpAC|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

During this period, Nefftzer translated coauthors Émile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian's novel L'ami Fritz, first published in 1864, from French to German, which was successful.

Nefftzer and Dollfus were responsible for a popular translation of David Strauss's German-language Das Leben Jesu into French (Nouvelle vie de Jésus).{{cite book|last=Reventlow|first=Henning Graf|title=Biblical Studies and the Shifting of Paradigms, 1850-1914|year=1995|publisher=Sheffield Academic Press|location=Sheffield, England|page=70|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dsmHlEHkRY4C|author2=William Farmer|isbn=9780567168399|accessdate=2 April 2013}}

As a native of the Alsace region, Auguste Nefftzer supported good relations between France and Germany, which was not popular at the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871. As a result, he retired from "Le Temps" after 10 years. Nefftzer retired to Basel, Switzerland where he died on 20 August 1876.

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Category:1820 births

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Category:German–French translators

Category:People from Colmar

Category:19th-century French journalists

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Category:19th-century French translators

Category:French male writers

Category:19th-century French male writers