Hermann Daniel Hermes
{{Short description|Prussian protestant theologian}}
Hermann Daniel Hermes (24 January 1734 – 12 November 1807) was a Prussian protestant theologian.{{cite web|author=Adolf Schimmelpfennig|author-link=:de:Adolf Schimmelpfennig|url=https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/ADB:Neuhofer,_Gerhard_Adam| title=Hermes: Hermann Daniel H., Oberconsistorialrath in Berlin, war der Sohn eines Geistlichen und 1734 am 24. Januar in Petznik bei Stargard geb...|work=Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB)|volume= 12|publisher= Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig & Wikisource|date=1880|accessdate=13 September 2015|pages=196–197}}* Henryk Waniek: Der Fall Hermes, Kraków 2007, {{ISBN|978-83-08-04090-4}} Towards the end of his life he became caught up in the campaign for a return to religious orthodoxy pursued by the Rosicrucian politician Johann Christoph von Wöllner, being employed as an "inquisitor" in 1794 in Halle,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eEOLV_TtNfQC&q=%22Hermann+Daniel+Hermes%22+Halle&pg=PT339
|title=Chapter 8: Dare to Know .... Counter-enlightnement?|work=Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
|isbn=978-0140293340|author=Christopher Clark|author-link=Chris Clark (historian)|date=6 September 2007|publisher=Penguin UK }} and elsewhere.
Life
Hermann Daniel Hermes was born in Petznick, a village near Stargard in Western Pomerania. His father was a Protestant pastor. His mother, Lukrezia, was the daughter of another Protestant pastor, Heinrich Becker from Rostock.{{cite book|author= Erich Beyreuther|title= Hermes, Johann Timotheus|url=http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd11877414X.html|work= Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB)|volume= 8|publisher= Duncker & Humblot, Berlin|date= 1969| isbn= 3-428-00189-3| page=669 f}} His siblings included the successful popular novelist Johann Timotheus Hermes.
After attending school in Wernigerode, in 1750 he commenced a study period at Halle University after which he took a teaching post at the Realschule (school) recently set up in Berlin by Julius Hecker. In 1756 he moved on to a position as a (Protestant) minister at Dierberg near Ruppin, north of Berlin. A succession of church promotions followed. At this stage, there was no sign of the obsessive hostility to new thinking which would become a defining feature of his work after he came under the influence of Wöllner. Eventually, he became senior minister at St. Mary Magdalene in Breslau. He was later identified as a "Prussian inquisitor" and was removed from office without formal explanation.
Much of his later career awaits further modern research, although his prominent role in the anti-enlightenment fundamentalist government mandated "crusading" of the 1790s has recently formed the basis for an historically based novel (in Polish) by the Breslau/Wrocław writer Henryk Waniek.{{cite book|url=http://www.literatura.gildia.pl/tworcy/henryk_waniek/sprawa_hermesa/recenzja|title=Recenzja książki "Sprawa Hermesa"|work=Hermes w Górach Śląskich, Wrocław 1994, wyd. 2, Wrocław 1996|author=Patryk Balawender|language=Polish|publisher=Gildia Internet Services Sp z o.o., Warszawa
|isbn=978-83-08-04090-4|date=5 August 2009|accessdate=14 September 2015}}
References
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Category:18th-century German Protestant theologians
Category:19th-century German Protestant theologians
Category:19th-century German male writers