Christian Gottfried Schütz

Christian Gottfried Schütz was the eldest of eight recorded children born to the Protestant minister Gottfried Schütz and his wife,^[2] in the village of Dederstädt, a couple of hours walk to the south of Eisleben, in an area administered, under a slightly convoluted arrangement by Saxony. Shortly after his birth his father was appointed to a senior preaching position in nearby Aschersleben, to where the family relocated, and it was here that the boy received his early schooling.^[3] Later he attended the Latin orphanage school in Halle before moving on in 1765 to the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg where he was taught Theology by Johann Jakob Semler,^[4] who talent spotted him and set him on his life's career as an academic.^[3] After he had received his Master of Philosophy degree, awarded on 21 March 1768, he took a post teaching mathematics at the Knights' Academy (Ritterakademie) at Brandenburg an der Havel.^[1] The next year he was appointed an inspector of Theology Seminaries in Halle, a position that opened the way for him to become a visiting professor in Philosophy at the university in 1775 and a full professor in 1777.^[3]

He moved in 1779, taking a post as Professor of "Poetry and eloquence" ("Poesie und Beredsamkeit") at Jena University, where he would play a key role in communicating in the German heartland and, on occasion defending, the new philosophical perspectives of Immanuel Kant.^[5] With Christoph Martin Wieland and Friedrich Justin Bertuch, in 1785 Schütz founded the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (daily literary journal)^[1] which could boast more than 2,000 subscribers within two years of its launch and continued to be produced, latterly from Halle, till 1849. At Jena he was also one of those involved in administration: during the summer term of 1790 and again in 1798 he served as Rector of the university.^[6]

In 1804 Schütz transferred from Jena to Halle, accompanied by his son, Friedrich Karl Julius Schütz who was himself appointed a visiting professor of philosophy at Halle. They were also accompanied by Johann Samuel Ersch,^[3] and together they continued with the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (daily literary journal), now in their new home base where a royal donation of 10,000 Gold Thalers had enabled them to acquire the so-called " Semler’schen House" in which the journal could be produced.^[3] Christian Gottfried Schütz himself was appointed Professor of the History of Literature and Eloquence.^[3]

Political developments in 1806 hit Schütz particularly hard. In October 1806, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena nearby, Halle was over-run by a victorious French army. Schütz's house was plundered while he himself was arrested and briefly detained by the invading forces. Possibly of greater long term consequence was the French emperor's decision to close down the university and convert its main building into a quarantine hospital. Deprived of his university salary, Schütz was eventually obliged to sell a valuable volume from his library. He considered moving to Berlin, but in the end remained in Halle, redoubling the effort he put into his academic and literary publishing. Above all, the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung somehow lived on and flourished.^[3] In 1808 Schütz was elected an external member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. At Halle the university remained closed till December 1814, but the war years ended in 1815 and the university was reinstated, impoverished and for a time diminished, but not terminated: Schütz appears still to have been based at Halle when he died there in 1832.