Ernst Barthel

Ernst Philipp Barthel was an Alsace philosopher, mathematician, and inventor.
In the 1920s and 1930s he taught as a Privatdozent of philosophy at the University of Cologne. From 1924 on Barthel edited the magazine Antäus. Blätter für neues Wirklichkeitsdenken, which served as the organ of the Gesellschaft für Lebensphilosophie founded by him in Cologne.
Barthel maintained philosophical friendships with his compatriots Albert Schweitzer and Friedrich Lienhard.

Philosophy and Earth theory

The main principle of Barthel's philosophy on the background of Christian Platonism was the Polarity, which he understood to be the most fundamental, constitutive law in all of nature. Besides his philosophical work he also published several works on geometry, further developing a non-Euclidean theory of geometry, which he called polar geometry. From this geometry he derived a new cosmology with the theory of a Great Earth, which states that the Earth is a maximal sphere in a cyclical space and its surface therefore a total plane, the equator plane of the Cosmos. The plane, as well as the straight line and space as a whole, is flat, without curvature yet closed, running back on itself. Barthel considered this his most important theory, even the most significant thought of the century, as he writes in his autobiography.
While some of his academic colleagues stated that Barthel's theory is geometrically possible and consistent, others did not and accused Barthel of resorting to "the blight of personal calumny", deriding him for allegedly "teaching that the Earth is a disk" or outright declaring him crazy. Ultimately, Barthel's academic career was ruined. The Russian astronomer Leonid Leonidovich Andrenko considered Barthel's main thought among the most genius ever advocated.

Dismissal by the Nazi Regime

In November 1940 Barthel was dismissed from the University of Cologne by the Nazi Minister Bernhard Rust because of religio-metaphysical suspicions. Barthel's book Der Mensch und die ewigen Hintergründe was cited as evidence. Barthel was also dismissed for alleged political Francophilia. Until then, Barthel was a member of the National Socialist Teachers League.

Works

, Dissertation, Straßburg, 1913
Die Erde als Totalebene. Hyperbolische Raumtheorie mit einer Voruntersuchung über die Kegelschnitte, 1914
Vertikaldimension und Weltraum. Neue Beweise gegen die Kugelgestalt der Erde, 1914
Der Irrtum «g». Ein Traktat über den freien Fall, 1914
Harmonische Astronomie, 1916

Goethes Wissenschaftslehre in ihrer modernen Tragweite, 1922
Goethes Relativitätstheorie der Farbe. Nebst einer musikästhetischen Parallele, 1923
Lebensphilosophie, 1923
Philosophie des Eros, 1926
Deutschlands und Europas Schicksalsfrage, in: Zeitschrift für Geopolitik 3, pp. 303–309.
Form und Seele. Dichtungen, 1927
Die Welt als Spannung und Rhythmus, 1928
Albert Schweitzer as Theologian, in: The Hibbert Journal, XXVI, 4
Elsässische Geistesschicksale. Ein Beitrag zur europäischen Verständigung, 1928
Erweiterung raumtheoretischer Denkmöglichkeiten durch die Riemannsche Geometrie, in: .
Goethe, das Sinnbild deutscher Kultur, 1930
Die Monadologie der beiden Welten. Abriß der Metaphysik, Jahrbuch der Elsaß-Lothringischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft zu Straßburg, Band III, SS. 147–185, 1930
Kosmologische Briefe. Eine neue Lehre vom Weltall, 1931
Vorstellung und Denken. Eine Kritik des pragmatischen Verstandes, 1931
Einführung in die Polargeometrie, 2nd ed., 1932
Beiträge zur transzendentalen Logik auf polaristischer Grundlage, 1932
Geometrie und Kosmos, 1939
Die Kosmologie der Großerde im Totalraum, Leipzig: Hillmann 1939
Der Mensch und die ewigen Hintergründe, 1939Die Erde als Grundkörper der Welt. Ebertin, Erfurt 1940. According to Barthel's autobiography, p. 231, this book was pulped by the Gestapo in 1941.
Friedrich Lienhard. Die Künstlerseele aus dem deutschen Elsaß, Kolmar im Elsaß, Alsatia Verlag, 1941.
Nietzsche als Verführer, 1947
Mein Opfergang durch diese Zeit. Ein Leben im Kampf um Wahrheit und ein elsässisches Geistesschicksal, Georg Duve, 2005