Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer was born on 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg, (Alsace-Lorraine), Germany (presently Haut-Rhin, France). He spent most part of childhood in the village of Gunsbach, Alsace where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor taught him to play music. He was brought up in an environment of religious tolerance where he grew up in true Christian beliefs that Christianity always work towards a unity of faith and purpose. In 1893 he received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) from Mulhouse high school. In the period between 1885-1893 Schweitzer studied organ at Mulhouse high school under Eugène Munch, organist of the Protestant Temple who besides teaching Schweitzer how to play organ also instilled in him profound enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner. In 1893 he played under French organist Charles-Marie Widor at Saint-Sulpice, Paris. Widor was extremely impressed with Schweitzer innate talent and agreed to teach Schweitzer for free. This was the beginning of a great friendship and engagement.

 

From 1893 Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm Universität of Straßburg. He learnt piano. In 1894 Schweitzer pursued his one year's obligatory military service. He attended various operas and saw many of Richard Wagner’s operas at Straßburg. In 1896 he arranged funds to visit Bayreuth to see Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” and “Parsifal” which affected him deeply. In 1898 he went back to Paris to write on his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Religious Philosophy” of Kant at the Sorbonne. In 1899 he completed his theology degree and published his Ph.D. at the University of Tübingen in 1899. While pursuing his PhD Schweitzer often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and also found time in studying piano with Marie Jaëll.

 

Schweitzer rose to his musical career very swiftly and started being known as a greatly dedicated musical scholar and organist who also devoted his time in rescuing, restoring and studying the history of pipe organs. With his theological background he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899 Schweitzer greatly surprised Widor by elaborately explaining the figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based. He kept studying on the exploration of these illustrations and images on the encouragement of Widor and Munch and it resulted in bringing out his masterly study ‘J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète’ written in French and published in 1905. In 1905 Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians to found the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J.S. Bach's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913.

 

 While deeply studying for bringing out the book, Schweitzer made a friend in Cosima Wagner with whom he discussed everything about music and theology and about Bach’s descriptive music. He also played the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf. In 1908 two volumes (J. S. Bach) in German were published and an English translation of the Chorale Preludes by Ernest Newman was done in 1911. Schweitzer’s interpretations of Bach’s music greatly helped modern day understanding of Bach's music.

 

Schweitzer was a great enthusiast in reforming the organ building movement. However, his quests turned away the movement without repair. He had even brought out a pamphlet, “The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France” in 1906. In 1909 he addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna to discuss organ building. He did make an impact by circulating a questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries. His quest helped form the base for the ‘International Regulations for Organ Building’. Schweitzer collaborated with Widor to work on a new edition of Bach's organ works with a plan to have detailed analyses of each work in three languages (English, French and German). Schweitzer was keen to add Bach's notation with no additional markings on the musical scores. He wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues and Widor wrote for the Sonatas and Concertos and in 1912-14 six volumes were published.

 

In 1913 while departing for Lambaréné, Schweitzer was presented with a pedal piano with pedal attachments (to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard). He considered his new life as a renunciation of his art and he left practising. He soon resumed studying and learning by heart, the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically.

 

In 1899 Schweitzer turned a deacon at the church Saint-Nicolas of Strasbourg. In 1900 he completed his licentiate in theology and was appointed as the curate. In 1900 itself, he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play. In 1901 he was appointed as provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas (from which he had just graduated). In 1903 Schweitzer was made a permanent Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas.

 

From 1890s Schweitzer had believed in the idea that as a Christian his work was to repay the world something for the happiness which it had given to him. In 1906 he published “Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung” ("History of Life-of-Jesus research") which made him become very reputed. The book was first translated into English by William Montgomery and published in 1910 as ‘The Quest of the Historical Jesus’. The book became popular in the English speaking world and was brought out in its second German edition in 1913 comprising of theologically significant revisions and expansions (edited and revised edition did not appear in English until 2001).

 

Schweitzer was 30 years old when in 1905 he received the call of “The Society Of The Evangelist Missions of Paris” to meet their look out for a doctor. The committee did not accept his offer. He stuck to his original call despite the doctrinal difficulties in spite of his open option to obtain a place in a German Evangelical mission. Amid severe protests from his friends, family and colleagues he put down his resignation and re-entered the University as a student in a punishing seven-year course towards the degree of a Doctorate in Medicine. He neither had previous knowledge on this field nor have a definitive aptitude in medicine. Even while studying medicine he pursued the ideal of the philosopher-scientist in his clinical approaches. Finally in the end of 1911 he completed his studies. His medical degree dissertation was on ‘The Psychiatric Study of Jesus’. In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau, daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau.

 

In 1912 after getting a medical degree he decided to continue as a doctor and work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué River, in present Gabon, Africa (then a French colony). He started arranging funds through concerts in order to come with a small hospital. In spring 1913, he sought to form a hospital along with his wife for which he found a site that was 200 miles away from the mouth of the Ogooé at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez). In the initial nine months he along with his wife found around 2,000 patients to examine. Some of the patients travelled for nearly hundreds of kilometres and for days to get treated for severe sandflea and crawcraw sores (washing with mercuric chloride), framboesia (using arseno-benzol injections), tropical eating sores (cleaning and potassium permanganate), heart disease (treated with digitalin), tropical dysentery (emetine (syrup of ipecac) and arseno-benzol), tropical malaria (quinine and Arrhenal arsenic), sleeping sickness, treated at that time with atoxyl, leprosy (chaulmoogra oil), fevers, strangulated hernias (surgery), necrosis, abdominal tumours and chronic constipation and nicotine poisoning. The Schweitzer couple dealt with mild to severe illnesses and often had to deal with deliberate poisonings, fetishism and fear of cannibalism among the Mbahouin.

 

Helene was an anaesthetist performing for surgical operations, using chloroform and Papaveretum, a synthesized morphine derivative. After spending some time under a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in autumn 1913 Schweitzers built their first hospital of corrugated iron. In the summer of 1914, on the onset of World War I, Schweitzers (Germans in a French colony) were supervised at Lambaréné by French military. In 1917 Schweitzer and his wife were exhausted with their workload and were affected by tropical anaemia leading them to be taken away to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison. From March 1918 they were interned in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In July 1918 Schweitzer was freed. During this period Schweitzer turned into a French citizen by using his parents’ French citizenship. He started working as medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg and also advanced his project on ‘The Philosophy of Civilization’.

 

By 1920 his health had recovered and he started giving organ recitals besides engaging himself in other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon. In 1922 he delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures in Oxford University. In 1923 Volumes I and II of his great work, “The Decay and Restoration of Civilization” and “Civilization and Ethics” were published. These were based on his lectures.

 

In 1924 he returned to Gabon, without his wife but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as assistant. His hospital building was totally decayed. He started off with additional medical staff, nurse (Miss) Kottmann and Dr. Victor Nessmann and Dr. Mark Lauterberg. In 1925-1926 Schweitzer managed to come up with new hospital buildings and also a ward for white patients thus a village like site was established. After establishing the hospital newly and building a greatly functional medical team, Schweitzer returned to Europe in 1927.

 

Schweitzer worked as a medical missionary in Africa, considering it to be his response to Jesus' call to become “fishers of men”. He was a believer of the idea of Reverence for Life ("Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben"). This was his personal philosophy which he believed to be the greatest contribution to mankind. Schweitzer wrote: “True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness, and this may be formulated as follows: ‘I am life which wills to live, and I exist in the midst of life which wills to live’.” At times            Schweitzer was accused of being paternalistic or colonialist in his attitude towards Africans. He was once quoted of saying, “The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother”.

 

Many of his theories, ideas and beliefs like ‘reverence for life’ were believed (by many authors and critics) to have been influenced by Indian religious thought and in particular Jain principle of ahimsa (non-violence). This is rightly judged by Schweitzer’s writing that says, “In nature one form of life must always prey upon another. However, human consciousness holds an awareness of, and sympathy for, the will of other beings to live. An ethical human strives to escape from this contradiction so far as possible.”

 

His wife was not able to stay with him after the birth of their daughter and her declining health made Helene Schweitzer leave Lambaréné. In 1923 the family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg where Schweitzer started constructing a house for the family. Because of the ongoing war from 1939 to 1948 he stayed in Lambaréné. In 1948 he returned for the first time to Europe and kept travelling back and forth (and once to the USA) as and when it was possible for him to do so. Schweitzer utilised his family home throughout his life which was made into an Archive and Museum that presently houses his life related things and works.

 

In 1952 a film was made portraying his life, “Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer” that starred Pierre Fresnay as Albert Schweitzer and Jeanne Moreau as his nurse Marie. In 1952 itself he received The Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution in the field of philosophy, “Reverence for Life” and his hospital. He is greatly remembered for his “The Problem of Peace” lecture. From 1952 Albert Schweitzer actively worked against the rampant nuclear tests and nuclear weapons along with Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Bertrand Russell.

In 1955 he was made an honorary member of the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1957 and 1958 he broadcast four speeches, over Radio Oslo which were published in “Peace or Atomic War”. In 1957 he co-founded The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. On 23 April 1957 he made his "Declaration of Conscience" speech which was broadcast to the world over Radio Oslo, pleading for the abolition of nuclear weapons. He speech ended with, “The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for.”

 

He died on 4 September 1965 in his much loved and self-made hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon.

1875 - Albert Schweitzer was born on 14 January

1885-1893 - Schweitzer studied organ at Mulhouse high school under Eugène Munch, organist of the Protestant Temple who besides teaching Schweitzer how to play organ also instilled in him profound enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner

1893 - He received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) from Mulhouse high school

1893 - Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm Universität of Straßburg

1894 - Schweitzer pursued his one year's obligatory military service. He attended various operas and saw many of Richard Wagner’s operas at Straßburg

1896 - He arranged funds to visit Bayreuth to see Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” and “Parsifal” which affected him deeply

1898 - He went back to Paris to write on his Ph.D. dissertation on “The Religious Philosophy” of Kant at the Sorbonne

1899 - He completed his theology degree and published his Ph.D. at the University of Tübingen. While pursuing his PhD Schweitzer often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and also found time in studying piano with Marie Jaëll

1899 - Schweitzer greatly surprised Widor by elaborately explaining the figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based

1899 - Schweitzer turned a deacon at the church Saint-Nicolas of Strasbourg

1900 - He completed his licentiate in theology and was appointed as the curate

1900 - He witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play

1901 - He was appointed as provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas (from which he had just graduated)

1903 - Schweitzer was made a permanent Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas

1905 - He kept studying on the exploration of these illustrations and images on the encouragement of Widor and Munch and it resulted in bringing out his masterly study ‘J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète’ which was written in French and published

1905 - Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians to found the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J.S. Bach's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913

1905 - He received the call of “The Society Of The Evangelist Missions of Paris” to meet their look out for a doctor

1906 - He brought out a pamphlet, “The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France”

1906 - He published “Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung” ("History of Life-of-Jesus research") which made him become very reputed

1908 - While deeply studying for bringing out the book, Schweitzer made a friend in Cosima Wagner with whom he discussed everything about music and theology and about Bach’s descriptive music. He also played the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf. Two volumes (J. S. Bach) in German were published

1909 - He addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna to discuss organ building. He did make an impact by circulating a questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries. His quest helped form the base for the ‘International Regulations for Organ Building’

1910 - “Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung” ("History of Life-of-Jesus research") was first translated into English by William Montgomery and published as ‘The Quest of the Historical Jesus’.

1911 - An English translation of the Chorale Preludes by Ernest Newman was done

1911 - He completed his studies in medicine. His medical degree dissertation was on ‘The Psychiatric Study of Jesus’

1912 to 1914 - Schweitzer collaborated with Widor to work on a new edition of Bach's organ works with a plan to have detailed analyses of each work in three languages (English, French and German). Schweitzer was keen to add Bach's notation with no additional markings on the musical scores. He wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues and Widor wrote for the Sonatas and Concertos and six volumes were published

1912 - In June, he married Helene Bresslau, daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau

1912 - After getting a medical degree he decided to continue as a doctor and work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué River, in present Gabon, Africa (then a French colony). He started arranging funds through concerts in order to come with a small hospital

1913 - “Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung” ("History of Life-of-Jesus research") became popular in the English speaking world and was brought out in its second German edition comprising of theologically significant revisions and expansions (edited and revised edition did not appear in English until 2001)

1913 - While departing for Lambaréné, Schweitzer was presented with a pedal piano with pedal attachments (to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard). He considered his new life as a renunciation of his art and he left practising. He soon resumed studying and learning by heart, the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically

1913 - In spring, he sought to form a hospital along with his wife for which he found a site that was 200 miles away from the mouth of the Ogooé at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez). In the initial nine months he along with his wife found around 2,000 patients to examine

1913 - After spending some time under a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in autumn Schweitzers built their first hospital of corrugated iron.

1914 - In the summer on the onset of World War I, Schweitzers (Germans in a French colony) were supervised at Lambaréné by French military

1917 - Schweitzer and his wife were exhausted with their workload and were affected by tropical anaemia leading them to be taken away to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison

1918 - From March they were interned in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

1918 - In July Schweitzer was freed. During this period Schweitzer turned into a French citizen by using his parents’ French citizenship. He started working as medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg and also advanced his project on ‘The Philosophy of Civilization’

1920 - His health had recovered and he started giving organ recitals besides engaging himself in other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon

1922 - He delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures in Oxford University.

1923 - Volumes I and II of his great work, “The Decay and Restoration of Civilization” and “Civilization and Ethics” were published. These were based on his lectures

1923 - The family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg where Schweitzer started constructing a house for the family

1924 - He returned to Gabon, without his wife but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as assistant

1925-1926 - Schweitzer managed to come up with new hospital buildings and also a ward for white patients thus a village like site was established

1927 - After establishing the hospital newly and building a greatly functional medical team, Schweitzer returned to Europe

1939 to 1948 - Because of the ongoing war he stayed in Lambaréné

1948 - He returned for the first time to Europe and kept travelling back and forth (and once to the USA) as and when it was possible for him to do so

1952 - A film was made portraying his life, “Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer” that starred Pierre Fresnay as Albert Schweitzer and Jeanne Moreau as his nurse Marie

1952 - He received The Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution in the field of philosophy, “Reverence for Life” and his hospital

1952 - Albert Schweitzer actively worked against the rampant nuclear tests and nuclear weapons along with Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Bertrand Russell

1955 - He was made an honorary member of the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II

1957 - He co-founded The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy

1957 - On 23 April he made his "Declaration of Conscience" speech which was broadcast to the world over Radio Oslo, pleading for the abolition of nuclear weapons. He speech ended with, “The end of further experiments with atom bombs would be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for”

1957 and 1958 - He broadcast four speeches, over Radio Oslo which were published in “Peace or Atomic War”

1965 - He died on 4 September