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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Turnvater Jahn Biography JAHN, yän, Friedrich Ludwig (1778–1852). A Prussian patriot and hero of the common people, an ardent advocate of German unity, and the father of popular gymnastics (Volks- or Vereinsturnen). He was born in the village of Lanz, developed a passion for Prussian and German history and the German language and literature during six years at the universities of Halle, Jena, and Greifswald, and interrupted his studies by frequent excursions to all parts of the country. His chief literary work, German Nationality (Deutsches Volkstum, 1810), falls in the period between the battle of Jena and the outbreak of the War of Liberation and gives fitting expression to his dominant idea. The years 1810–18 mark the culmination of his career. As a teacher in Berlin, he began to meet schoolboys outside the city gates on half-holiday afternoons for games and simple exercises, and then, as the numbers grew, an outdoor gymnasium was constructed and new exercises were devised, until in 1816 and 1817 more than 1000 "turners" were in attendance. Jahn saw in this active, wholesome, common life an opportunity to develop harmony and to kindle public spirit. Numerous gymnasia of the Berlin type were opened elsewhere in Prussia and other German states, with the help of Jahn's pupils and of Die Deutsche Turnkunst (1816), which he and they prepared. But the reactionary policy adopted by the Holy Alliance led to the general closing of these Turnplätze, and to Jahn's arrest (1819) on suspicion of "secret and most treasonable associations." Although finally acquitted (1825), he passed the remaining years of his life in comparative obscurity, most of them in the Thuringian town of Frey-burg-on-the-Unstrut. There the Turnhalle has been built over his grave, and a Jahn Museum is near by. The Turnvereine in their present form began to appear after 1840, but they reflect the spirit and aims of Jahn. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 573. |