http://www.graftombe.nl/names/info/1001340

Ernst Mayer, 1883-1952

Author, Medical School student with Jaspers

Moved to Holland, living there and having children and grandchildren there.

In 1910 Karl Jaspers married the nurse Gertrud Mayer, daughter of a Jewish merchant and sister of his fellow student Ernst Mayer.

Jaspers studied medicine in Berlin, Gottingen, and Heidelberg. His weakness permitted him to work only seven hours a day, and he always kept time for poetry and philosophy. In Heidelberg he met Ernst Mayer, the brother of his future wife, Gertrude. Ernst Mayer too was a medical student with a philosophical bent. Kirkbright has nice accounts throughout the book of the initial perceptions and growing friendship of the old Jewish Mayer family and the liberal Protestant Jaspers family. The friendship and symphilosophein that existed between Ernst and Karl would seem to be unique in terms of its being the basis of one of the twentieth century's greatest philosophical works, Jaspers' three-volume (1931) Philosophy. Indeed, Jaspers says of Mayer, in particular in regard to that work, "both in his being and in terms of what he said," he had "the greatest possible philosophical significance." "He did not merely read all the manuscripts but wrote critical notations on all of them. He cooperated to the very point of the construction of the chapters, of the matter of content, as well as that of style. He brought to me not merely the mighty impulse of his participation and of his demands, but also those of his enrichments and improvements in great numbers." (The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp [La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1957], 43; also Kirkbright, 217.) Jaspers attributes to Ernst Mayer even some of the famous sentences having to do with our not being the creators of ourselves, or the possibility that we do not show up for ourselves. There was also later an intimate and a more stormy cooperation in the writing of Jaspers' book on Nietzsche. (See ch. 13 of Kirkbright.) Jaspers refers to Mayer's own fine work, Die Dialektik des Nichtwissens (Basel: Verlag fur Recht und Gesellschaft, 1950), which Mayer wrote while a refugee from Nazi Germany, as a "jointly achieved philosophy." (Schilpp, 45) As far as I know there are no studies of these and the other works of Mayer in relationship to Jaspers, and viceversa. Mayer's own book richly develops themes we are familiar with through Husserl and Michel Henry of the essentially non-reflective character of our self-awareness and how this not-knowing or ignorance is a unique excessive "knowledge by," for want of a better word, "non-intentional acquaintance." The theme of Existenz (in Jaspers and Mayer) stresses that each, in the first-person, is present to himself or herself non-objectively.

partly a study of complete za as Gustav and Ernst Mayer, and as the youngest, born in 1890 brother Frederick, who was studying medicine like Ernst.

Loads of this kind were in Jewish families at that time not uncommon. Gustav Mayer and his siblings were, albeit to varying degrees, distance themselves from their origins. They were the first generation that came predominantly Prenzlau his back, partly a study of complete za as Gustav and Ernst Mayer, and as the youngest, born in 1890 brother Frederick, who was studying medicine like Ernst. Henry (born 1885) was a bank clerk and a longer time belonged to the prestigious banking firm Warburg Hamberger: Otto (b. 1887) was Tatig as a newspaper agent. Only Arthur (born 1874) was the merchant industry and the company of his Valters Prenzlau connected. Of the three sisters, Gertrude belonged, as the wife of a Heidelberg professor of philosophy, the Jaspers had since 1916, on their way to the academic world. Elizabeth (b. 1872) died in 1889 of diphtheria and Ida (b. 1880) was mentally ill and died in 1917.

Belastungen dieser Art waren in Judischen Familien der damaligen Zeit keine Seltenheit. Gustav Mayer und seine Geschwister gingen, wenn auch unterschiedlich weit, auf Distanz zu ihren Ursprungen. Sie waren die erste Generation, die Prenzlau uberwiegend den Rucken kehrte, zum Teil um ein Studium za absolvieren wie Gustav und Ernst Mayer oder wie der jungste, 1890 geborene Bruder Friedrich, der wie Ernst Medizin studierte. Heinrich (geb 1885) wurde Bankangestellter und gehorte langere Zeit dem renommierten Hamberger Bankhaus Warburg an: Otto (geb. 1887) war als Zeitungsagent tatig. Allein Arthur (geb 1874) blieb der Kaufmannsbranche und der Firma seines Valters in Prenzlau verbunden. Von den drei Schwestern gehorte Gertrud als Gattin eines Heidelberger Philosophieprofessors, der Jaspers seit 1916 war, auf ihre Weise zur akademischen Welt. Elisabeth (geb. 1872) starb 1889 an Diphterie und Ida (geb. 1880) war psychisch krank und starb 1917.

Berlin, Germany, Selected Marriages, 1874-1920

• Name: Ernst Mayer
• Gender: männlich (Male)
• Birth Date: 24 Jan 1883
• Age: 29
• Marriage Date: 21 Mrz 1912 (21 Mar 1912)
• Civil Registration Office: Steglitz
• Spouse: Ella Räsener
• Spouse Gender: weiblich (Female)
• Spouse Birth Date: 26 Mai 1887 (26 May 1887)
• Certificate Number: 89
• Archive Sequence Number: 514
• Register Type: Zurückgeführtes Erstregister