Will-Erich Peuckert (11 May 1895 – 25 October 1969) was a German folklorist.

Life

Peuckert was born in Töppendorf in

Lower Silesia Lower Silesia ( pl, Dolny Śląsk; cz, Dolní Slezsko; german: Niederschlesien; szl, Dolny Ślōnsk; hsb, Delnja Šleska; dsb, Dolna Šlazyńska; Silesian German: ''Niederschläsing''; la, Silesia Inferior) is the northwestern part of the ...

on May 1, 1895. He studied History and ''Volkskunde'' at the

University of Breslau A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, where he delivered his dissertation, and went on teach at the Pedagogical Academy in Breslau. There he began to make a name for himself through several publications on German and Silesian

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

. Before he reached professorship, a defamation campaign pressed by a colleague convinced the Nazi authorities to revoke his teaching permissions in 1935. Peuckert doggedly refused to compromise his work with Nazi pressure, an attitude rewarded after the war when he was appointed as a professor at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

and became chair of ''Volkskunde'', the only such position in Germany for many years.Will-Erich Peuckert and the Light of Nature
/ref> In 1947, an automobile accident killed his wife and left Peuckert completely blind in his right eye and three-quarters blind in his left. He not only continued to teach, but also to publish. He continued to work after a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

in 1963 left him unable to type with nine of his fingers. He would die of a second stroke in 1969.

Witchcraft Controversy

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

in 1959, Peuckert gave a lecture on ointments with hallucinogenic properties that were prepared and used by witches to leave their bodies and travel in the night. As a brief aside, he mentioned that he had once tried such an ointment himself and achieved results entirely compatible with the out-of-body experiences testified to by the witches. This sentence gave rise to an uproar, as papers made claims he himself practiced witchcraft and flew through the night.

References

1895 births 1969 deaths German folklorists German male non-fiction writers {{Germany-writer-stub