Martin Kaschke

Martin Kaschke (5 November 1610 Massen, Finsterwalde - 6 October 1727 Fürstlich Drehna) was a German longevity claimant.

Biography
Martin Kasche was born in 5 November 1610 as a child of poor farmers. He was a farmer and employed under the Drehnaer rule of the Counts of Promnitz as Wirtschaftsvogt. At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, Kaschke was eight years old and in his life report states that shortly before the outbreak of the war he had seen a comet in the sky, which remained there for 30 days. Kaschke also reports on the Great Comet of the Year 1680, which was, in his opinion, a sign, among other things, for the Second Vienna Turkish siege, which erupted in 1683.

Kaschke survived several famines, such as the drought from 1630 to 1631, which accompanied the destruction of Magdeburg, the drought of 1693 and the year 1719. For the year 1641, he reported on a mouse plague that destroyed the crops of the fields and in conjunction with the devastation of the Thirty Years' War also led to a famine. On May 12, 1706, he experienced an almost total solar eclipse. He was against Nicolaus Copernicus' doctrine of conviction that "the sun was shining, and the ground of the earth was immobile, for otherwise the ladder, which you saw in the night of the earth in the sky, would have fallen down.

He survived two plague epidemics, including the plague epidemic of 1680, but probably lost his second wife around that time after eight years of mental derangement. Kaschke assumed that she would have "in a magical way made water". Kaschke was married three times. His first wife died after one year in childbirth. The third marriage was for Kaschke claims to be the happiest. At the age of 87 years Kaschke fathered a son who survived him. One daughter died in an accident, to another son, the contact was cancelled.

Under the Drehnaer reign of the Counts of Promnitz Kaschke was employed as a business voters and had to be able to interpret in this function, for example, the coming weather on the basis of phenomena and rules and determine, for example, the times of sowing and harvesting.

Kaschke attributed his old age to moderation in all areas: "Yes, it is true, if I lived inordinately, I would hardly have reached such a ripe old age. When I tasted the best, I stopped, and as I was moderate in food and drink, so I do not love too much too ... "According to his own words, he had never taken medicine in his life, but took" every morning a hand full of my own urine instead of the tea or brandy, "whereby he again" happily kept me all the diseases and diseases. "

Kaschke died after a nine-day nursing bed in 6 October 1727 at the age of almost 117 years of a gastrointestinal infection. At his funeral, most of the staff of the princely court were present, and the Duchess herself attended the subsequent funeral sermon and funeral eulogy in the church. With the claimed age of 116 years and 335 days, he is in some sources as the oldest man who has lived in Germany so far, a reliable test of this life data is not possible. In the Niederlausitzer area he became known under the designation "Niederlausitzischer Methusalah".

Three years after Kaschkes death the Drehnaer pastor Christoph Crusius set him a literary monument with the writing The Nieder-Lausitzische Methusalah. The 200-page work is designed as a fictitious conversation of the deceased Kaschke with ancestor Jakob, a theologian and a philosopher. Statements about Kaschke's life take up relatively little space. The work, in which Crusius numerous conversations with Kaschke, who were probably led by his assumption of office as a pastor in Drehna 1724 processed, was published in 1730 in Guben. Previously known copies of the work are now owned by the SLUB Dresden, the university libraries Halle and Darmstadt and the British Library. A new edition, complete with extensive notes and an afterword, was released in November 2010.

Literature

 * Christoph Crusius: Der Nieder-Lausitzische Methusalah: d. i. Denck- und Glaubwürdige Lebens-Beschreibung Eines Mannes, welcher zu Drehna unweit Luckau in der Nieder-Lausitz hundert und siebzehn Jahr alt worden, wie solches in einem Aufferbaulichen Gespräch Zwischen dem 147 Jährigen Ertz-Vater Jacob Und den 117 Jahr alt gewordenen Martin Kaschken, Nebst der diesem Manne gehaltenen Leichen-Predigt und Parentation. Höhme, Guben 1730. Eine Neuauflage des Buches, herausgegeben und mit zahlreichen Anmerkungen und einem Nachwort versehen durch Dr. Rainer Ernst, erschien im November 2010. be.bra wissenschaftsverlag, Potsdam, 2010.
 * Gudrun Söffker, Alexander Kästner: Alltägliche Erfahrung und Gelehrsamkeit. Martin Kaschke und Christoph Crusius über Glaube, Prodigien und „Zauberey. 2003.

Links

 * Projekt des Instituts für Geschichte der TU Dresden zu Martin Kaschke
 * Der Nieder-Lausitzische Methusalah. Annäherungen an das Leben des Wirtschaftsvogtes Martin Kaschke (1610-1727).