EUROSOLAR President Droege pays tribute to environmental advocate and culture critic Theodor Lessing

On the occasion of the 150th birthday of Theodor Lessing, EUROSOLAR President Prof. Peter Droege pays tribute to the German-Jewish philosopher and publicist born 1872 in Hanover.

Prof. Peter Droege: “Theodor Lessing warned about climate change long before it was scientifically proven. He was a powerful voice for nature and animals, and hence for environmental and climate protection. He recognized the dangers emanating from tendencies to dictatorship and world wars with chilling clarity”.


Already in the 1920s Lessing warned of the consequences of rain forest destruction and the “coal fog of the giant cities”. He posited that the planet would change due to the extinction of animals and plants by man, warning of “world death”. In his view, the dominant form of human ‘civilization’ was acting like a “cruel, ruthless machine.” With the money spent on the First World War, the “Sahara could have been transformed into blooming gardens”.


Theodor Lessing drew attention to environmental destruction when the massive increase in pollutant emissions was still imminent. Decades later, in response to mounting environmental threats stemming from conventional enery systems, EUROSOLAR, the European Renewable Energy Association, was founded and has been dedicated to preserving our natural resources ever since.


Lessing paid the ultimate price, both for his unbridled penmanship, his ethnicity and ideology. He was killed by assassins of the Nazi regime on 30 August 1933, while exiled in his Marienbad (Mariánské Lázně) apartment. EUROSOLAR President Droege pays tribute to him as a pioneering, clear-sighted motivator for environmental and climate protection.