Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck

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Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck
Logo of the Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck
type of school high school
School number 165918
founding 1849
address

Gaesdoncker Strasse 220

place Goch
country North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
Coordinates 51 ° 39 '12 "  N , 6 ° 7' 8"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 39 '12 "  N , 6 ° 7' 8"  E
carrier Diocese of Münster
student 850 (2017/2018)
management Director: Dr. Markus Oberdörster
Headmistress: Doris Mann Boarding school director
: Michael Gysbers
Website www.gaesdonck.de
Sign "Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck" with logo
Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck, view from the east

The Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck is a nationally recognized Episcopal High School of the Diocese of Münster with boarding for Catholic girls and boys. It is led by a foundation board headed by Auxiliary Bishop Rolf Lohmann from Xanten. It is located near Goch ( Kleve district ) on the Lower Rhine and has been entrusted with the education and training of young people for over 150 years. The school's motto is: “Quos Gaesdonck iunxit iunctos non dirimet aetas.” (Those whom Gaesdonck has connected cannot be separated by time.)

location

The Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck is located on the Lower Rhine between the town of Goch, three kilometers away, and the Dutch town of Siebengewald (municipality of Bergen, Limburg ), less than a kilometer away , in the Goch district of Hülm, right on the border with the Netherlands . Part of the site is already in the Netherlands. The beautifully landscaped Collegium Augustinianum is partially framed by the Kendel stream , a tributary of the Niers . In addition, the original monastery area itself is surrounded by a moat. There is also a small lake on the spacious park-like area of ​​the boarding high school.

Name and coat of arms

The name "Gaesdonck", which was taken over from the farm, which was located in the same place before the monastery was founded (see chapter History ), is a combination of the two Lower Franconian words "Gaes-" ( High German : Bach) and "-donck" (hill) and thus alludes to an elevation of the otherwise very flat Lower Rhine. For a long time it was wrongly assumed that the name should be translated as "goose hill". However, this has proven to be wrong on the basis of etymological research. With the attribute “Augustinianum” the monastic past and tradition of the place should be kept in memory, and at the same time St. Augustine was named the patron saint of the new facility.

The coat of arms of the Collegium Augustinianum originally consisted of a red T- or Francis Cross - the horizontal bar was on top of the vertical - and three hexagonal yellow stars - each with a right, left and above the cross - on a blue background. The coat of arms or at least the characteristic cross from it can be found several times in the coats of arms of former pupils who were appointed bishops (see chapter Known pupils ), and thus proves their connection with the Collegium Augustinianum. The colors of the coat of arms were changed at the turn of the millennium. The T-cross and the stars are now black on a gray background and white on a red background.

history

Gaesdonck Collegiate Church

In the monastery church and the other buildings of the former Canonia Beatae Mariae in Gaesdonck prope Goch, a monastery of the Regulated Canons of St. Augustine of the Congregation of Windesheim , which was consecrated in 1406 and dissolved in the course of secularization in 1802 and which then served as the " auxiliary priestly seminary " of the diocese of Münster for twenty years from 1828 , the Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck was founded and established on October 16, 1849 . The founding rector was the later center - member of the Reichstag and Münstersche cathedral dean Dr. Clemens Perger .

The political circumstances of the time led to the school being closed twice: for the first time due to Bismarck's so-called " Kulturkampf " in 1873, it reopened in 1893. The second closure was forced in 1942 by the National Socialist dictatorship . After the end of the war and tyranny, the school was able to resume in January 1946 - despite the extensive destruction of the buildings - and the reconstruction of the Collegium Augustinianum began.

The orientation of the former boarding school for boys was changed in 2002 from seed education to co-education , so that Catholic girls and boys can now attend school. In addition, it was announced in June 2017 that non-baptized young people and Christians of other denominations can now also be admitted.

With the mostly rebuilt buildings and the extensive monastery library Bibliotheca domus presbyterorum Gaesdonck , the Collegium Augustinianum is a living witness of the contemporary, church and educational history of the last 600 years. The archive of the Cistercian convent Graefenthal in the Lower Rhine is also kept in the library.

From August 2011 Jürgen Linsenmaier, former deputy headmaster of the Gaesdonck and since 1975 member of the teaching staff, was the director of the official business. His predecessor, Hans-Georg Steiffert, retired in June 2011 after having held office for six years. Linsenmaier retired in summer 2014. He was succeeded by Peter Broeders as director, Doris Mann as headmistress and Alois Kisters as boarding school director. Cornelius Happel has been spiritual since August 2015. At the beginning of 2018, the then director Peter Broeders said goodbye because he wanted to reorient himself. In June of the same year Alois Kisters was retired from his position as boarding school director, but he will continue to work as a teacher at the Gaesdonck. Since then, the post of boarding school director has been held by Michael Gysbers. The new director was Dr. Markus Oberdörster, who took over the management of the school on September 1st, 2018.

As a result of a restructuring, which was considered necessary due to the declining number of boarding school students, it was decided at the end of the 2017/2018 school year to abolish Saturday lessons, which took place every two weeks, at the beginning of the following school year.

Educational concept

The educational concept and objectives, which are based on the Christian-Catholic image of man, are summarized in the following motto: "Live Christianly, act socially, develop talents". There are internal, so-called “day-internal” and external students.

The special musical orientation of the boarding high school , which has its own art collection (from baroque sacred art to Joseph Beuys ) and on whose premises the independent Gaesdoncker music school and since February 2008 the also independent Gaesdoncker art school , should be emphasized . In addition to the old monastery library, there are four other reference and lending libraries . Since the 1980s, professional ensembles from Great Britain , the USA , France and, more recently, Spain have presented foreign-language theater with classical and modern pieces at the Gaesdonck around five times a year . There are also regular concerts and lectures.

In addition, importance is attached to sport, as evidenced by a number of sports facilities (two gyms , an indoor swimming pool and a riding arena as well as a sports field and several football and tennis courts ) on the school premises. Many school teams take part in the " Youth trains for the Olympics " competition, and the basketball team and the Gaesdonck soccer team have won various competitions at regional level in recent years.

In the summer of 2006, the Gaesdonck Junior Business School was set up, where upper school students can take additional courses on economic and legal issues, which have been renamed Advanced Classes since the 2019/2020 school year. Students in grades 10 and 11 do a compulsory three-week internship in a social institution.

The boarding high school maintains school partnerships and student exchanges with high schools in France , Ireland , the Netherlands , Poland , Spain and Wales as well as Mexico , the People's Republic of China and Paraguay . There are special collaborations with the Radboud University Nijmegen and the University of Duisburg-Essen . In addition, since 2009, with the support of the Kleve district, Gaesdonck has offered the so-called Children's College for particularly gifted third and fourth grade primary school students , with courses in foreign languages ​​(English, Dutch and Chinese), art, mathematics and natural sciences (biology, chemistry). The German Student Academy has already taken place several times in the Collegium Augustinianum .

Known students

Coat of arms of the Collegium Augustinianum in the bishop's coat of arms of Hermann Jakob Dingelstad (relief at the Collegium Ludgerianum in Münster)

Many well-known personalities from church, culture, science, politics and business were students at Gaesdonck:

Well-known teachers and educators

Among the teachers and educators of school history are of supraregional importance:

particularities

The Augustinushütte in Randa (in the Swiss canton of Valais , not far from Zermatt ) also belongs to the Collegium Augustinianum , where summer and winter hiking and skiing holidays have been organized for schoolchildren since the early 1960s.

A pomological peculiarity is the apple variety Gaesdoncker Renette , which was bred and cultivated in the former monastery garden of the Collegium Augustinianum.

literature

Periodical:

  • Annual report on the school year […] Cleve 1854–1873 ( digitized version ); Munster i. Westf. 1896–1910 ( digitized version ) and 1911–1915 ( digitized version ).
  • Gaesdoncker leaves. 1/1948 to 45/1992, NF 1/1999 ff. (Yearbook of the Collegium Augustinianum with numerous essays on school, regional and art history, especially by the long-time editors Franz Hermes and Franz Joseph van der Grinten as well as autobiographical reminiscences of former students; 1993 –1998 not published.)

Non-fiction:

  • Peter Bernhard Bergrath: The Brothers House and the Augustinian Canon in the city of Goch. History and document book. A contribution to the special history of the Duchy of Geldern. Kleve: Knipping 1860. ( digitized )
  • Robert Scholten : Gaesdonck. History of the monastery of the regulated canons, the auxiliary seminary or priestly house and the Collegium Augustinianum up to 1873. Münster: Westfälische Vereindruckerei 1906 ( digitized ).
  • Felix Rütten : Cartae memoriales magistris discipulis amicis Collegii Augustiniani Gaesdonckensis dedicatae anno iubilaeo MDCCCCXXXXIX. Regensburg: Pustet 1949. Also in: Gaesdoncker Blätter. NF 1/1999. Vol. II. Pp. 8-35.
  • Gregor Hövelmann : Domus beatae Mariae in Gaesdonck prope Gogh (Gaesdonck, Goch). In: Wilhelm Kohl u. a. (Ed.): Monasticon Windeshemense. Part 2: German language area. Brussels: Fondation Universitaire 1977. pp. 153-167.
  • Klaus van Eickels : The Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck in the Nazi era 1933–1942. Adaptation and resistance in everyday school life in the Third Reich. Kleve: Boss 1982. (=  series of publications of the district of Kleve. 3.) ISBN 3-922384-51-X . (The criticism of contemporary witnesses of this book, as well as the technical and methodological criticism of it, is documented in: Gaesdoncker Blätter, 36/1983.)
  • Jörg Baden and Alois Tack (eds.): Historical reading book. Gaesdonck: Collegium Augustinianum 1999. (= Gaesdoncker Blätter. NF 1/1999. Bd. II.)
  • Arnold Angenendt : Freedom for the Church. Gaesdonck as an example of Catholic emancipation in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lecture on Alumni Day on September 25, 1999. In: Gaesdoncker Blätter. NF 2. 2000. pp. 19-30.
  • Arnold Angenendt: Foundation in 1406 - order for 2006. Speech on the occasion of the monastery anniversary. In: Gaesdoncker Blätter. NF 8. 2006. pp. 14-22.
  • Wolfgang Rosen: Goch-Gaesdonck - St. Maria . In: Nordrheinisches Klosterbuch. Vol. 2. Verlag Franz Schmitt, Siegburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-87710-449-1 . Pp. 404-415.
  • Detailed bibliography on the history of the monastery (Word document, 1.56 MB; pp. 34–37) on the website of the North Rhine Monastery Book project of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Autobiographies and reminiscences of former students (selection):

  • Anton von Kersting : Gaesdonck. An old soldier's childhood memories. Cologne: Bachem n.d. [1917.]
  • Johannes Maria Verweyen : Homecoming. A religious development. Breslau: Franke 1941.
  • Johannes Hessen : Spiritual struggles of the time in the mirror of a life. Nuremberg: Glock and Lutz 1959. (The section about the Gaesdonck also here .)
  • Wilhelm Salberg: As a Nazi persecuted on the Gaesdonck. In: Gaesdoncker Blätter. 36, 1983. pp. 95-104. Also in: Gaesdoncker Blätter. NF 1. 1999. Vol II. Pp. 121-129.
  • Paul Ingendaay : Klostergraben, Bücherburg: From someone who moved out and learned to read on Gaesdonck. Lecture on September 18, 1999. In: Gaesdoncker Blätter. NF 2. 2000. pp. 10-18.

Novels in which the Collegium Augustinianum is literary:

Web links

Commons : Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anja Settnik: 850 Gaesdoncker pilgrims to Rome. In: RP Online . Karl Hans Arnold, Manfred Droste, Florian Merz-Betz, Irene Wenderoth-Alt, April 22, 2017, accessed on February 1, 2018 .
  2. ↑ See the illustration of the shield.
  3. ↑ To be found in the current publications, e.g. B. Letter from parents of October 11, 2019. In: Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck. Retrieved October 17, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Anja Settnik: Gaesdonck opens up to non-Catholics. In: RP Online. June 8, 2017, accessed February 1, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b Jens Helmus: Linsenmaier leaves the Gaesdonck. In: RP Online. July 11, 2014, accessed February 1, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Guido Schwartges: The Gaesdonck lived. In: RP Online. July 19, 2011, accessed February 1, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Katrin Reinders: New Gaesdonck tour presented. In: RP Online. August 26, 2014, accessed February 1, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Cornelius Happel is the new spiritual on the Gaesdonck. In: RP Online. August 4, 2015, accessed February 1, 2018 .
  9. ↑ R. Bergers: Peter Broeders leaves the Gaesdonck. In: Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck. Retrieved July 23, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Anna Catharina Wiechmann: Standing ovations and an icon for Mr. Kisters. In: Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck. Retrieved July 23, 2018 .
  11. ↑ a b Anja Settnik: Gaesdonck is doing away with Saturday classes . In: RP Online. July 3, 2018, accessed July 23, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Niklas Preuten: Oberdörster is the new director at the Gaesdonck in Goch. In: NRZ . Heinrich Meyer , July 19, 2018, accessed on July 23, 2018 .