Archive of the Fürstenschüler Foundation

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The archives of the Fürstenschüler Foundation were housed in the St. Augustin grammar school in Grimma until 2016 - now it is located in the renovated neighboring building of the Old Seminar

The archive of the Fürstenschüler Foundation (full name: Archive on the history of the Saxon princely and state schools St. Afra zu Meißen and St. Augustin zu Grimma , since the end of 2010 with the name addition Kurt Schwabe Archive in memory of the first archive director in Grimma) - more recently the Kurt Schwabe Archive - preserves documents and materials of various kinds on the history of the three former state and princely schools St. Afra in Meißen , Schulpforta near Naumburg and St. Augustin in Grimma, as well as the Grimma monastery church . The sponsor was the Fürstenschüler Foundation . Since 2018, the Kurt Schwabe Archive has been exclusively responsible for the tradition of today's St. Augustin zu Grimma high school.

The archive is the successor to the archive of the Association of Former Princely Students , which existed until 2002.

In December 2017, the decision was made in Grimma to dissolve the Fürstenschüler Foundation and to hand over its archive to the Augustiner Foundation . Since then, the archive has been called "Archive of the St. Augustin High School in Grimma - Kurt Schwabe Archive" .

From 1992 to 2015, the archive was located in the former principal's apartment in the St. Augustin grammar school in Grimma. In spring 2016, the archive material was brought into the attic of the neighboring building in 250 moving boxes. The new home is the former old seminary (the former Döringsche Freihaus), which had been extensively reconstructed, rebuilt and partially restored in previous years.

Present and recent past

Today's archive is a mix of archived files, a library and a museum. First and foremost, it is a treasure trove for the development of the school in Grimma after 1945 and after 1989. A considerable fund on the history of Saxony and Grimma complements the school history.

The archive is used extensively: students, graduate students, doctoral students, scientists, genealogists, teachers and schoolchildren and many other interested parties like to access the holdings. For example, those interested in family history may find references to their ancestors in the family history book of the Princely School, the school historians find information on the social and regional composition of the former students, the local historians details about the past of the Grimma monastery church and the Augustinian bell, the connections between the Reformation anniversary 2017 researchers the princely schools and the sustainable anchoring of the Reformation in central Germany, the citizens of Grimma high-quality student work on regional historical topics and the person responsible for flood protection the accurate construction plans for today's school building from the 1880s.

The current chapter of the archive began in May 1992 in Grimma. The aim was and is to make the archive as extensive as possible and to expand all areas of the school's history in a meaningful way. This primarily affects the two former princely schools in Meißen and Grimma. This also included providing information about the ignorance prevailing in the GDR era, half-truths and falsehoods as well as distorted representations about the state and princely schools, which we believe to have been successful.

Furthermore, it was necessary to ask for material from former princely students, their descendants and all other possible sources - with the hoped-for success: important materials reappeared from the population and entire estates of deceased old princely students were given. The inventory grew considerably over the years: Whereas in 1996 there was an archive directory with over 200 pages, the 2003 edition already had 600 pages.

Volker Beyrich (he heads the archive as the successor to .) Are among the volunteers alongside Kurt Schwabe , who founded the new archive site in Grimma, worked there alone from 1992 to 2003 and managed the archive until a few days before his death in November 2010 Kurt Schwabe) and Martina Bloi. Both were teachers of history and German at the St. Augustin grammar school and the previous school.

Until the move to the neighboring Altes Seminar building in spring 2016, the archive was housed in three large rooms of the former rector's apartment in the grammar school.

history

The starting point was the association of former princely students , which was founded in Dresden in 1875 by former students from all three Saxon princely and state schools (Meißen, Schulpforta and Grimma). After the First World War, the Schulpforta state school, whose region had become Prussian due to the Congress of Vienna in 1815, left the association and founded the Pförtner Bund eV, but remained in close contact with the founding association. Dresden remained the club's permanent location until 1950, when the GDR forcibly dissolved all clubs.

In the course of its existence, the Association of Former Princely Students formed an archive, which was destroyed on the night of bombing in Dresden on February 13, 1945 . Fortunately, many members still had material from this archive, as publications from the association's own publishing house could be purchased.

The situation in divided Germany after the Second World War was that, because of the events of the war and their consequences, numerous princely students lived, studied, worked or were in local hospitals in the territory of what was then the Federal Republic of Germany. They looked for and found each other and decided to revive the association of former princely students. This happened in the late 1950s / early 1960s. That was the time when this newly founded association of former princely students with the Pförtner Bund eV and the Alter Joachimsthaler eV association played a leading role in founding a traditional school in Meinerzhagen in the Sauerland. The decisive factor was that, from the point of view of the association's members, the belief in a reunification of the two German states had dwindled, but the princely school traditions should not perish. After the foundation stone was laid in Meinerzhagen in 1965 and the school opened in 1968, it did not take long for the association to decide to create a new archive and to find accommodation in the new school.

The school sponsorship of this new state school at the gate was the Evangelical Church of Westphalia . However, the ideas about the path between the school authority and the founding associations diverged more and more. Therefore, the founding associations withdrew. In 1992 the school was closed and in 2005 it was demolished.

The events in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s and German reunification sparked the desire to bring the archive holdings back to their traditional Saxon homeland. Since there were a number of Afrans on the club's board at the time, they suggested Meissen as the location. In the area of ​​the former Meißner Fürstenschule there was an agricultural university, but the rent for an archive room (500 DM) turned out to be excessive for the association and unaffordable in the long run. So the idea came up to contact the former princely school in Grimma, the St. Augustin high school. The then headmaster Klaus-Dieter Tschiche initially provided a room for the archive free of charge. It was conveniently located in the former rector's apartment.

On September 12, 2002, the association of former princely students in Meißen dissolved after 127 years of existence due to the aging of its members. In order to preserve the valuable and important archives of the Princely Schools for posterity, the last general meeting decided to keep it as the basis for a foundation to be established - the Princely Schools Foundation . The remaining assets of the association of former princely students served as foundation capital. The patron was the Lord Mayor of the City of Grimma.

The fact that there were contacts between former princely students even during the time of the German-German division is one of the merits of Kurt Schwabe and his wife Annelies: since 1950, his wife had invited former teachers to Schwabes' home for coffee and dinner. All of them had been dismissed from school and found no employment. Dr. Ackermann, Dr. Warg, Dr. Reichert and Professor Pelz came to these meetings regularly and later gave the Schwabe couple their written memories of their old school as archival documents. Now they are an important part of the archive.

Further archive material found its way to Grimma for the annual Fürstenschülertreffen, which the Schwabe couple held in their apartment from 1950 in connection with the Leipzig Spring Fair, whereby visitors could use their fair ID for the trip to Grimma.

Kurt Schwabe was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (1996) and honorary citizenship of the city of Grimma (2000) for his services to the archive .

Publications

  • Kurt Schwabe Archive: History, stories, stories from the 465 year old Prince and State School St. Augustin zu Grimma. Published by the Augustiner-Verein Grimma, 45 pages, A5 format, with illustrations, Grimma 2018, without ISBN
  • The periodical “Das Archivstäubchen” has been published twice a year since September 2011 : it publishes “Little things that do not claim to discover new things, but which are perhaps worth reading” around the archive.

literature

  • Cornelia Braun: Princely treasure trove for resourceful researchers - Volker Beyrich and Martina Bloi keep the foundation archive in the Grimmaer Gymnasium / move planned . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , Muldental edition, April 14, 2015, p. 26
  • Volker Beyrich : Reformation and State Schools - "... so that over time there is no shortage of church servants and other learned people ..." In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , Muldental edition, October 6, 2014, p. 29
  • Volker Beyrich: A treasure trove in the St. Augustin archive of the Grimma Princely School houses a considerable collection on regional history. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , Muldental edition, September 1, 2014, p. 32

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.lvz.de/Region/Grimma/Grimma-Stadtrat-besiegel-das-Ende-der-Fuerstenschueler-Stiftung - accessed on December 23, 2017
  2. ↑ http://www.hzi-leipzig.de/index.php?article_id=521
  3. ↑ Volker Beyrich: A treasure trove in the St. Augustin archive of the Grimma Princely School houses a considerable collection on regional history. P. 32 in: Leipziger Volkszeitung , Muldental edition, September 1, 2014
  4. ↑ Kurt Schwabe: The archive of the association of former princely students and his way from Dresden via the old Federal Republic to Grimma in the St. Augustin high school. Further development until 2010. A chronology (six-page typewriter manuscript, completed on April 4, 2010). In the archives of the Fürstenschüler Foundation, Grimma.
  5. ↑ Klaus Harder: To whom faith gives strength. Encounters in the Grimma archive of the Fürstenschüler Foundation (contribution via archive manager Kurt Schwabe ). In: Meißner Tageblatt, April 26, 2007, p. 10