August Dicke School

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August Dicke School
August fat school (2019)
type of school high school
School number 165359
founding 1873
address

Schützenstrasse 44
42659 Solingen

place Solingen
country North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
carrier City of Solingen
student 821 (as of: school year 2018/19)
Teachers 75 (as of: school year 2018/19)
management Monika Schneider
Website www.gymnasium-august-dicke.de

The August-Dicke-Schule (ADS) is a municipal high school for boys and girls in Solingen . The school was founded in 1873. Since 1932 it has been housed in a striking building with a red brick facade that is a listed building.

history

The beginnings

Before 1873 there were three private schools for girls in Solingen. The last of them, the Cremersche Höhere Töchterschule , closed when the Solingen mayor Gustav van Meenen decided to open a public secondary girls' school. The approval for the foundation by the Kingdom of Prussia was given to the teacher Helene Thau on August 15, 1873 . Influential citizens of the city, including the entrepreneur Gustav Coppel , promised financial support for the school for four years. The lessons for the initially 32 pupils took place on the second floor in the Küllschen beer pub on the church square before the first school building, Hohe Gasse 6, was inaugurated on May 31, 1875. School fees were charged and one was dependent on donations from parents and patrons. The city of Solingen persistently refused to take over the sponsorship and costs of the school, so that Helene Thau and her colleague Friedrich Hengstenberg finally left it in 1881. Subsequently, the sponsorship was taken over by a private group of citizens. In the following years, the management of the school was marked by arguments and high fluctuation of the female students, many of whom left the school without qualifications.

It was only after the school principal Max Friedrich took over the school in 1894, who was supported by a board of trustees under Mayor August Dicke , that its development took off. Friedrich initiated parents' evenings and involved the parents in organizational issues, the schoolgirls were encouraged to get English and US penpals, and there were cozy get-togethers between the graduating classes and their teachers. In general, Friedrich pleaded for the school to be open to all levels of society. Latin lessons were not allowed to be given, however, and graduation from school did not guarantee entitlement to further training.

From 1888 the school was municipal, and in 1898 it moved into the former building of a boys' high school on Friedrichstrasse. In 1914 the school was attended by around 400 girls. In 1926 the school was recognized as an upper lyceum , and in 1929 the first 14 students passed their Abitur exams. In addition, school fees had to be paid, 240 Reichsmarks per year for girls from Solingen, 300 Reichsmarks for non-residents, and there were discounts for siblings. This was followed by a women's school and a technical seminar , training to become a housekeeping and handicraft teacher and a training course for kindergarten teachers . There were repeated complaints about lack of space and poor hygienic conditions.

The new building

On June 1, 1927, the foundation stone for today's school building was laid on the former site of the St. Sebastian Schützen on Schützenstrasse. It was intended as a primary school . The building was planned by the Solingen architect Wilhelm Klein as a 16-class double elementary school to accommodate a secular and a denominational school system of eight classes each. The construction project was carried out by the construction hut of the Solingen savings and construction association . The Bergische Zeitung criticized the dimensions of the school: A building had been created "which can comfortably accommodate three systems, but for which there is no need in the school district". In the main wing - 87 meters long and 19 meters deep - the two schools with their own entrances were completely separated from each other. To the right and left were gyms , one of which was later used as an assembly hall. The toilets of the secular elementary school had no doors to convey to the children "that they need not be ashamed in the fulfillment of their needs", since it is a necessity like "eating and drinking".

The school was inaugurated in 1930 and named after August Dicke, the mayor of Solingen from 1896 to 1928. The architecture was described as “massive, four-story in a symmetrical and elevated structure with a horizontal and rhythmic structure; simple, factual, functional, with an impressive effect ”. On the occasion of the inauguration, the school building was described in the press as "the most beautiful school in West Germany".

For economic reasons, the SPD Mayor Josef Brisch was forced to sell the school building to the Prussian state as a result of the global economic crisis in 1932 . As a result, there was a break between Brisch and his party, because the OB had made this decision over the heads of the city council and the building was to house the girls' high school instead of an elementary school, including a secular one . That was a "hard blow" for the committed free school movement . In the same year, the State Girls' High School moved in at Easter . The then director Gustav Paschen enthusiastically commented on the new accommodation: “We now have an almost perfect school, wonderfully situated, light, air and sun in abundance, wonderful views of the wonderfully beautiful Bergisches Land . But inside, too, everything is almost perfectly beautiful and yet simple at the same time. ”Over the years, the name August-Dicke-Schule became synonymous with the lyceum for girls.

Nazi era and the years after

In 1932, a contemporary witness later reported , schoolgirls painted a swastika on the blackboard and “announced” that this was the “rising sun”, while other girls replied that it was the “setting”. Headmaster Paschen, originally a man with Christian principles who was also active as a presbyter , had already joined the NSDAP before January 1, 1933 and welcomed the " seizure of power " as the "beginning of a new era"; Other teachers were also members of Nazi organizations before 1933. Other teachers joined the party and other organizations, some of them under pressure to otherwise lose their jobs. From May 1933 school life was reorganized with a flood of ordinances in the Nazi sense. The students' reading was checked and books were burned. Paschen wanted as many girls as possible to become members of the BDM , a goal that was achieved in 1935 with 95 percent of the schoolgirls. This was the reason to hoist a Hitler Youth flag as part of a celebration in the schoolyard , as one of the first schools in the Rhine Province to achieve the specified target of 90 percent.

There were only a few Jewish pupils at the August-Dicke-Schule; in 1932 there were two girls out of a total of 420. In 1935 and 1936 three Jewish pupils were canceled without giving a reason. After the November pogroms in 1938 , the last two remaining Jewish girls from Paschen were dismissed on the grounds that "Jewess!" Gustav Paschen retired in 1939, but was active as district and local group leader of the NSDAP until his death the following year. Under his successor Hans Kahns, the school management “clearly” became “objectified”.

During the Second World War , in 1943, some of the schoolgirls who had not already been brought to safety by their families were evacuated to Apolda in Thuringia , and later other schoolgirls were evacuated to Oberhof . Only parts of the school were damaged in the bombing raids on November 4th and 5th, 1944 , while almost all of the nearby Solingen city center was destroyed. However, the damage subsequently occurred because the roof of the school building had become leaky and there were no more windows. Nevertheless, it was used by public services and to house 400 foreign forced laborers . On April 17, 1945, the Americans marched into Solingen and temporarily assigned the school to 1,500 Italian workers as quarters. No classes were held until October 1945. In the post-war period , until 1952, the building was used by the Schwertstrasse grammar school for boys and the August-Dicke school for girls at the same time, so that alternating lessons - in the afternoon or in the morning - had to take place.

In 1971 and 1972 the high school graduates refused traditional forms of high school graduation with speeches, choir and orchestra. “Characterized by uncertainty”, some of the schoolgirls had their Abitur certificates presented informally by school director Max Schöler in his office; instead of a celebration there was “discussion and provocation”. The high school graduates then published a “points program 71”, the introduction to which read: “We don't want to be cultured and belong to the world of consumers and cannibals! Do not pour the chocolate sauce of your interpretations over us! Don't educate us to crawl! ”The following year, 1973, there was a festive graduation party under the motto“ Like before ”.

School profile today

At the beginning of the 1972/73 school year, coeducation was introduced at the August-Dicke-School from grade 5 . In January 1974, like all state schools, the ADS was transferred to municipal sponsorship. A structural expansion took place - new building of the specialist room wing, sports hall and sports field - which was completed with the inauguration of the sports field in 1979.

The building of the August-Dicke-Schule with the number 147 has been a listed building since 1984.

Today around 800 pupils attend the August-Dicke-Schule (as of 2018) , of which 470 are in the lower secondary level, 351 in the upper secondary level and 24 in the side entry class.

At the beginning of the 2003/04 school year, a class with a mathematical and scientific profile was set up at the ADS. Since the beginning of the 2010/11 school year, another course with an artistic and musical focus has been offered.

A photo of the ADS schoolyard was the cover photo of the Google magazine Aufbruch - Mensch und Wirtschaft im digital change in summer 2020 . In the cover story of the magazine, an ADS teacher reported on her experiences with Google Classroom .

Former students

Former well-known students of the ADS are the painters Bettina Heinen-Ayech and Anneliese Everts , the medicine professor Emmi Hagen , the initiator of the Buddy Bear activities Eva Herlitz , the political scientist Hiltrud Naßmacher , the sculptor Gertrud Kortenbach , the baseball player Kai Gronauer and the soccer player Christoph Kramer .

Jenny Gusyk attended the Lyceum on Friedrichstrasse, the forerunner of the ADS. She was the first female student and first foreigner to be enrolled at the University of Cologne . Because of her Jewish origins, she was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944 .

literature

  • ...And yet she is moving! 125 years of the August-Dicke-Schule grammar school 1873–1998 . Festschrift. Rauhaus and Son, 1998.

Web links

Commons : August-Dicke-Schule  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Helene Thau (1843–1934) became the first director of the Protestant secondary school for girls in Limburg an der Lahn in 1884 , which was later named after her "Thau School". She worked as a teacher until she was 70 years old. See: Christina Pelz, Jacqueline Schewitz: Famous and Forgotten Hessians . Ed .: Equal rights department of the university town of Marburg. 2008.
  2. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 9.
  3. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 9.
  4. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 10.
  5. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 12.
  6. ↑ a b c d Christian Drees: The history of the August-Dicke-School. In: gymnasium-august-dicke.de. January 5, 2016, accessed November 16, 2018 .
  7. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 14.
  8. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 24.
  9. ^ Wilhelm Klein. Retrieved December 15, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b Marina Mutz: "Searching for Time Traces: Schools in Solingen". In: zeitspurensuche.de. Retrieved November 16, 2018 .
  11. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 57.
  12. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 58.
  13. ↑ Ralf Rogge, Armin Schulte, Kerstin Warncke: Solingen. Big city years 1929-2004 . Edited by the Solingen City Archives and the Solinger Tageblatt . Wartberg-Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1459-4 , p. 8.
  14. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 26.
  15. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 29 f.
  16. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 30.
  17. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 31.
  18. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 34.
  19. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 38.
  20. ↑ ... and yet it moves! , P. 39.
  21. ^ Association of former pupils Lyzeum August-Dicke-Schule Solingen . tape 3.1 , 1971, p. 9 f .
  22. ↑ Solingen Monument List Accessed on November 16, 2018.
  23. ↑ Christoph Henn: Via video conference on the Abitur , in: Aufbruch No. 20, June 2020, pp. 4–7.
  24. ↑ Cologne awards the Jenny Gusyk Prize. In: solinger-tageblatt.de. January 24, 2018, accessed December 15, 2018 .