Eisleben mountain school

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Postcard with a view of the Eisleber mountain school

The Bergschule Eisleben was an educational institution for technical mine officials, which was founded on the initiative of the electoral Saxon government on July 14, 1798 in Eisleben in the southern Harz foreland (today: Saxony-Anhalt ). In 1968 the Eisleben mountain school was converted into the Eisleben engineering school , an engineering school for electrical engineering and mechanical engineering.

The training situation in mining and metallurgy in the 18th century

The intensification in mining and metallurgy associated with the blossoming of the natural sciences in the 16th and 17th centuries required management staff for this branch of industry who were able to apply the new knowledge in mining, mining and smelting. In the Mansfeld copper slate mining, the beginnings of which go back to the year 1200, the need for steers and smelters had grown by leaps and bounds at the beginning of the 18th century. On the general day of the Mansfeld “Eislebisch and Hettstedt trade unions” as the general assembly of the employers' association, it was decided in 1719 to provide young miners with scientific training. This followed the example of the Ore Mountains , where a scholarship fund was set up in Freiberg in 1702 to enable the prospective mining officials to take modern lessons in mining and smelting disciplines. The first lesson in Eisleben was carried out sporadically according to needs and possibilities. The first to be mentioned here is Bergzehnter and Markscheider Nicolaus Voigtel . In 1765 the Freiberg Mining Academy was established as the oldest mining university in the world. For the training of Mansfeld mountain officials in Freiberg, scholarships of up to 180 thalers were granted annually.

The establishment of the mountain school

The decision of the electoral Saxon government goes back to the year 1780 to have lessons given regularly in Eisleben. Christian Ottiliae , who returned to Eisleben at Easter 1798, was chosen among the Freiberg graduates to set up the independent Eisleben mountain school. The shift supervisors and jury were instructed to select suitable candidates for the school from their subordinate districts, while the Oberbergvogt Tölpe drafted the curriculum for "lessons in mining, mathematics, drawing and the art of marrowing under the special supervision of the directors". On July 14, 1798, the day the Eisleber Bergschule was founded, the first students selected by the shift supervisors and jury were accepted. Up to 1808, their number was a maximum of eight per year, in line with the needs of civil servants in the Mansfeld mining industry at that time. In addition, there were private listeners who took part in the lessons at their own expense. For everyone else, the costs were borne by the Mansfeld unions. Starting with three hours of lessons a week, the training lasted four years. Daily start-up in operation was a requirement.

Further development in the 19th century

In the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars , the mountain school had to stop teaching. When Freiherr von Stein called on the German people to liberate them from Napoleonic domination, the Eisleber mountain students fought with the region's miners in the Mansfeld Pioneer Battalion. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 brought the county of Mansfeld closed to Prussia , which also made the Prussian-Saxon mining border obsolete. Bergamt Eisleben and Oberbergamt Halle became the competent mining authorities of the Prussian state. In 1817 the Eisleber Bergschule received its first home in the St. Katharinenhospital (infirmary and retirement home for miners and miners' widows) founded in 1229, which was built from scratch in the Baroque era, in Eisleben, Sangerhäuser Str. 13. With the increase in the number of students and the expansion of the subject matter, it was also necessary to employ the first full-time teacher at the Eisleben mountain school. The then 26-year-old Bergeleve Ludwig Plümicke devoted himself to this task with great enthusiasm and made great contributions to the school and the town of Eisleben until he left in 1862 (“ My life at the mountain school has been so successful up to now that it was a pleasure for me The mountain school owed the foundation of its mineral collection and the school library to him. ")

20th century until today

The First World War

During the First World War , lessons continued with a reduced number of classes, and many mountain school students volunteered. Three teachers and 142 mountain students lost their lives in the war. The memorial stone, erected in her honor in 1922, was re-erected on 14 October 1993 at the initiative of the traditional mountain school association after a changeful fate in the period after the Second World War .

New beginning after the Second World War

After the Second World War, the material and technical basis for the new beginning at the Eisleben mountain school was catastrophic. The mountain school had been used as barracks by the Soviet occupying forces in 1945. Part of the inventory could be moved to the assembly hall of today's secondary school on Schloßplatz, which was then used by various authorities. The majority of the former teachers, as active members of the NSDAP and its organizations, were unsuitable for educational work in line with the given anti-fascist goals. In addition, the representatives of the Soviet occupying power strove to reorganize the technical school system in their occupation zone, which also involved a radical change in the school organization.

The mountain school during the GDR era

The school, operated by the “Eisleber Bergschulverein eV” under capitalist conditions, was made public property by ordinance of the Presidential Government of the Province of Saxony. With its orders for the opening and further development of the engineering and technical schools, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) expressed its confidence in the forces it had appointed and gave them political responsibility for technical schools, for the Eisleben mining school, which is now the mining engineering school of the state government of Saxony- Stop. In contrast to the old school rules, which provided for a change in school attendance and working shifts in the shafts and huts every week (in addition to acquiring practical skills and obtaining the financial means for each student's studies), the students could now all in one Dedicate two-year studies to steiger (technician) or three years to engineer fully to study work.

In autumn 1948 the old mountain school building was finally available again. The temporarily relocated mineral collection, the few remaining teaching aids and the school library were moved to their old location and were gradually supplemented and renewed, mainly through the initiative of teachers and students with the support of the companies. The now possible laboratory lessons, however, had only primitive requirements. The machine laboratory in today's Plümicke building, built in 1934, was very small; other laboratories were temporarily housed in basement rooms. The steadily growing number of students (in 1948/49 230, from 1949 the third specialization in metallurgy and foundry technology was added) led to the fact that all rooms in the building that were moved into in 1903 had to be used for this purpose. The technical school teachers only had a larger common room for teachers as a lounge, preparation room and conference room.

The average age of the students at that time was about 26 years. This was due to the professional experience of 3 years before starting studies, which was required. at the same time it was also an effect of the criminal war which had deprived a whole generation of young people of normal professional development.

Due to the historical development and the professional conditions in the mining industry, there were initially only male students. The first matriculation of a woman in the new field of metallurgy and foundry technology was a real sensation at the school.

In March 1950, the first mining and mining machine engineers, who had started their training in 1947, were able to start working in business after passing their final exams. A year earlier there were the first post-war graduates who completed a course that had begun before 1945 and was then broken off by the war.

Conversion to the Eisleben engineering school

The sharp decline in mining in Europe, which did not stop at the GDR, made it necessary at the end of the 1960s to consider the future fate of the traditional educational institution. In view of the rapid development of microelectronics and computer technology and taking into account the greatly expanding field of mountain electrical engineering at the school, the government took the decision in 1968 to change the profile of the Eisleben mountain school to an engineering school for electrical engineering and mechanical engineering ( Eisleben engineering school ) and to phase out the mining training. In 1971, distance learning mining engineers were the last to leave the school.

literature

  • Hans Raeck: History of the Eisleber mountain school 1798-1928 , Eisleben 1928. Reprint Querfurt 1993, ISBN 3-928498-22-3 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 31 ′ 27 ″  N , 11 ° 33 ′ 14 ″  E