Bertha Ramsauer

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Bertha Ramsauer (born November 14, 1884 in Oldenburg ; † July 12, 1947 there ) was an Oldenburg adult educator in the Pestalozzi tradition and one of the few women in the founding generation of the adult education movement.

Life

Bertha Ramsauer was the daughter of the railway director Peter Ramsauer (1840–1924) and his wife Marie b. Buddenberg. From 1902 to 1904 she completed the teachers' seminar in Wolfenbüttel and, after working for several years in a private school in Thuringia, got a job at the Oldenburg Cäcilienschule in 1908 . Three years later she took leave to sign up for a degree in English literature and history in Oxford and Göttingen for the teacher to qualify. The woman studying had just fought hard and Bertha Ramsauer took advantage of their opportunity successful: in December 1914, she put in Goettingen the top teachers exam and continued her teaching in Oldenburg as a secondary school teacher continued. In 1915 she became civil servant .

During the Weimar Republic , she increasingly devoted herself to adult education, which was Bertha Ramsauer's most educational and political phase. During this period of upheaval, she joined the left-liberal German Democratic Party and was elected to the Oldenburg city council. She was also active in the Wartburg Association and in the general German teachers' association. She held political meetings to encourage women to exercise their voting rights for the first time, to inform them about the political possibilities of democracy and to provide orientation in the confusing political landscape. At the same time, in 1918, she made an idealistic decision to change from her secure position as a teacher to the adult education system, which can only be guessed at in its future form. Since 1920 she devoted herself full-time to the development of the adult education system, first as director of the adult education center in Wangerooge , which had to close in 1923 due to the inflation-related financial crisis . Ramsauer then worked as a leader of courses and leisure time in Wilhelmshaven and Osternburg .

From 1923 the construction of the Edewecht adult education center (community Edewecht ) was the focus of her work. In 1911 incurred Moor colony Husbäke they realized a reform pedagogic concept of " social work in the bog " and focused on the education of young women without regard to political or sectarian directions. In accordance with the changed political and social conditions of the Weimar Republic , the course participants were required to be more independent and responsible. Bertha Ramsauer's pedagogy therefore aimed at the development of the individual personality and the strengthening of character through the training of intellectual abilities.

A central part of boarding school life was the integration of the female students into the everyday work of the population. The pupils lived here for six or twelve months in a community characterized by respect and tolerance. The educational offer included practical courses such as peat cultivation and the construction of home buildings, housekeeping lessons and school-like further training events, with an emphasis on art and cultural history as well as contemporary issues. In 1925 the home passed into the sponsorship of the Volkshochschulheimstiftung . During the global economic crisis , the field of activity of the Edewechts adult education center expanded when, at the time of the global economic crisis, concrete social work was carried out with the operation of a kindergarten. In 1932 a voluntary labor service for young women was added, which was to become an educational tool for understanding between people of different origins. From 1924 to 1935 she published the VHS sheets to accompany her practical work .

In the beginning of the Nazi era , Bertha Ramsauer initially took a leave of absence. However, her connection to the home in Husbäke was so strong that from 1934, despite serious concerns, she tried, in the face of internal conflicts and weighing the circumstances, to anticipate ideological conformity by taking up National Socialist teaching content and to continue her work. While the last independent adult education institutions were dissolved and placed under the Nazi organization “ Kraft durch Freude ” ( Strength through Joy ), Bertha Ramsauer succeeded in 1935 in subordinating the Edewecht adult education center to what she saw as a less restrictive Berlin women's leadership. Despite the critical voices of many friends, she continued to lead the institution.

A personal tragedy and the failure of this balancing act in 1937 meant the transfer of the “red” adult education center to a “ Reich mothers and brides school ”, a model institution of the German Women's Association . In the same year Bertha Ramsauer joined the NSDAP . The previous curricula of the adult education center were replaced and the ideological-political training of the Nazi women was subordinated, Bertha Ramsauer's independent educational work ended.

What followed in 1945 was a bitter realization for them. After a work ban by the occupying power and before its denazification , no public activity was allowed, although there was a need for Bertha Ramsauer's liberal pedagogy right now. With the help of her friend Theodor Tantzen, after 1945 she was only able to take part in the reconstruction of the Oldenburg school and adult education system for a short time, but soon had to retire due to illness.

Her grave is in the Oldenburg Gertrudenfriedhof . Bertha Ramsauer's estate is in the Lower Saxony State Archives , Oldenburg . The Bertha-Ramsauer-Stiftung , founded in 1975, keeps the memory of her and her adult pedagogical principles alive.

The Edewecht adult education center

Directly on the coastal canal in the Husbäke farming community, the stately clinker- style adult education center Edewecht was built on Kolonat 50 in 1923 . After the takeover by the Deutsche Frauenwerk , ancillary buildings and a main administration building were added, so that an open, three-wing building complex was created around a central courtyard. In April 1945, parts of the buildings were destroyed in the fighting on the coastal channel . After the Second World War , the buildings were used as a refugee camp, hospital, old people's home, house for civil protection and guest workers' dormitory.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NLA OL Erw 119 - Arcinsys detail page. Retrieved February 9, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Ramsauer, Bertha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German educator
DATE OF BIRTH November 14, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Oldenburg
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1947
Place of death Oldenburg