Bremen school dispute

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The Bremen school dispute from 1905 to 1907 was the dispute over the reform of religious education and schools in Bremen .

history

Around 1900 Bremen already had a comparatively liberal form of teaching Biblical history with the history of the Bible without catechism lessons .

During the Bremen school dispute from 1905 to 1907, the teachers protested against the state religious instruction and the strict school supervision by the school inspector Köppe, who had been appointed since 1892 and who angered the teachers against himself through frequent visits and "official religious tests". At that time, Carl Jasper Oelrichs was Senator for Education and the Church . In 1905 a memorandum was published on religious instruction or not? with the main argument that religion is a private matter. The teachers, Wilhelm Holzmeier , Fritz Gansberg and Wilhelm Scharrelmann , who were significantly involved in the protests, wanted to remove the school authorities from school service. This was followed by an interrogation of Scharrelmann, which sparked protests. Approx. 425 teachers met on May 1, 1905 in the commercial building and wrote that they were worried about "the apparent disregard with which the school inspector disregarded the liberal traditions observed in religious instruction in the Bremen schools".

The teachers (including the Bremen Teachers' Association (BLV)) also campaigned for the abolition of state religious instruction . Appraisers were commissioned and statements submitted.

At a meeting on May 22, teachers almost unanimously passed a complaint against the school inspector. Holzmeier formulated the memorandum Religious instruction or not? which was passed on September 4th at a further meeting with 273 votes to 43. Following this demand, there were many different and violent comments throughout the German Reich.

The three teachers mentioned above were no longer allowed to give religious instruction. The school authorities wanted to continue dismissing her from school. The court involved rejected the dismissal and in 1907 they received a reprimand and a fine. Disciplinary proceedings were also initiated against the teachers Lüdeking and Gartelmann . The SPD party newspaper , the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung , supported the reform-oriented left-wing teachers such as Holzmeier and Johann Knief in the dispute and called for a standardized school, a work school and a secularization of the school system. In 1910 Holzmeier (SPD) was dismissed after all; violent demonstrations against it were unsuccessful.

Later development in Bremen

After the Second World War , the CDU wanted to introduce denominational religious instruction with the participation of the churches. The parliamentary majority (SPD, BVP ) in Bremen was able to get the state schools to offer biblical history without the participation of the churches. This was stipulated in 1947 in Article 32, Paragraph 1 ("The general public schools are community schools with non-denominational teaching in Biblical history on a generally Christian basis.") Of the Bremen State Constitution. In 1948/49, when the Basic Law was being drafted , an exception had to be made for Bremen from the provision of Article 7, Paragraph 3, Clause 1 of the Basic Law ("Religious instruction is a regular subject in public schools with the exception of non-denominational schools") by the so-called Bremen clause in Art. 141 GG.

An attempt by the Bremen Evangelical Church (BEK) in the 1960s that the Evangelical Church should be involved in religious instruction was unsuccessful. The Bremen State Court ruled in 1965 that biblical history lessons were "not confessionally bound" and therefore covered all confessional differences. The “general Christian basis” is not synonymous with the “basis of Protestant Christianity”.

See also

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meike Baader: Education as redemption. Transformations of the Religious in Reform Education. Contributions to basic educational research. Juventa, 2005, p. 132 u. 124.
  2. ^ Christian Grethlein : Religious Education . Walter de Gruyter, 1998, p. 69.
  3. ^ Letter of complaint from the teachers dated May 22, 1905: "... The schools in Bremen enjoyed a good reputation; the teachers, with inevitable exceptions, worked with joy, zeal and skill. They maintained a lively club life and pursued the educational and other more important intellectual endeavors of the time. During his official visits, the school inspector confronted these teachers as though they were devoid of all professional ability and all loyalty to duty. And that's how it stayed. Pedantry, police spirit, small business dealings drive their nature. A wrong schedule, a missed entry in the class register, a mistake overlooked while correcting are capital crimes. (...) The school inspector does not even behave in the class in front of the ears and eyes of the children in the most obnoxious way to court the teacher, to rebuke and to run at ... Unjustifiable is also the harsh, harsh, often Excessively violent manner in which the school inspector usually speaks to the children. It has not seldom happened that the children burst into tears over it ... "
  4. ↑ BREMSTGH of October 23, 1965, 189, quoted from BVerfGE 30, 112: Teaching in Biblical History .