Elisabeth Paul

Elisabeth Paul (born April 25, 1895 in Darmstadt ; † February 4, 1991 in London ), née Elisabeth Selver, was a German literary scholar and reform pedagogue who emigrated to Great Britain in 1936 together with her future husband , where she lived in London for a few years in 1937 previously founded school and expanded it into a non-denominational and co-educational school that was respected for decades . According to its self-image, this St. Mary's Town and Country School was a reform pedagogical institution that can be assigned to the schools in exile .

Elisabeth Selver's life before emigration

Family and school education

Elisabeth Paul was born as Elisabeth Selver on April 25, 1895 in Darmstadt. In her curriculum vitae she only mentions her father, whose professional position she describes as “Grand Hermione. Rabb. ip “. David Selver was born on February 24, 1856 in Chajowa, near the town of Blaszki, in what was then the Russian Empire. He died three years after his daughter's doctorate on May 12, 1926 in Darmstadt. The mother, Amalie Selver, nee Neustein, who was born on August 27, 1867 in Nuremberg and died on May 17, 1948 in Rugby (Warwickshire) , is not mentioned in the curriculum vitae . Elisabeth's older brother, Paul Friedrich, was born on January 10, 1893 in Darmstadt and died in the First World War; May 27, 1915 is entered as the date of death in the population register.

Residence of the family of the former Darmstadt rabbi Dr. David Selver

Elisabeth Selver reports only very briefly about her school days in her curriculum vitae: From Easter 1901 she attended the Reineck seminar and the Viktoriaschule , "which I left after reaching the school goal at Easter 1911".

At the same time as Elisabeth Selver, the later musicologist Elisabeth Noack also attended the Victoria School. Probably since that time the two had a lifelong friendship, which we will return to later.

Stays abroad and studies

The school goal achieved by Elisabeth Selver in 1911 only corresponded to the small matriculation , especially common for women at the time , which only allowed limited access to the university or training at a (elementary school) teacher’s seminar. Selver did not initially make use of these options. From May to Christmas 1911 and again from October 1912 to March 1913, she studied in Nancy , where she acquired a diploma from the Alliance française and a “Certificat d'études de français” from the university there. Subsequently, from April to October 1913, she went to Great Britain and attended the Royal Albert Memorial College at the University of Exeter . The stay ended with the successful "Exam of the Summer Meeting" at the University of Oxford .

44 students began their studies at the recently founded Royal University of Frankfurt am Main in the winter semester of 1914/15 , one of them was Elisabeth Selver. “Due to the small matriculation, I attended lectures and seminars in the field of modern philology at the University of Frankfurt from the winter semester 1914/15 to the end of the semester in 1917 . At Easter 1918 I passed the matriculation examination at the college in Darmstadt. ”According to a confirmation from the rector at the time on October 8, 1917, the university preparations for the matriculation examination were completed at the end of the 1917 summer semester.

In the summer semester of 1918 Selver studied at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and switched to the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg for the winter semester 1918/19 . In her résumé she does not report anything about the content of her studies at these two universities. Instead she writes: “From 1918 until now I studied at the University of Frankfurt a. M. “This entry on the resume may not be accurate. In the documents of the University Archives in Frankfurt there is no registration card from Selver from 1918 that confirms your re-registration, but there is a registration card from May 8, 1919. The name of the last visited university is Heidelberg. Your place of residence there at Leerbachstrasse 12 is crossed out on the card and marked “canceled”. On this registration card, however, Frankfurt should have been the last place to study if Selver had been studying in Frankfurt as early as 1918, as stated in his résumé.

Selver doesn't write anything in her résumé about the content of her studies in Frankfurt. However, the registration cards for the university say that she was registered for "Modern Philology". Accordingly, her oral examination subjects in the context of her doctorate were also “Germanic Philology”, “Romance Philology” and “English Philology”. The courses she had attended in preparation for the high school diploma from 1914 to 1917 also moved in the context of this canon.

Your curriculum vitae ends with a thank you to “ Prof. Schultz , who suggested my dissertation”. As further professors with whom she studied, she mentions Hans Cornelius in Frankfurt, Johannes Hoops in Heidelberg, Hans Naumann in Frankfurt, Fritz Neumann in Heidelberg, Julius Petersen in Frankfurt and Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke in Bonn. Her dissertation is entitled “The cyclical construction of Stefan Georges' poems: from the 'hymns' to the' carpet of life '”. The "minutes of the oral doctoral examination of Miss Elisabeth Selver" from July 27, 1923 ended with the overall grade "good".

Stimulator and pioneer

As previously quoted, it is said to have been the Frankfurt new Germanist Franz Schultz who gave Selver the inspiration for her dissertation. Schultz had been appointed to Julius Petersen's chair in Frankfurt in 1921 as successor to Julius Petersen. Between 1921 and 1950 his repertoire consisted of events on contemporary authors, including George, Rilke and Hauptmann, and in the summer of 1922 he announced, among other things, an event "German contemporary poets", which in the winter of 1922/23 will be the event " German poetry of the latest time ”followed. However, there were no corresponding publications by him on this topic then and to this day, but this does not exclude the alleged influence on the choice of the dissertation topic. The time frame for this influence would have been tight. Since Elisabeth Selver had already completed her dissertation in the first half of 1923, but Schultz had only started teaching in Frankfurt in the winter semester 1921/22, this would mean that she had little more than a year to choose a topic and work on the dissertation would have. It is therefore obvious that other impulses than those of Schultz could have influenced the choice of the dissertation topic.

In Karl and Hanna Wolfskehl's correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf, there is a note from the editors: "David Selver, the rabbi of the Darmstadt Jewish community, had a friendly and probably pastoral relationship with the Darmstadt families Gundelfinger and Wolfskehl." Gundelfinger is the original family name of Friedrich Gundolf.

This close relationship between the three families indicated here is also emphasized several times in other sources, for example in the correspondence between Friedrich Gundolf and Elisabeth Salomon published by Gunilla Eschenbach and Helmuth Mojem . In a letter from Gundolf to Elisabeth Salomon from Darmstadt printed there on November 22, 1918, he wrote: “I lead a much quieter life here than in Berlin, only see Kühners or Selvers and de Haans.” The editors comment on this network of relationships explained on the same page as follows: “Kühners or Selvers and de Haans. Darmstadt acquaintances; Else Kühner, Ernst Gundolf's friend , the family of Rabbi David Selver (1856–1926), with whose daughter Elisabeth (1895–1991), later married Paul, FG was friends - she was supposed to write a dissertation on George's poetry in 1923 - the Family of the conductor Willem de Haan (1849–1930), Karl Wolfskehl's father-in-law. "

These close family-friendly relationships lead - especially through the people of Karl Wolfskehl and Friedrich Gundolf - directly to Stefan George and to the inner circle of the George circle . It is reasonable to assume that Elisabeth Selver received the crucial impetus for her dissertation from this private environment - and that long before she met Franz Schultz in Frankfurt. Elisabeth Selver's friend, Elisabeth Noack, points out this in a letter dated December 27, 1957: “The importance of the poet Stefan George was recognized early on in the Selver house and the contact with the George circle through Karl Wolfskehl (..) to the event. This is how it became for Dr. Elisabeth Paul-Selver felt it was an imperative to do a doctorate with a thesis on Stefan George. ”And Hertha Luise Busemann also assumes in the final report of the research project on the Kaliski private forest school that the dissertation topic“ after the friendship between her father and Karl Wolfskehl , who belonged to the George Circle, was probably not chosen by chance ”.

In addition, Elisabeth Selver's relations with Friedrich Gundolf must have been very close, familiar and amicable, as can be seen from a letter from him dated April 15, 1920, again in Darmstadt, to Elisabeth Salomon: “Yesterday I took a nice spring walk with me the beautiful Liesel S. made, picked primroses and sung your praise: especially the beauty of your face was praised and again the line from nose to upper lip (...) I hardly see things like that - I thought of your legs, but did not praise them. “After Eschenbach / Mojem, Liesel S. is none other than Elisabeth Selver.

The years 1923 to 1931

Elisabeth Selver's curriculum vitae from the doctoral file is the last document that provides direct information about her life for many years. Her traces end with her dissertation. According to an entry from 1919 that documents a temporary stay in Frankfurt, she was only mentioned again in 1932 in the Darmstadt registry. The date entered is April 25, 1932, the date of her de-registration for Berlin.

On October 20, 1952, Elisabeth Paul applied for compensation in Berlin under the Federal Compensation Act. Three years later, on July 16, 1955, she submitted a detailed justification that contains many biographical details. She provides new information especially for her time after her doctorate. She writes: “After working at the Hochwaldhausen mountain school and at the pedagogy in Darmstadt from 1926 to 1930, I continued my language studies at the Collège de France , Paris. In 1931 I went to Berlin and initially worked at the Kaliski private school, whose French department was set up by me. ”In a letter dated December 27, 1959 to the compensation office, Elisabeth Noack specified her friend's time somewhat: You are both worked at the Hochwaldhausen Mountain School in 1923 and 1924, and Elisabeth Selver taught French, German and cultural studies there.

It is therefore possible that Elisabeth Selver then stayed in Paris from 1926 to 1930. It is questionable whether she only conducted language studies there. In the letter from her friend already mentioned, it rather says: "At the Collège de France she was a personal student of Charles Andler , the well-known Nietzsche researcher who had written the French standard work on Nietzsche." Andler had held the chair for Germanic languages ​​and literatures since 1926 at the Collège de France.

In a letter from her lawyer Dr. Karl Leonhard dated May 14, 1968, had Elisabeth Paul inform the Berlin Regional Court in her compensation case “that she initially stayed in Paris from 1930 to 1932 to prepare her thesis and later lived in Darmstadt on her own”. It remains to be seen whether this will extend the time frame originally specified by Paul from 1926 to 1930. What is interesting, however, is the reference to their “thesis”. That would mean that she had also prepared for a habilitation in Paris . However, there is no further information on this.

In the foreword to his 1933 book on the Influence of French Symbolism on the Revival of Poetics in Germany, Enid Lowry Duthie referred to both Gundolf and Karl Wolfskehl, then went on: “Mademoiselle Elizabeth Selver was my persistent friend, whose advice and encouragement were the greatest help. Your caring has smoothed out many difficulties for me, and I ask you to accept my heartfelt thanks. ”Unfortunately, it does not say where and when Duthie met Selver. However, it can be assumed that this took place in connection with her study visit to Paris.

The years 1932 to 1936

Between Paris and Berlin

In the previous section there are two contradicting statements by Selver about her time after her stay in Paris. Once she claims to have gone to Berlin as early as 1931, then again she lets the court know that from 1930 to 1932 she stayed first in Paris and later in Darmstadt. One thing is certain: the last entry concerning her in the Darmstadt population register dates from April 25, 1932 and officially documents her move to Berlin. It is doubtful, however, whether she was living in Darmstadt at the time. In her doctoral documents in the archive of the University of Frankfurt there is an exchange of correspondence between Selver and the university from May to July 1932. Selver asks the university to issue her with a certified copy of her doctoral degree, since she has lost the original. The sender on both letters, initially a postcard and in July on a typewritten letter, is noted in each case: Dr. E. Selver, Zwingenberg i. H., Orbisweg, House Kühner. Although she was already deregistered in Darmstadt at this point, her mother still lived there at the old address. Has she lived in "Haus Kühner" for some time, or was it just a temporary stopover? In a letter dated December 5, 1955 from the Compensation Office in Berlin, Elisabeth Selver Zwingenberg on Bergstrasse was officially determined to be the last domestic place of residence.

What the "Kühner House" is all about emerges from Part 2 of "Karl Wolfskehl's Correspondence from New Zealand 1938–1948". In a letter from Wolfskehl dated December 18, 1947 to Kurt Frener, Wolfskehl wrote: “Hello everyone, go to Zwingenberg to see Else Kühner, don't you know her? Otherwise just come over to her and tell her a bit about me and that I, blind and tired of old age, simply cannot write to everyone and only get a few hours a week to dictate. "Else Kühner (see section" Stimulators and trailblazers ") belonged to the circle of friends around the Gundolf, Wolfskehl and Selver families. Gundolf mentioned her in a letter to Elisabeth Salomon dated November 12, 1916. Kühner, who, according to Gundolf, was said to have lived in the house at Klappacher Strasse 8 in Darmstadt at that time, is characterized by the editors of the correspondence as follows: “Else Kühner (1870–1957 ), a close friend of Ernst Gundolf, was a teacher in Darmstadt. “It is not known when Else Kühner moved to Zwingenberg, nor is it known how close her relationship with Elisabeth Selver was. However, it can be considered certain that Elisabeth Selver's friend and later husband, Heinrich (Heinz) Paul, also belonged to Kühner's group and frequented their house (see below).

Elisabeth Selver's mother, Amalie Selver, was also closely related to Else Kühner. This emerges from the reparation file for their estate, which contains an explanation of the application from Elisabeth Selver, according to which her mother lived "with a friend, Miss Kühnert in Zwingenberg until she emigrated to England in the summer of 1937". In an affidavit from Else Kühnert in the same file, however, it says that Amalie Selver "last lived with me in Darmstadt, Grüner Weg 37 until she emigrated to England in November 1937".

The time at the private forest school Kaliski

The private forest school Kaliski (PriWaKi) founded by Lotte Kaliski was opened in early 1932 in the grandstand building of today's Berlin Mommsen Stadium , Waldschulallee 34-42 . Its director, in turn, was Heinrich Selver (born 1901 in Blaszki; died 1957 in Paris), a cousin of Elisabeth Selver. The school founder herself said that “Selvers cousin taught at the school in the early days”. Unfortunately, the time span “in the beginning” is nowhere specified, and Busemann et al. leave this open when you write: In 1932 Heinrich Selver took over the management of the Kaliski Forest School and “the first thing he did was get his cousin Dr. Elisabeth Selver from Darmstadt joins the college. However, she soon left the Kaliski forest school to found her own school. ”However, Werner Fölling is a little more specific in his contribution to the final report of the research project on the PriWaKi. He mentions Elisabeth Selver in a list of teachers as a German teacher in 1932/33. And Fölling gives another clue: Elisabeth Selver's fiancé was also a teacher at PriWaKi at the turn of 1932/33. This can only mean Heinrich Paul (see below), which is confirmed by a letter from Elisabeth Selver's lawyer Karl Leonhard. On September 11, 1967, he wrote to the Berlin Regional Court: “Heinz Paul was the plaintiff's fiancé at the time. He left the Kalisky-Wald-Schule, where he had also taught, in order to be legally able to transfer the Aryan students of the Kalisky-Wald-Schule to the plaintiff's newly founded forest school, which he did without further ado succeeded. "

From Elisabeth Selver one learns nothing beyond the sentence already quoted that she went to Berlin in 1931 and initially worked there in the private school Kaliski, whose French department she had built up. It is possible that she was already in Berlin before the PriWaKi was founded, but it is likely that contact with the school first came about through her cousin. And the statement that she was responsible for the “establishment of the French department” at the school is more due to the fact that she was improving her claims in the compensation process, rather than reality. Apart from her as a teacher, the “French department” is unlikely to have had more members.

Her lawyer Leonhard commented on Selver's departure from the PriWaKi in the letter dated September 11, 1967, cited earlier. In it he explains: “At the end of 1932, her teaching permit was revoked, although the German national official in the Ministry of Education had expressly assured her that there would be no difficulties would be made. (…) As a result, the plaintiff no longer entered the Kalisky Forest School, but immediately founded her own school with her own means or with the means of her mother and with the help of the mother of one of her pupils. ”Should this actually have been the revocation of the teaching permit , then - at the end of 1932 - no racist reasons should have been decisive, but formal ones: the lack of exams for a job in the school service, which later prompted Elisabeth Selver to make up for the secondary school teacher exam.

Setting up a school and fleeing

Elisabeth Selver's official tracks in Berlin remain in the dark. Unlike her later husband, Heinrich Paul, she is not listed in the Berlin address books of that time. Registration entries from her do not exist or no longer exist due to the war. However, in the following years she set up her own private school together with Heinrich Paul (see section “The Private Forest School Heinz Paul”) before she emigrated to Great Britain in 1935, and she obviously lived there with Heinrich Paul. On November 29, 1956, Elisabeth Noack affirmed on oath “that Dr. Elisabeth Selver, now Mrs. Paul, directed the forest school in Ruhleben, Charlottenburg 9, Wacholderweg 7b, with Mr. Heinz Paul, who lived in the school together with her mother, Mrs. Amalie Selver ”. On November 30, 1956, Noack made another affidavit stating "Elisabeth Paul had her last domestic residence before emigrating at the address of the school in Berlin-Charlottenburg 9, Am Wacholderweg 8, and lived there". It is actually inconceivable that this should have remained hidden from the Secret State Police , but there is a letter dated March 3, 1942 to the Chief Financial Officer in Berlin, Asset Valuation Branch. Its subject is: “Jewess Elisabeth Sara Selver, born April 25, 1895 Darmstadt, last Bln.-Charlottenburg, Joachimsthalerstr. 7/8 lived. “It is not known when and whether Elisabeth Selver ever lived at this address, nor is it known why there is no entry in the address book.

Despite the difficulties with which the school had to struggle from the beginning, Elisabeth Selver received the “Certificate of Qualification as a High School Teacher” on August 31, 1933 after a previous examination. In her letter of July 16, 1955, already quoted above, she justified this by saying that it was important to her "to have this qualification in addition to my academic qualifications".

In this letter, she then sheds light on the background to her flight to Great Britain:

“In 1935, however, the fact that I was engaged to an 'Aryan' meant that my position at the school could not be maintained. I was in constant danger of being persecuted for racial disgrace, the porter's wife had already threatened me by shouting words like racial disgrace after me. I was therefore forced not to come back from the long vacation that I took in June 1935. My last German place of residence was therefore Berlin-Charlottenburg. "

Asset management and expropriation

Heinrich Paul explains in his compensation proceedings that the money to finance the "Private Forest School Heinz Paul" he opened came from Elisabeth Selver and her mother Amalie. This indicates that the Selver family must have been reasonably wealthy. However, no statement can be made about this fortune about the property, which still brought rental income until the mid-1930s, and the mother's rabbi pension. However, there must still have been cash, otherwise the founding of schools in Berlin and London would hardly have been possible. The bank balances that were then claimed in the reparation proceedings (see below) are likely to have been amounts of lesser importance in comparison. The compulsory administration of the house is likely to have led to a serious cut.

Receivership

The house at Landwehrstrasse 12 with a total of four apartments was opened on January 13, 1936 as part of a notarized donation from Amalie Selver. The mother had a right of usufruct, documented by the land registry, on the excess of the incoming rent after deduction of all costs. At that time - and until October 1938 - "the sworn auditor", graduate commercial teacher J. Simon "from Darmstadt acted as the long-standing administrator of the property. The rent payments will continue to be made to the mother's account at the Kann & Schack bank in Darmstadt.

At the beginning of 1938 the authorities must have become aware of the Selvers property, because from now on there is an extensive correspondence between the administrator Simon and the "Foreign Exchange Office of the Chief Finance President Hesse" in Darmstadt and then with the "Foreign Exchange Office at the Chief Finance President Berlin". On April 29, 1938, Simon received the approval notice from the latter to accept the monthly rents (of the now fully rented house) up to a maximum of 360 RM as administrator. According to the records, the monthly surplus from this income was probably 20 to 30 RM.

On October 3, 1938, Simon wrote to the foreign exchange office in Berlin, “that the mother, too, has become a foreigner under foreign exchange law because she has also moved to England or will not return from a visit to England to see her daughter.” he informed that he had to hand over the property management due to a legal order. This will be handed over to Willy Faulmann, Darmstadt, Lichtenbergstrasse 33, who is already in charge of other property management companies ordered under foreign exchange law. Despite this compulsory administration, the Selvers retained a certain power of disposal over the incoming funds, because on September 7, 1939 the foreign exchange office granted Faulmann the right to pay out RM 25 per month from the rent surplus to Miss Mali Goldstein, Schlageterstrasse 101, Darmstadt. This was based on a written request from Elisabeth Selver of August 15, 1939 to Faulmann; she wanted to increase her cousin's previous support from RM 10 per month.

So far, all processes have been handled according to foreign exchange regulations and the funds have been collected via an administrative account for foreigners that formally maintained property rights (but not disposal), a final letter in the file indicates a serious change. On January 8, 1942, the foreign exchange office at the head of finance in Berlin wrote to Faulmann for his request for a further foreign exchange permit: “Provided that the aforementioned assets fall under the Eleventh Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Act of November 25, 1941 and are therefore forfeited by the German Reich foreign exchange approval is no longer required. ”That said: The Selvers were stripped of their German citizenship and property.

expropriation

In an attachment to the letter from the Berlin Secret State Police of March 3, 1942 to the Chief Financial Officer Berlin, 'Vermögensverwertung' branch office, two items are listed as secured assets:
“1.) The account at the Konversionskasse for German foreign debts, Berlin C 11 No. 4546.036 with a balance of around 778 RM,
2.) a residential property in Darmstadt, Landwehrstr. 12, registered at the Darmstadt District Court, District 3, Volume 26, Sheet 1251. The property has a unit value of 33,100 RM and is encumbered with 1 mortgage for 10,600 RM. It has already been recorded by the Reich Commissioner for the Treatment of Enemy Property and is being used by Willy Faulmann, Darmstadt, Lichtenbergstr. 33, administered. "On November 25, 1942, with reference to the land registry data, the following decree was issued by the Chief Finance President Berlin-Brandenburg to the Chief Finance President Darmstadt:" The property referred to above fell into the hands of the Reich. I have arranged the correction of the land register. (...) I hereby entrust you with the management and exploitation of the property in accordance with Section 3a of the above-mentioned decree. ”On March 8, 1943, a“ simplified notification of transfer of ownership by the Darmstadt District Court ”was issued, which announced that on March 5, 1943, the German Reich, represented by the regional finance president Berlin-Brandenburg, has been registered as the owner of the land in Darmstadt, District 3.

But the “legalized robbery”, as an exhibition created by the Fritz Bauer Institute on the “Treasury and plundering of the Jews in Hesse 1933–1945” was titled, did not end there. On February 27, 1943, the Oberfinanzpräsident Berlin ordered the transfer of the above-mentioned cash balance of 778 RM plus interest to the Oberfinanzkasse Berlin vis-à-vis the Konversionskasse for German foreign debts. And before that, in a letter dated January 13, 1943, the still incumbent manager of the property, Willy Faulmann, had pointed out to the chief finance president in Berlin-Brandenburg that there were also realizable assets in the house. He mentions some older furniture from the Selvers, which a valuer estimated at RM 282. Perhaps he was hoping for a sale on his own and an extra profit that could be achieved for himself. But as early as April 22, 1943, the Darmstadt-Stadt tax office informed the Chief Finance President of Berlin-Brandenburg: “I have disposed of the furnishings belonging to the Jewess Selvers on Landwehrstrasse 12 in Darmstadt. The sale proceeds amount to RM 582.35. Today I instructed my finance office to transfer the above amount to the postal check account (...) of your Oberfinanzkasse (...). ”The file ends with the confirmation of receipt of the Oberfinanzkasse of the Oberfinanzpräsident Berlin-Brandenburg on May 4, 1943.

Refund of the building

In the land register files at the Darmstadt District Court there is a reference to Elisabeth Selver's application for reimbursement of June 26, 1948. The application was directed against the “German Reich, Oberfiananzpräsident Berlin-Charlottenburg”, represented by the “Hessian State Ministry, Minister of Finance, Wiesbaden”. The return of the house at Landwehrstrasse 12 in Darmstadt and the three parcels belonging to it to Elisabeth Selver took place in accordance with occupation law. The decision carried the note: "The remittance is made in accordance with the American Military Government Act No. 59 by resolution of the Office for Asset Control and Reparation, Darmstadt, dated November 3, 1949."

On March 8, 1954, Elisabeth Selver received the approval notice from the Landeszentralbank von Hessen for 2,500 DM “for the reconstruction or repair of the property in Darmstadt, Landwehrstr. 12 ". This mortgage would be entered in the land register in favor of the State of Hesse, represented by the Minister of Finance. Four years later, on April 22, 1958, the property purchase agreement between Elisabeth Selver and a Darmstadt couple was signed in front of a Darmstadt notary. Elisabeth Selver was represented by Dr. Elisabeth Noack , her former schoolmate. The house changed hands for 35,000 DM.

Elisabeth Paul and her life after emigration

The further life story of Elisabeth Selver, now Elisabeth Paul since her marriage on April 21, 1937, is inseparable from the story of “St. Mary's Town and Country School ”, of which she was the defining figure.

The St. Mary's School

→ Main article : St. Mary's Town and Country School

The school saw itself as a private, non-denominational, co-educational and progressive school. This progressive stands for the British variant of what is called reform pedagogy in Germany . Heinrich Paul had worked for some time at the Bondy Schools , Elisabeth Paul, as mentioned above, at the Hochwaldhausen Mountain School and, for a short time, at the Kaliski private forest school run by her cousin . Then both had founded the private forest school Heinz Paul . How strongly both were inclined to the ideas of reform pedagogy cannot be said. Elisabeth Paul, who was the determining force of St. Mary's School , also resorted to the reform pedagogical classics to concretise her pedagogical approach, but preferred above all Frederick Matthias Alexander and the Alexander Technique he founded .

It was Elisabeth Paul, who must have had an autocratic assertiveness, who led the school through the war years and made it a very successful private school in the 1960s and 1970s. The extent to which émigré children have attended school in the few pre-war and war years can hardly be conclusively assessed, but the school evidently attracted parents from artistic and diplomatic circles.

The school was originally a day school. The evacuations during the war turned it into a boarding school. After the war it was again a day school with a rather small proportion of boarding students. The addition to the name “Country School” is primarily due to the Hedgerley Wood ( location ) property acquired in 1954 near Chinnor in the Chiltern Hills . To Hedgerley Wood , which was acquired with a small swimming pool and all facilities for games and projects included a large forest area. It was a weekend home for a small group of boarding and day pupils, and also for a Franco-British summer school for children. The lower grade (“Junior School”) regularly spent a week or more there with their class teachers in the summer months. This concept corresponded less to that of the educational reform-oriented rural education homes than to that of the school country homes .

The school was popular and well attended. While in 1951 144 girls and boys of all ages, including 17 boarding school students, attended school, in 1974 there were 186 girls and boys between the ages of 4 and 16.

The person Elisabeth Paul

There are no specific references to Elisabeth Paul's private life, only impressions from different generations of students. The picture that emerges from the memories of former students is contradictory: she was revered as someone who gave suggestions that remained formative for life, and she is described as a very eccentric person.

→ Main article : Elisabeth Paul's contradictions

A film about the school is available on one of the websites about St. Mary's School . The film, in which Elisabeth Paul also speaks in detail, is a short but very impressive document that also gives a good impression of Elisabeth Paul's personality. Still images from it, which contrast the seventy-year-old at the time with images from 1928 and 1932, can be seen on the school homepage.

Elisabeth Paul's Compensation Procedure

Making amends on one's own behalf

On October 20, 1952, Elisabeth Paul submitted her application to the Compensation Office in Berlin on the basis of the law on compensation for victims of National Socialism . The procedure that was set in motion was only concluded with the implementation decision of November 17, 1969.

On February 7, 1957, the Compensation Office granted Elisabeth Paul an advance payment of DM 2,000 for the first time, which was to be offset against a decision of April 21, 1961 for a total of 16,650. The problem with this, which became the subject of protracted legal battles, was that Elisabeth Paul was only awarded compensation for members of the senior service , while she insisted on equality with a member of the higher service , and she was denied the right to choose a pension. Due to an ongoing lawsuit, the Compensation Office offered a settlement for DM 40,000 on September 11, 1962, to which the aforementioned DM 16,650 should be offset. In addition, the case should also be considered settled by the settlement.

The background to the settlement offer was an internal note from the compensation office dated June 18, 1962, in which the position of the office was presented as risky and the non-classification in the higher service as possibly legally incorrect. The desired settlement never came about, however, because the legal dispute continued, which only came to an end with a judgment of the Berlin Regional Court on September 30, 1968. Elisabeth Selver was right on many points in the judgment, especially on the question of classification and the compensation payments derived from it. It is true that the court is of the opinion that it cannot be ascertained “that in the relevant period she has achieved an income of 8,200 RM annually based on her own work, which is necessary for the placement in the higher service.” It but then executes:

“However, the plaintiff's social position, which is determined by the validity in public life based on her previous education, her achievements and abilities, justifies the coveted upgrade to the comparable civil service group. (...) As the director and co-owner of her own school, she enjoyed the same reputation as a civil servant. In addition, the applicant had received her doctorate from the University of Frankfurt and diplomas from the Universities of Nancy and Oxfort, which increased her standing in her profession as head of a private school. The plaintiff was therefore to be classified in the higher service because of her social position. "

At the end of October 1968, attorney Leonhard declared on behalf of his client a waiver of legal remedies, which was followed by the above-mentioned execution notice of the compensation office. In this, Elisabeth Paul was awarded a further lump-sum compensation of 9,497.49 DM in addition to the DM 40,000 already granted in the decision of September 11, 1962, and the retroactive pension entitlement was confirmed, which led to a total of 30,331 DM in arrears and an ongoing monthly payment Pension payment of DM 622.

Amalie Selver redress case

Almost at the same time as her own trial, on October 18, 1952, Elisabeth Paul had filed an application for redress under the “Law for the Compensation of National Socialist Injustices” on behalf of her deceased mother, Amalie Selver . Claims were made for damage to property and assets as well as damage to economic progress in general. This formal application was preceded by an informal application dated March 9, 1950.

As her mother's heir, Elisabeth Paul asserts claims for furniture left behind in Darmstadt, withdrawn bank balances, demanded Jewish property tax and withheld rent payments. In addition, there were claims because of the mother's initially reduced and then completely withheld payments from her widow's pension. The file shows that parts of these demands were already asserted by Elisabeth Paul in connection with the application for the return of her Darmstadt house (see above), but that they were rejected at that time.

Elisabeth Paul was represented by the former Darmstadt, now London attorney, Friedrich Mainzer, both in the retransfer proceedings and in the current reparation proceedings. Dr. Friedrich (Fritz) Mainzer (born March 17, 1875 in Darmstadt - † August 15, 1955 in London) was already her father's lawyer when he was resigned as rabbi by the Darmstadt Jewish community. The proceedings were ended by a settlement that secured David Selver early retirement with a pension entitlement. This pension entitlement, in turn, resulted in the claim to subsequent payment of the reduced or withheld widow's pension.

Mainzer's Darmstadt law practice was attacked and devastated during the pogrom night in 1938 and he was subsequently banned from working. In the spring of 1939 he emigrated to Great Britain and from May 1940 was able to work in London as a "lawyer on continental law". The house in Mainz, which belonged to Osannstrasse until his emigration. 11 in Darmstadt was the center of the Jewish community in Darmstadt after 1948 and until autumn 1988.

The compensation authority at the Darmstadt Regional Council rejected all claims resulting from the widow's pension - DM 6,720.00 - in a decision dated May 16, 1953. The consequence of this were long-standing legal disputes before the Darmstadt Regional Court and the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court, during which Paul’s London lawyer Mainzer died and their Darmstadt lawyer handed over his law firm to his successor. On January 27, 1955, the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt sentenced the State of Hesse, represented by the Hessian Minister of the Interior, to the payment of 6,720.00 DM in pensions and to the assumption of extrajudicial costs, and as a result, the regional council also granted a partial decision of 7 April 1955 another 200.00 DM as compensation for transport costs. This total amount of 6,920.00 DM was also paid out in three installments by August 21, 1956.

The decision on the rental income withheld from Elisabeth Paul during the time of the confiscation of her Darmstadt house, the bank balances that had been withdrawn from her disposal and the Jewish property levy had not yet been decided, which led to an extensive exchange of correspondence between the compensation authority and the lawyers.

On June 7, 1961, the Oberfinanzdirektion Frankfurt decided to award Elisabeth Paul another 500.00 DM as compensation for stolen furniture, but the dispute over the compensation for the tax on removal goods and the Jewish property tax continued. The regional council requested documents that Elisabeth Paul obviously could not provide, which was evident in the noticeably hesitant letters from her lawyer. On November 27, 1962, ten years after filing the application, Elisabeth Paul had her lawyer inform the district president that the outstanding compensation issues would not be pursued any further and that the proceedings were therefore ended.

Elisabeth Paul's tragic end

The end of St. Mary's School was probably due in part to its autocratic nature. And also their “mental illness”, their progressive mental illness with noticeable changes in thinking and acting, nobody could or would not notice. At eighty-six, she still believes that she is running a school that in 1981 consisted of just seven students and the same number of teachers. In 1982 the school closed - not because of Elisabeth Paul's incapacity, but because of horrific debts, not least tax debts.

→ Main article : The end of St. Mary's School

In the last years of her life Elisabeth Paul probably didn't notice anything that happened around her and made her life's work the victim of property speculators. According to her death certificate, she died on February 4, 1991 in the London "Elmhurst Residential Home", a facility that now specializes in dementia and Alzheimer's disease of pneumonia ( bronchopneumonia ). She was almost 96 years old.

Heinrich Paul - the man at your side

Like his future wife, Heinrich Paul comes from Darmstadt. The parents' houses of the two were only about 350 meters apart in the same district, the Johannesviertel . It has not been established whether they already knew each other because of this neighborhood; however, from the Darmstadt population register data and the documents in the archive of the Frankfurt University it is understandable that both of them studied modern philology in Frankfurt for at least one semester in 1922 . Since the end of the 1920s at the latest, however, a close friendship must have existed between the two, which led them first to Berlin and then together to emigrate to Great Britain.

Heinrich Paul's life before emigration

Heinrich Paul (full name: Heinrich Gustav Adolf Paul ) was born on March 8, 1900 in Darmstadt and died on August 15, 1980 in London.

Paul's parents were Gustav Paul and his wife Lina, nee Heil. The father ran a paper shop in Darmstadt. The Paul family was bombed out during World War II and then lived in Ueberau , which is now a district of Reinheim.

The Abitur documents show that Paul was a Protestant denomination and first attended pre-school in 1909 and then from Easter 1910 to Easter 1919 the state high school in Darmstadt (today's Georg Büchner School ). In 1919 he was on the list of pupils who were admitted to the war maturity examination, and he also wrote the corresponding written exams. At the time (June 12-19, 1918) it had already been drafted, but had not yet received a notice of presentation. However, it was noted in the transcript of the school-leaving examination that Paul still needed lessons and that he should take the school-leaving examination again in 1919. That is what happened, on March 28, 1919 he received his secondary school leaving certificate.

According to the register of the city of Darmstadt, the parents' apartment at Liebigstrasse 6 (2nd floor) remained Heinrich Paul's main residence until he moved to Berlin on September 1, 1932. His cancellations and feedbacks documented there correspond to his register files in the university archive Gießen, which says "that he enrolled on May 6, 1922 at the University of Gießen to study in the Philosophical Faculty (stud. Phil.)". Heinrich Paul had previously studied in Marburg, Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main; according to the note on the matriculation file, when he enrolled in Gießen he submitted a certificate of departure from the University of Marburg (October 12, 1920), a certificate of departure from the University of Heidelberg (April 4, 1921) and a certificate of departure from the University of Frankfurt (March 25, 1922). Heinrich Paul studied at the University of Giessen up to and including the summer semester of 1923, and according to the note on the matriculation file, he received the leaving certificate on June 8, 1923.

During the semester in Frankfurt, Heinrich Paul obviously lived with his parents in Darmstadt, because there is no entry in the Darmstadt population register for this time. And at the time when he was studying in Frankfurt, his future wife, Elisabeth Selver, did the same. She was also enrolled in modern philology, and if the two didn't already know each other from Darmstadt, they should have met here at the latest. Given the very manageable number of students at the time, it is rather unlikely that they should not have met at lectures or seminars.

A letter from Paul dated June 10, 1954, in which he writes: "I passed my state examination as a philologist at the University of Giessen (certificate of September 13, 1926 attached) and passed my assessor examination 2 years later." Is in the compensation file is misleading A copy of this document mentioned here, from which a more differentiated picture emerges: Paul passed the first examination for the higher teaching post on February 23, 1924 with "good" and thereby acquired the teaching qualification for the major subjects German and English as well as the minor subject history. This was followed by a legal clerkship at the Eleonorenschule in Darmstadt. Two years later, on September 8, 1926, the oral state examination took place with the grade “sufficient”. He also received this grade for his homework and for his “teaching skills”, from which the overall grade “sufficient” and the appointment as a study assessor resulted.

Heinz Paul's compensation file contains a lengthy letter from a Dr. Peter. F. Meyer, London, from May 14, 1968. The following stations are listed in Paul's curriculum vitae: A) 1926–1931 study assessor in a private school in Seeheim an der Bergstrasse, then in a rural education home in the Lüneburg Heath; B) 1931–1932 director of a welfare institution in Schleswig-Holstein; C) In 1932, after a brief activity in Darmstadt, he opened his own private forest school in Berlin. This information is only superficially correct.

On February 1, 1927, according to the Darmstadt population register, Paul de- registered for Seeheim , from where he returned to Darmstadt on May 1, only to de- register for Gandersheim on October 2, 1927 . This phase ended on April 7, 1930 with the response from Dahlenburg . The entry in the registry of course says nothing about the actual length of stay of Heinz Paul in Seeheim, but what we have to come back to is certain that he was already in Gandersheim in December 1927. At the relevant time in Seeheim there was a private school at which he could have taught: the “Private School for Daughters (Higher Education and Pensionat G. Türck)” in Bergstrasse 32 in Seeheim, which existed until 1928. Whether Paul actually taught at this school remains to be seen.

In 1919/20 Max Bondy was one of the founders of the Free School and Work Community Sinntalhof on the Sinntalhof in Brückenau . This school project failed, which is why Max Bondy moved to Gandersheim in Lower Saxony in 1923 with some of the students and staff . In collaboration with his wife Gertrud, a doctor and psychoanalyst, he founded the school community in Gandersheim there . In 1929 she moved to Marienau, where she called herself “School community on Gut Marienau”, from which the present-day rural education home, Marienau School, emerged .

In the "information sheet of the school community Gandersheim" from 1928 in the list of teachers teaching in Gandersheim (as of December 1927) the study assessor Paul for the subjects English, German and history is named. Even if there are no further indications, one can probably assume that Paul also participated in the move of the school from Gandersheim to Marienau and from there returned to Darmstadt in April 1930. Why he did that and what he did in Darmstadt is open. On January 1, 1931, he moved to Fahrenkrug in the Segeberg district and returned to Darmstadt on May 24, 1931 from Wahlstedt , also in the Segeberg district. That is the period of time for which the Noack letter of December 27, 1959, quoted above, said that he had been director of a welfare facility in Schleswig-Holstein, namely the Waldesruh home near Segeberg (Holstein) for difficult-to-educate children. Noack reinforces the fact that this home was “in close contact with the college for teacher training in Kiel”, “whose professors for education and psychology often consulted with Mr. Paul and sent their students to him as interns”.

This sounds a bit too thick for a stay of only six months, as a look at the Wahlstedt Chronicle , published in 1958, confirms. It is correct that in 1927 the “Verein Kinderheim e. V. Waldesruh "was founded as a free welfare association, which had set itself the task of" schooling and educating young people, children and psychopaths that are difficult to educate ". The association, whose board includes a Professor Dr. Pflug belonged to the Kiel University of Education, maintained a two-class home school, the five teachers of which are listed in the chronicle between 1927 and 1932. Not among them: Heinrich Paul. His name is not mentioned anywhere else about the “Waldesruh Children's Home”. The suspicion is that he stayed there on probation or as an intern, but by no means as a “director”, as Noack claimed.

According to the population register, Heinrich Paul stayed with his parents in Darmstadt for over a year after his return from Northern Germany. What he did during this time and what he did for a living is unknown. There is only one reference from this period, two photos showing Elisabeth Selver and Heinrich Paul, and three people, Dr. Ludwig Rothamel, Dr. Elisabeth Selver and Heinz Paul. "Both photos were taken on the 15th of September 1931 at 5pm, near Darmstadt, Germany." This reference comes from Karl Rothamel, the son of Ludwig Rothamel. Ludwig Rothamel was an old Darmstadt school friend of Heinrich Paul, and his son Karl attended the “St. Mary's School ”and has provided some information about the history of its operators.

Nor is it certain that Heinrich Paul actually lived with his parents during this time. In Elisabeth Selver's doctoral documents in the archive of the University of Frankfurt there is an exchange of correspondence between Selver and the university from May to July 1932. Selver asks the university to issue her with a certified copy of her doctoral degree, since she has lost the original. The sender on both letters, initially a postcard and in July on a typewritten letter, is noted in each case: Dr. E. Selver, Zwingenberg i. H., Orbisweg, House Kühner. The letter of July 1, 1932, in which the copy of the doctoral certificate was again requested, ended with the sentence “for Dr. Elisabeth Selver ”, to whom the handwritten signature“ H. Paul, Study Assessor ”followed. Doubts are appropriate as to whether this letter was even written by Elisabeth Selver herself, since she was already in Berlin at the time. It is also unclear why the complaint signed by Paul was sent to the Zwingenberg address when he was actually still officially living in Darmstadt with his parents at 6 Liebigstrasse. What is certain, however, is that the relationship between the Selver family and Else Kühner must have been very close, as will become clear later in connection with the reparation proceedings.

The private forest school Heinz Paul

According to the Darmstadt registry, Heinrich Paul moved to Berlin-Eichkamp on September 1, 1932 . According to the historical registration of residents in Berlin (EMK), he moved into the house "Marienburger Allee 16 bei Rheinhold". The Private Forest School Kaliski (PriWaKi), where Elisabeth Selver was working at the time, was located very close to this address . In his contribution to the final report of a research report on PriWaKi, Werner Fölling writes: “At least half of the teaching staff seems to have not been Jewish at the turn of 1932/33. As far as we know, (...) and the fiancé of Miss Dr. Not Jewish himself. ”There is no doubt that this“ fiancé ”was Heinrich Paul. However, there are no further references to him in the entire research report; Fölling, unlike Elisabeth Selver, no longer mentions him in his further contribution about the students and teachers of the PriwaKi. However, the letter from Elisabeth Selver's lawyer from 1967, which has already been quoted several times, also confirms that Heinz Paul taught at PriWaKi.

While there are no more archival documents about Elisabeth Selver's stay in Berlin and they are not entered in the address books of that time, Heinrich Paul has his own entry in the Berlin address book from 1935: "(Paul) - Heinz Stud Assess Charlb Wacholderweg 7b" . This is not far from his first address, Marienburger Allee 16. This entry is repeated in the address book from 1936, with "Heinz" now becoming "Heinrich". But there is another entry: "(Paul) - Heinz Priv Waldschule Charlb Wacholderweg 7b". Both entries also appear in the street section of the address book and are repeated in the same way in 1937. In many of the memories of former students at St. Mary's School in London, which Heinz Paul and Elisabeth Selver acquired in 1937, there are references to a previous school of the two in Germany, but these references remain vague. This is also the case with Karl Rothamel, already quoted above, who only has to report: “As far that I know, Elisabeth and Heinz had a school in Berlin.” Busemann et al. leave the question of a school founded by Selver and Paul open when they write: In 1932 Heinrich Selver took over the management of the Kaliski Forest School and “the first thing he did was get his cousin Dr. Elisabeth Selver from Darmstadt joins the college. But she soon left the Kaliski forest school to found her own school. "

Inscription on the title page of the prospectus of Priv. Heinz Paul Forest School

Apart from the address book entries, there are no official documents about this school founded by the two. Only through Heinz Paul's compensation files can their short history be reconstructed. In Paul's letter of June 10, 1954, already quoted above, it says:

“At the end of 1932, my then fiancé and current wife, Dr. Elisabeth Selver in Berlin-Charlottenburg the private forest school Heinz Paul, Berlin-Charlottenburg. Funds were made available by my fiancé and her mother, but I was the owner and director of the school, which was called the Heinz Paul Private Forest School. "

Little is known about the motives that led to the founding of this school (initially at Sachsenplatz 12 in Berlin-Charlottenburg) in the late phase of the Weimar Republic. However, some information is provided by the above-cited letter from Elisabeth Selver's lawyer to the Berlin Regional Court on September 11, 1967. Thereafter, Elisabeth Selver's teaching license was withdrawn at the end of 1932, presumably due to a lack of exams for school service, which she forced herself to do in another way Building an existence, first with the help of the mother of one of her students from the PriWaKi, and then together with Heinrich Paul, who initially continued to teach at the PriWaKi and then left there voluntarily. Lawyer Leonhard indicated that the plan was to enable the Aryan students at the Kaliski private forest school to continue their education in a similar school. However, as things stand, it was only possible for Heinz Paul to run such a school, because only he was qualified to teach.

In a school project, which is also in the compensation files, it says about the concept:

“The private forest school Heinz Paul is a higher educational institution with day and full boarding school for boys and girls (...) and combines the educational possibilities of the rural education home with those of the parents' home. (…) The lessons take place in the open air, as far as this (…) is possible. (...) The educational goal of the school is to make the children fit for life through work, physical training and community education. The workload is based on the plans of the Oberrealschule and the Reformgymnasium. (…) The meals are arranged according to the principles of modern nutrition (plenty of vegetables and fruit). (...) The school fee is: in the day boarding school including meals and supervision of school work, etc. 780, - RM (...) in the full boarding school 1500, - RM annually. "

According to an official questionnaire from 1936 in the compensation file, three male and two female full-time teachers were teaching 52 pupils at that time, eleven of whom were older than 14 years. 30 were boys, 22 were girls. 15 of them were “Israelite”, but that required a further differentiation according to the National Socialist rules: “Germans or related blood” were 31 pupils, 15 were considered “Jewish” within the meaning of the Reich Citizenship Law and six were “mixed-blooded” ".

At the time of this survey, Heinz Paul and Elisabeth Selver were no longer at the school, which, according to Paul, had "developed well at the beginning". The problems began as early as the summer vacation of 1933 when Paul was advised by the Prussian Association of Philologists to hire a study assessor from Olberg. There was an interview and this had fatal consequences for Paul. In a letter dated September 28, 1933, "The Upper President of the Province of Brandenburg and Berlin - School Department" informed him:

“In the interview with the study assessor Olberg you started August ds. Js. expresses so little national self-esteem that the management of a private school cannot be entrusted to you. "

The consequence of this was that Paul was allowed to keep the economic management and ownership, but another person had to be found for the school management. This apparently dragged on, because as Paul writes, it was not until 1935 that the “National Socialist Head of Police School Administrator Dr. Georg Nitsche ”, but he was not up to the task and the school therefore closed at Easter 1937.

According to Paul, the situation was becoming more and more threatening for him and his Jewish fiancée, Elisabeth Selver. Elisabeth Selver was therefore forced not to return to Germany from a vacation in Great Britain in the summer of 1935, Heinrich Paul followed her on July 6, 1936. However, a letter from the “State Commissioner of the Capital Berlin” on November 5 seems mysterious in this context 1935 on. In this letter, which refers to a petition dated October 9, 1935, he lets the “Fraulein Dr. Elisabeth Selver ”on the“ Herr kom. Schulrat Freitag "informs about the conditions" for the establishment of a Jewish higher private school ". The fact that such a request could not have been made by the "Aryan" Heinrich Paul is obvious given the circumstances at the time. What is surprising, however, are the two dates in the letter, because at this point Elisabeth Selver had long been in Great Britain. So did someone else initiate this request on your behalf? Were there really serious considerations to continue the “Private Waldschule Heinz Paul” as a Jewish private school?

The last entry on Heinrich Paul in Berlin's historical population register reads: “Deregistration: on August 1, 1936 from Berlin, Wacholderweg 7b to London, 16 Wedderburn Road.” Heinz Paul and Elisabeth Selver married on April 21, 1937 in exile and acquired the St. Mary's School , which later in St. Mary's Town and Country School renamed.

The Heinz Paul Compensation File

First page of Heinz Paul's application for compensation

It is very difficult to get an idea of ​​Heinz Paul in the second phase of his life. Although he operated alongside his wife as headmaster from 1946 to 1956, the question of why he was no longer that after 1956 could not initially be answered. It was rather he who had more school experience from his training and was familiar with reform pedagogical approaches. But his role at the school is hard to grasp; it seems that he has always stood in the shadow of his wife.

→ Main article : Memories of Heinrich Paul

More information about Heinz Paul and his difficulties in everyday school and private life can only be found in the files relating to the application he made on October 20, 1952 on the basis of the law on compensation for victims of National Socialism . He claims the loss of assets due to the loss of the school and health damage caused by persecution. With regard to the damage to health, he cites " vegetative dystonia ", for which he submits an opinion from a British doctor. In the course of the long drawn-out proceedings, he made a handwritten declaration on June 27, 1964, which essentially repeated all the points from earlier letters. However, he closes with the following sentences: “Panics and increasing psychoses made it necessary that I had to give up teaching despite all the efforts, including driving. I would like to add that during my time in Berlin I was secretly politically active. One of my friends in this field was Harro Schulze-Boysen , who was executed in 1944. “It remains to be seen whether the latter is actually the case; the point is irrelevant for the outcome of the proceedings. His health impairments, on the other hand, are the subject of several statements by the doctors and psychiatrists treating him and an official report. The latter sums up most succinctly what Heinrich Paul claims to suffer from:

"AS [applicant] has described the persecution in detail (...) He also reports that he took an active part in an anti-Nazi movement and that this organization warned him of the threat of arrest; During the last year of his stay in Germany, he had only seldom stayed in his own house because he felt threatened. The establishment of his existence in England had been very difficult and he had not only taught as a teacher in all subjects for five years, but also worked as a factotum and craftsman in the school until he could no longer. His energy had decreased and around 1955 he had to give up his activity: he was nervously no longer up to teaching. Since then he has been occupied with music and composition. His anxiety and tension had also impaired his stomach function, so that a two-finger ulcer developed. He simply cannot forget the period from 1933 to 1936, has to ruminate over and over again, and still today has nightmares with persecution content. "

In accordance with the findings of Paul's doctors, the expert has the impression “that it is a psycho-neurosis” which is more due to the “worsening of a psychasthenic state of frustration” than to the alleged consequences of the Persecution. Nevertheless, he also pleads for a reduction in employment (MdE) to be recognized, which ultimately happens. According to the decision of November 14, 1966, Heinz Paul was awarded retroactive compensation of DM 35,887.57 and, from October 1, 1966, a pension of DM 1,177.17. After an only partially successful legal action against this decision, which concerns the Recognition of a higher reduction in earning capacity, the Berlin Regional Court awards him further compensation of DM 2,693 in a judgment of September 30, 1968, but otherwise rejects the action.

An addendum

In the “National Archive” in Kew (Richmond, Great Britain) reports of school inspections of the “St. Mary's School “from several years. In the same archive there is also a correspondence between Heinz Paul and John Sturge Stephens, once from the period between 1920 and 1930 and once from 1952. John Sturge Stephens (1891–1954) was a Quaker and is valid due to his attitude during the First World War as Cornwall's first conscientious objector. In the same archive there are also letters from Theo Spira to John Sturge Stephens. Where the connection between Paul and Stephens comes from is just as unclear as the background of the relationship between Spira and Stephens. Spira worked at the English Department of the University of Giessen in 1923, and Heinrich Paul also studied English in 1922/1923 in Giessen. Spira had previously worked as a teacher at the Odenwald School: “Spira, Theo Dr., employee OSO 1913/14; has worked a lot in the development of English sounds, including on Shelley's intellectual history (at the English seminar at Giessen University in 1923) and interpreted Shakespeare's sonnets in 1929. " Spira was probably also active in peace politics, as can be seen from the following quote:

“In addition, Germany, the loser of the war, was initially denied membership in the League of Nations . In its efforts to improve foreign relations over the years, however, the new Reich government received valuable support from the German League for the League of Nations, which advocated the idea of ​​a federation of nations, and whose educational department was already a few days before the signing of the constitution of the Weimar Republic at the 5th. until August 7, 1919 held a conference with American and English Quakers in Wetzlar on the ethical requirements of a lasting peace. The old imperial city on the Lahn was particularly suitable for this topic due to its city history. From 1689 to 1806 the Reich Chamber of Commerce was located here , where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his father also worked temporarily as part of their advanced legal training. The Wetzlar meeting was preceded by a conference in Heppenheim in June 1919 , which was essentially organized by the Gießen Circle for the Reorganization of the Educational System around the reform pedagogues Theo Spira and Otto Erdmann and the Jewish religious philosopher Martin Buber and also the crisis management in Europe after the World War aimed. A phase of political and economic stabilization as well as international recognition did not occur until 1924 under Reich Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann , which lasted until the beginning of the global economic crisis in October 1929. "

If Stephens was one of the British Quakers who took part in the Wetzla meeting in 1919, then everything indicates that Heinrich Paul, as a presumed Spira student, also came into contact with Stephens through Spira.

Fonts

• The cyclical construction of Stefan Georges' poems from the 'Hymns' to the' Carpet of Life '. Philosophical dissertation, Frankfurt am Main 1923.
• St. Mary's Town and Country School. In: Hubert Alwyn Thomas Child (Ed.): The independent progressive school. Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) LTD, London 1962, pp. 136-145.
  The book served the self-portrayal of progressive schools in Great Britain. Elisabeth Paul's essay in it, which touches only a few aspects of the school's history, describes the pedagogical concept in detail. It is available online at: Elisabeth Paul: St. Mary's Town and Country School . In the book, although not available online, Elisabeth Paul's essay is followed by a contribution by AS Neill on Summerhill .

swell

• University Archives Frankfurt am Main (UAF) . There are two files on Elisabeth Selver:
  • UAF Dept. 136, No. 131: This contains the documents for Selver's doctoral procedure. This also includes a handwritten curriculum vitae, which, undated, was attached to the application for the doctoral procedure of January 1, 1923.
  • UAF Dept. 604, No. 2395: The most important documents here relate to the (preliminary) studies that began in 1914 with the “small matriculation”, which led to the final examination at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences that was passed on Easter 1918.
• Darmstadt City Archives
  • Historical register of the city of Darmstadt for David Selver (with the entries about his daughter Elisabeth) and Heinrich Gustav Adolf Paul (inventory ST 12 & ST 18)
  • Stocks ST 12/14 No. 213 & ST 12/14 No. 136
  • Written communication from Darmstadt City Archives dated February 9, 2017
• Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling, Klaus Klattenhoff, Friedrich Wißmann: "The Kaliski Private Forest School in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi)." Final report of the research project funded by the German Research Foundation. Oldenburg, 1992 (in the library of the University of Oldenburg, call number pae 475 wal BX 0221)
• Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt , holdings 15/5 (Ludwig Bergstrasse), correspondence Pa - Pe
• Gießen University Archives: Written communication from the head of the archive, Dr. Eva-Marie Felschow, from February 7, 2017
• Archive of the Marienau School : Written information from the head of the archive, Jörg Blume, from January 31, 2017
• State Archives Berlin
  • File of reparation Dr. Heinrich Gustav Paul - 81 WGA 5781/55
  • File of reparation Dr. Elisabeth Paul, b. Selver - 81 WGA 5780/55
    These two files themselves do not contain any usable documents, but refer to the files at the State Office for Citizens and Regulatory Affairs (see below)
  • Historical register of residents in Berlin, inventory B Rep. 021; written information from January 17, 2017.
• The Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in the Villa Oppenheim : Written information from the collection manager, Sonja Miltenberger, from January 27, 2017 on an inquiry about a private forest school in Wacholderweg 7b.
• Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv (blha), Potsdam, files on the ordered asset management and expropriation of Elisabeth Selver in the “Rep. 36A Chief Finance President Berlin-Brandenburg "
  • blha inventory Rep. 36 A - G 3097 (compulsory administration)
  • blha inventory Rep. 36 A II - 35461 (asset realization)
• Darmstadt District Court. Land register file for Volume 26, Sheet 1251 of the Land Register of Darmstadt, District III (House Landwehrstrasse 12 in Darmstadt). File inspection on June 26, 2017
• State Office for Civil and Regulatory Affairs (LABO), Section I - Compensation Authority Victims of National Socialism, Fehrbelliner Platz 1, 10707 Berlin. File inspection on June 15, 2017 and July 17, 2017:
  • Compensation file Heinz Paul - Reg.No. 79,770
  • Compensation file Elisabeth Paul - Reg.No. 173.318
• Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden: Amalie Selver reparation case, HStAW 518, No. 27881

literature

• Frank Estelmann, Olaf Müller: Adapted everyday life in German and Romance studies. Franz Schultz and the Frankfurt German Studies. In: Jörn Kobes, Jan-Otmar Hesse (ed.): Frankfurt scientists between 1933 and 1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0258-7 , pp. 33–45.
• Karl Wolfskehl, Hanna Wolfskehl: Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf, 1899-1931. Volume 1, Castrvm Peregrini, Amsterdam 1977, ISBN 978-90-6034-032-5 .
• Karl Wolfskehl, Hanna Wolfskehl: Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf, 1899-1931. Volume 2 (1905-1931), Castrvm Peregrini, Amsterdam 1977, ISBN 978-90-6034-032-5 .
• Karl Wolfskehl's correspondence from New Zealand 1938–1948. Volume 2, Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Darmstadt 1988, ISBN 978-3-630-80002-8 .
• Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth Salomon. Correspondence 1914–1931. De Gruyter, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-022546-4 .
• Enid Lowry Duthie: L'influence du symbolisme français dans le renouveau poétique de l'Allemagne. Les Leaves for Art de 1892–1900. Paris 1933. / Reprint: Genève 1974.
  Mario Zanucchi said about this study: “The effect of the Symbolists on Stefan George was systematically examined in the pioneering study by Enid Lowry Duthie from 1933. Duthie's study is not only out of date in terms of content and method, it also fails to recognize the central differences between George and the French Symbolists. Duthíe Georges also ignores the syrıcretistic mixing of French symbolism with the German tradition of poetry, as well as the attention he pays to CF Meyer's proto-symbolist poetry. " 1923) ", De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston, 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-042012-8 , 978-3-11-042013-5, 9783110425192, p. 7)
• Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island of security. The private forest school Kaliski 1932 to 1939. Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1992, ISBN 3-476-00845-2 .
  The book is based on the research project on the private forest school Kaliski (see sources).
• Jochem Schäfer: Goethe and his late work “Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre” in the light of the resistance against National Socialism. The German Hiking Day 1927 in Herborn and its consequences. Schmitz, Nordstrand (North Sea) 2011, ISBN 978-3-938098-67-7 .
• Jörg H. Fehrs: From Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. Jewish schools in Berlin 1712–1942. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89468-075-X .

Web links

• St. Mary's School: A retrospective of this unique school, by a former pupil . The site lives mainly from the memories of the students who attended school from the 1960s. But there are also many isolated references to the beginnings of the school, for example on the following sub-pages:
  • St. Mary's School: Mrs. Paul
    This site is particularly recommended because of the images.
  • St. Mary's School: The early History
  • St. Mary's School: Town & Country's Demise
  • St. Mary's School: The staff
  • ST. Mary's School: Town & Country School Guestbook / Blog
• St. Mary's Town and Country School in the WIKIPEDIA-EN

Individual evidence

1. ↑ There is no doubt about this date of birth, it is clearly determined by the population register. However, Elisabeth Selver herself later caused confusion when she gave different information about her age on different occasions. On a website of the “St. Mary's School ”several dates are listed: In a copy of her study book from Paris from 1928, a handwritten date of birth is entered, which with some difficulty turns out to be 25. VI. Can be deciphered in 1908. In the same place reference is made to her death certificate, which bears the date of birth March 11, 1892. And finally there is still the English marriage register, in which she was entered in 1937 at an age of 41, which refers to a year of birth 1896. ( Mrs. Paul ). Playing with age seems to have remained a lifelong peculiarity of Elsabeth Selver. On the occasion of the closure of the “St. Mary's School, ”she attended in 1982 a reporter for The Daily Telegraph . Their article states: “She admits to being in her late 80s but refuses to be specific because 'if the children knew how old I am, I would no longer be able to become a director.' “She is alluding to her absurd thought at the time of being able to reopen the officially closed school. (Margot Norman: Inspectors in row over closed progressive school. The Daily Telegraph, September 27th 1982, translated to: TOWN & COUNTRY'S DEMISE )
2. ↑ On the history of the Jewish community in Darmstadt
3. ^ History of the Exeter University
4. ↑ A typewritten copy is in the holdings of the University Library in Frankfurt am Main: The cyclical construction of the Stefan Georges seals .
5. ^ Frank Estelmann, Olaf Müller: Adapted everyday life in German and Romance studies. Franz Schultz and the Frankfurt German Studies. P. 36.
6. ↑ The corresponding course catalogs of the University of Frankfurt can be viewed online: Course catalogs of the Goethe University
7. ↑ Compare his publications in the catalog of the German National Library: Franz Schultz in the DNB
8. ^ Karl and Hanna Wolfskehl: Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf, 1899–1931. Volume 1, Note 25, p. 247.
9. ↑ Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth Salomon. Correspondence 1914–1931 , p. 153, and there also note 194
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s} Elisabeth Paul compensation file
11. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann et al .: The Private Forest School Kaliski in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi) , p. 415 f.
12. ↑ Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth Salomon. Correspondence 1914–1931. P. 122.
13. ↑ For the year 1928 it is documented by a photocopied entry in her “Livrett Universitaire Individuel Paris”. ( Mrs. Paul )
14. ^ "Mlle Élisabeth Selver a été moi une amie constante, dont les conseils et les encouragements ont été du plus grand secours. Sa sollicitude a aplani pour moi bien des difficultés, et je la prie d'agréer mes remerciements émus. ”(Enid Lowry Duthie: L'influence du symbolisme français dans le renouveau poétique de l'Allemagne. P. VIII.)
15. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Heinz Paul Compensation File - RG.Nr. 79,770 (source)
16. ^ Karl Wolfskehl's correspondence from New Zealand 1938–1948. Volume 2, p. 915.
17. ↑ Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth Salomon. Correspondence 1914–1931. P. 52.
18. ↑ ^{a b c} Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden: Amalie Selver Compensation File, Reg. D / 00804/95 (A), inventory 518, no. 27881. Kühnert's own residence at the time of the affidavit was Orbisweg in Zwingenberg.
19. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit. Note 59, page 355.
20. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit. P. 187.
21. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann et al .: The private forest school Kaliski in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). P. 771.
22. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann et al .: The private forest school Kaliski in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). P. 177.
23. ↑ blha inventory Rep. 36 A II - 35461
24. ↑ ^{a b c d} blha inventory Rep. 36 A - G 3097 (forced administration)
25. ↑ Mali Goldstein is probably Amalie Goldstein, born in 1874, who was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and murdered on June 29, 1943.
    Alphabetical index of the stumbling blocks in Darmstadt
    The name Schlageterstrasse was then used by today's Rhönring.
26. ↑ ^{a b c} blha inventory Rep. 36 A II - 35461 (asset recovery)
27. ^ Fritz Bauer Institute: Legalized Robbery
28. ↑ ^{a b} Darmstadt District Court. Land register file for Volume 26, Sheet 1251 of the Land Register of Darmstadt, District III (House Landwehrstrasse 12 in Darmstadt)
29. ↑ There is enough information on the ST website for children from both circles . Mary's School: Town & Country School Guestbook / Blog .
30. ^ British History Online: Hampstead: Education
31. ↑ ST. Mary's School: Town & Country School Guestbook / Blog .
32. ↑ St. Mary's School: The Movie
33. ↑ St. Mary's School: Mrs. Paul
34. ↑ This notification is in the Heinz Paul Compensation File - Reg. No. 79.770
35. ↑ The fate of Jewish lawyers in the Darmstadt District Court district: Dr. Friedrich (Fritz) Mainzer
36. ↑ On the history of the Jewish community in Darmstadt after 1945
37. ^ St. Mary's School: Town & Country's Demise
38. ^ Elmhurst Residential Home
39. ^ Selver: Landwehrstrasse 12; Paul: Liebigstrasse 6
40. ↑ In the marriage register of Hampstead, in which Paul's marriage to Elisabeth Selver on April 21, 1937 is registered, he stated that his father's occupation was “stationer and bookseller”, ie “stationer and bookseller”.
    St. Mary's School: Mrs. Paul
41. ↑ In the documents of Ludwig Bergsträsser , the first post-war district president in Darmstadt, there are several documents that deal with the request of the couple Paul to create an economic livelihood again. The “Landesverein der Buchhandels von Groß-Hessen Gruppe Darmstadt Starkenburg” wrote to the regional council on January 9, 1946 in connection with the “Application Gustav Paul, Ueberau, for admission as a lending library with book sales”: “The couple Paul have property in Darmstadt lost to air raids. Your wish to start a new business is supported. ”On February 13, 1946 the regional council of the Darmstadt Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced that Paul’s application for admission as a lending library with book sales in Ueberau was supported. (Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, holdings 15/5 (Ludwig Bergsträsser), correspondence Pa - Pe)
42. ↑ Darmstadt City Archives, holdings ST 12/14 No. 213 & ST 12/14 No. 136
43. ↑ Darmstadt City Archives, holdings ST 12/14 No. 213 & ST 12/14 No. 136
44. ^ Written communication from the Giessen University Archives of February 7, 2017
45. ↑ In the summer semester of 1921, i.e. one semester before Paul's studies there, 359 students and 125 female students studied at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Frankfurt. Official staff directory of the University of Frankfurt a. M .: Summer semester 1921
46. ↑ Another state-recognized private school, the "Töchterheim und Schule Tannenhof", which also existed until 1928, was located in the still independent youth home at that time . All information about the two schools from Jürgen Eck, chairman / museum director of the Seeheim-Jugenheim e. V., Bergstrasse Museums Seeheim-Jugenheim: Museum Burg Tannenberg + School Museum Seeheim-Jugenheim, email from 3 July 2017
47. ^ Written information from the archive of the Marienau School of January 31, 2017
48. ↑ ^{a b} The Wahlstedt Chronicle published by the municipality of Wahlstedt is in the holdings of the German National Library and contains a section on the “Waldesruh Children's Home” on pages 310–311.
49. ^ Stadtarchiv Darmstadt, inventory ST 12/14 No. 213
50. ↑ St. Mary's School - Mrs. Paul
51. ↑ University Archives Frankfurt am Main (UAF): UAF files, Dept. 136, No. 131 (doctoral procedure Elisabeth Selver)
52. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit. Note 59, page 355.
53. ^ Landesarchiv Berlin (holdings B Rep. 021)
54. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann et al .: The private forest school Kaliski in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). P. 177.
55. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann et al .: The private forest school Kaliski in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). P. 770 f.
56. ↑ Berlin address and telephone books
57. ↑ St. Mary's School - Guestbook
58. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit. P. 187.
59. ^ Landesarchiv Berlin (holdings B Rep. 021)
60. ↑ Letters to Jn. Sturge Stephens from Heinz Paul, Darmstadt, Reference ST / 510
61. ↑ Letter to Jn. Sturge Stephens from Heinz (Paul), Reference ST 527
62. ↑ John Sturge Stephens (1891–1954) - Cornwall's 'first' conscientious objector
63. ↑ Letters to Jn. Sturge Stephens from Professor Theo Spira, Wiesbaden, 1946-1949, Reference ST 523
64. ↑ Theo Spira in the Geheeb archive
65. ↑ Jochem Schäfer: Goethe and his old work. P. 17.
66. ↑ This can only be clarified by looking at the correspondence in the “National Archive”.
67. ↑ The following files can be found in the reparation files .
68. ↑ 36A Oberfinanzpräsident Berlin-Brandenburg Rep. 36A Oberfinanzpräsident Berlin-Brandenburg, 1919–1948 (inventory)
69. ^ The compensation authority of the state of Berlin
70. ^ Amalie Selver compensation file