Elisabeth Siegel

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Elisabeth Siegel (born February 7, 1901 in Kassel ; † March 9, 2002 in Osnabrück ) was Professor of Education and Social Education .

She is considered to be one of the pioneers for women in higher education in Germany. Because of her rejection of National Socialism , she lost her position in 1933 due to the law to restore the civil service . After the end of the Second World War , the Lower Saxony Ministry of Culture called her to Hanover to rebuild her training in socio-educational professions. She taught pedagogy and social pedagogy in Osnabrück. The Working Group of Social Democratic Women donated the Elisabeth Siegel Prize on the 100th birthday of Elisabeth Siegel .

Life

Childhood and youth

Elisabeth Siegel grew up with three brothers in Kassel, among them Harro Siegel . Her father came from Düsseldorf , her mother was an East Frisian and grew up in a Mennonite family. Elisabeth Siegel said of her mother that she had a “somewhat rebellious, very independent mental attitude” and about her own upbringing and that of her siblings: “That is why we were not treated like a dozen goods from childhood on, and neither have we felt that way. ”Even before her Abitur in 1920, during the First World War, from May to November 1918 , she had performed “ military service ”as a slave laborer in a munitions factory near Kassel. At that time she learned, as she said as a centenarian, “that, unlike what we heard in our parents' homes, the population did not believe in the final victory at all, but said: 'The war is lost anyway.'” From 1921 to 1923 she did an internship in a children's home in Meura (Thuringia).

Education

From 1923 to 1925 she studied in Hamburg at the Institute for Social Education; her main focus was child welfare. At the same time she was a guest student at the university. In 1925 she met the educator, economist and cultural politician Adolf Reichwein , who was executed in 1944 as a member of the Kreisau Circle . In 1925 and 1926 she worked in youth welfare at the Hamburg youth welfare office. From 1926 to 1930 she studied pedagogy in Göttingen with Herman Nohl , psychology with Erich Less as well as sociology and economics. During a guest semester in Heidelberg in 1927, she heard lectures from Karl Jaspers , Alfred Weber and Arnold Bergstraesser . In 1930 she was taught by Herman Nohl with the topic “The essence of revolutionary education. A historical-systematic study of the French Revolution “on the Dr. phil. PhD.

Teaching until 1933

After completing her doctorate, she was a lecturer at the socio-educational women's schools in Breslau until 1931 and at the Stettin Pedagogical Academy until 1932 . In 1932 she was transferred to the Elbing Academy of Education , where she taught until she was released on April 1, 1933.

1933 to 1945

Until September 1933 she worked in the children's home in Meura (Thuringia). Until January 1934 she initially worked as a “maid” in a settler relief camp in Varchmin ( Köslin / Pomerania district) and then headed a camp in Grünwalde ( Rummelsberg / Pomerania district ). From 1934 to 1938 she was a lecturer at the state technical colleges for women's professions in Bremen , where she set up the “people care” branch. After she made her rejection of National Socialism clear, she was dismissed after being denounced. She found new work in Magdeburg as superior of the girls' secondary school Viktoria-Schule. She opened an affiliated seminar for youth leaders and a technical school for people nurses, as kindergarten teachers were called at the time.

1945 to 1969

After the end of the war, in November 1945 she became assistant for the post-war examinations of people's nurses at the Lower Saxony Ministry of Education in Hanover under Adolf Grimme and Otto Haase . In 1946 she moved to the Lüneburg University of Education , where she was responsible for socio-educational internships within teacher training. In 1947 she was appointed professor. In 1951 she was appointed professor at the Adolf Reichwein University in Celle (Lower Saxony). When the Adolf-Reichwein-Hochschule moved from Celle to Osnabrück, Elizabeth Siegel also came to Osnabrück in 1953, where she taught pedagogy and social pedagogy until 1969 as a professor at the pedagogical college and later university .

After retirement

Only after her retirement did she join the SPD at the age of 68, although, according to her own words, she had already been “politically vaccinated” in 1918 as a high school student while doing forced labor in the ammunition plant near Kassel. She worked in the peace movement and took part in political and cultural events even in old age and spoke up. Although she had moved to an old people's home in Osnabrück in 1995, she came to events unaccompanied by bus up to the age of 100. About her adopted home of Osnabrück, she said: “Osnabrück is keeping things fairly straight. The last mayors they had were all sensible. They are not pompous and they play a humble role in political life. They don't push each other, but they are fine. They are quite respected and they have some things to be proud of, such as: B. Felix Nussbaum or earlier Justus Möser . You can let yourself be seen within Lower Saxony. ”She experienced her 101st birthday in a healthy and mental state. Despite her advanced age, she died unexpectedly on March 9, 2002. Osnabrück's Lord Mayor Hans-Jürgen Fip praised her in an obituary as a “passionate advocate of social education and an advocate for the principle of solidarity and equal participation of all in a democratic society”.

Honors

The state of Lower Saxony awarded her the Lower Saxony Order of Merit in 1980 for her services to teacher training . The city of Osnabrück honored Elisabeth Siegel in 1984 with the city's highest award, the Justus Möser Medal . The certificate of foundation for the Elisabeth Siegel Prize was presented to her on her 100th birthday on February 7, 2001 in front of 200 guests, including the Bremen Mayor Henning Scherf , in the historic Friedenssaal of the Osnabrück town hall . The prize is given to women who are particularly committed to the democratic culture of the city of Osnabrück. The city of Osnabrück renamed the school on the Kalkhügel to Elisabeth-Siegel-Schule. Elisabeth Siegel was an honorary member of the German Society for Educational Science.

Fonts

  • For and against - a life for social education . Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-87173-597-3 (memoirs of Elisabeth Siegel).

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Siegel, Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pedagogue, professor of pedagogy and social pedagogy
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 2002
Place of death Osnabrück