Emil Figge

Emil Gustav Hermann Figge (born July 2, 1899 in Schwelm ; † December 2, 1974 in Dortmund ) was a German educator and long-time rector of the Dortmund University of Education .

Live and act

Figge was the son of a master craftsman. After graduating from high school, he became a soldier in World War I and took part in the fighting on the Western Front. After the end of the war he was trained as a primary school teacher at the teacher training college in Soest (exam 1920). Figge then studied political science, sociology, philosophy and education at the Universities of Cologne and Münster . He received his doctorate in Münster in 1928 and passed the state examination for teaching at a grammar school in 1929. Only then did he pass the second teaching examination for elementary school in 1931 and was hired in 1932.

During the time of National Socialism Figge worked at the Dortmund Luisenschule and participated in the resistance against the National Socialists. After the outbreak of World War II, Figge was repeatedly a soldier. From 1940 Figge worked in the Army High Command as a catering officer. Together with Adolf Grimme and the trade unionist Wilhelm Leuschner , Figge worked conspiratorially against the National Socialists and thus indirectly belonged to the circle of conspirators in the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 . After the defeat in Stalingrad , Figge was arrested and sentenced in 1943 on the basis of defeatist statements. Figge served his year and a half imprisonment in the fortress in Torgau .

After a short American imprisonment, Figge returned to his home town of Dortmund. Here he actively worked on rebuilding educational structures. He played a key role in the reconstruction of the elementary school system, the establishment of the social academy and the adult education center. In February 1946 he was entrusted by the regional president in Arnsberg with the rebuilding of a pedagogical academy in Dortmund and Lünen , whose rector he became. Appointed professor in 1947, Figge headed the Dortmund University of Education, renamed in 1962, until the end of the 1964 summer semester.

Figge had been a member of the Association of Freemasons in the Dortmunder Lodge Zur alten Linde since 1948 .

Honors

Emil-Figge-Strasse, on which today's Dortmund University of Technology is located, has been a reminder of the longstanding rector of the PH Ruhr since 1975. The Emil Figge Library, which opened on September 3, 2007, also bears his name.

literature

• 50 years of teacher training in Dortmund . In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar . 1979, p. 39-40 .
• Olaf Ditzel:  Figge, Emil (1899–1974). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 25, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-332-7 , Col. 415-417.
• Gerhard E. Sollbach: The introduction of university teacher training in Prussia and teacher training in Dortmund (1929–1980) . In: Hans Georg Kirchhoff, K. Goebel (Hrsg.): Dortmund work on school history and historical didactics . tape 9 . Bochum 1986, p. 64 .

Web links

• Emil Figge's personnel sheet in the BIL's personal file in the archive database of the Library for Research on Educational History (BBF)