Emil Sonnemann

Emil Sonnemann (born March 25, 1869 in Peine , † January 2, 1950 in Bremen ) was a German educator , editor and director of a prison .

biography

Sonnemann came from a poor background. He was promoted as a talented young person and, after elementary school, attended the preparatory institute in Diepholz  - as the lower level of elementary school teacher training - and then the teachers' seminar in Hanover . He then worked as a teacher in various locations (including Moringen , Solingen , Erichsburg ) in the 1890s . When he was giving a lecture on Darwinism's biological evolutionary theory , he was fired. In 1896 he was able to find a private tutor position in the Oslebshausen prison in Bremen.

Sonnemann switched to the Bremen school service in 1898 and worked at the schools in Elisabethstrasse and Elsflether Strasse in Walle . Around this time he joined the SPD . He was an honorary editor at the school policy Kampfblatt Roland . He was very critical of the state at the time, and he advocated a religion-free school. He became known through many lectures, especially in SPD circles and among socialist youth. Under his pseudonym Jürgen Brand , he wrote short stories, poems and reform pedagogical essays. Michael Englert later created hymns of the working class youth movement from his verses, such as the children's song We are young, the world is open or When the working hours are over . But there were also several conflicts with the school authorities: in 1910 he was temporarily suspended and in 1913 he was dismissed from school.

From 1913 Sonnemann worked for the editorial team of the social democratic Bremer Bürger-Zeitung . In 1916 he became editor-in-chief of the newspaper during the First World War . In 1919 he was able to return to the Bremen school service. In 1919/20 he was a member of the constituent Bremen National Assembly and he was also their archivist.

On October 10, 1919, he was appointed director of the Oslebshausen prison in Bremen- Oslebshausen . He had no previous training for this job. During this reform-oriented time he felt more like an educational helper than a leader towards the prisoners.

In 1933, Sonnemann was dismissed by the National Socialists . After the Second World War he was once again director of the Oslebshausen prison from 1945 to 1946 . His hobby was nature and ornithology .

Honors

The Sonnemannstraße in Bremen-Oslebshausen was named in 1952 after him.

Works

• as Jürgen Brand: Letters from the Heath to my young friends. Forward publishing house, Berlin 1907.
• as Jürgen Brand: The Holy Fire - collected stories, essays, poems for the working youth . Dietz, Stuttgart 1913.
• Emil Sonnemann: Ulenbrook. Letters from d. Heath to my young friends. Vorwärts publishing house, Singer 1913.
• Emil Sonnemann: Gerd Wullenweber, the story of a young worker. Dietz, Stuttgart 1915.
• as Jürgen Brand: We are young ...! Poems . Workers Youth Publishing House, Berlin 1924.
• as Jürgen Brandt: A trip to Iceland and the Westman Islands. Travel letters and diary sheets. Dietz, Stuttgart 1924.
• Emil Sonnemann and Kurt Gentz: With a kayak and camera: birds in the swampy landscape, on lakes, ponds and rivers, in the heather, moor and forest . Dresden 1949

literature

• Emil Sonnemann . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Volume 1: Deceased Personalities. Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH, Hanover 1960, pp. 295-296.
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Johannes Feest with Heinz Bock a. a .: Emil Sonnemann, 1869-1950; A chronicle . University of Bremen, Bremen 1985.
• Jürgen Oelkers: Reform Pedagogy - A Critical Dogma Story . In: Grundlagentexte Pedagogy , Juventa.
• Hans-Joachim Kruse: History of the Bremen prison system, Volume II: The Bremen prison system in the Weimar Republic . Books on Demand, 2001, ISBN 3831106096 .