Erna Schützenberger

Erna Schützenberger , full baptismal name: Ernestine Antonia, (born June 1, 1892 in Passau , † June 17, 1975 ibid) was a German municipal civil servant and folk music researcher.

Erna Schützenberger was the founder and long-time chairwoman of the Passau folk dance group and head of the Niederbayern center of the “Working Group for House and Youth Music”, Kassel (formerly “Finkensteiner Singbewegung”). She worked in the administration in Passau for over 38 years, mostly as the secretary of the respective Lord Mayor. A memorial plaque in Lederergasse has been commemorating Erna Schützenberger since 1994. In the district of Kohlbruck a street is named after her.

Life

Erna Schützenberger was born on June 1, 1892, the eleventh child of master locksmith Friedrich Ernst Schützenberger (1839–1906) and his wife Thekla Schützenberger († 1923), née Linsmeier. Little is known of her private life before 1930. The Schustergasse in Passau's old town as well as the Lederergasse in Passau's inner city are possible places of birth - the sources contradict each other slightly here. Schützenberger graduated from the commercial school in Josefsheim in 1911, and then switched to the career of a city official. For the period from 1911 to presumably reaching the age of majority, the Passau orphanage is occupied as her place of residence , since - her father had already died - her mother was employed as a household worker in Zwiesel and thus no legal guardian lived in Passau. Then apartments in Schustergasse and Steinweg in Passau's old town are occupied.

Professional background

On February 1, 1911, she joined the city administration as secretary to the Lord Mayor of Passau . On April 1, 1917, she was given an irrevocable civil service. In April 1938, after moving away from Dr. several times from 1933 “because of the political situation ... Sittler ”, as the counter-bookkeeper of the main cash desk in the city treasury. In 1945, Mayor Rudolf von Scholtz brought them back to his anteroom. Due to false denunciation to the BDM , to have published a HJ songbook, probably to avert the attention of other National Socialist colleagues, she was transferred to the municipal utility's booking machine on October 9, 1946 . In 1948, after Stephan Billinger won the mayoral election, she submitted a request for transfer to the secretariat of his legal adviser Hans Hirsch. However, after it was signaled that this relocation was not very promising, she retired in 1949 for “health reasons”. But there was no question of illness, because in 1949 she wrote: "I feel as healthy as I have not for years and I am happy that I can finally do in my life what interests me and what really demands me."

Youth work and research

Erna Schützenberger probably made his first closer acquaintance with the associations of the youth movement in June 1914, when the Bavarian Wandervogel Association held its Gautag in Passau. In 1920 she joined the Catholic youth movement Quickborn , previously she was "balled" by various associations, as she put it herself. In 1921 at the latest, she founded a Quickborn girls' group, which existed until the youth leagues were finally dissolved in 1938. With her group she undertook several hikes through the lower Bavarian Forest . Further activities existed in theater, singing and dance from 1925 at the latest, whereby the repertoire mainly included well-known German folk songs and series dances of the Quickborn movement. The group maintained contacts with other, neighboring groups of the youth movement, including groups of the Finkenstein movement in Upper Austria.

In 1927 there were some changes in the Quickborn group. This year, for the first time since 1920/21, younger girls joined the group, which in 1930 resulted in a division into a youth and an older group. Public appearances with dance and theater performances can also be documented for the first time in 1927. In addition, 1927 is considered the founding year of the Passau Folk Dance Circle, even if there is no written evidence of this. It is therefore assumed that the first public appearances were viewed in retrospect as a constructive process of the dance circle within the Quickborn group and that this only took on its own contours at a later point in time. Furthermore, Schützenberger came into contact with a flock of the Silesian wandering bird in 1927, which caused a turn to the Finkensteiner Singing Movement.

In the period from 1929 to 1930, the Quickborn Group and Schützenberger turned away from the Quickborn lifestyle and turned to the rural folk culture of the Passau region. From 1929 she took part in the Finkensteiner Bund Singing Weeks. In 1930 she met Hermann Derschmidt during a singing week in Toten Gebirge , who inspired her to do field research and dance recordings. In 1932 she became a member of the working group for house and youth music that emerged from the Finkensteiner Bund. From 1933 to the beginning of the 1970s she was the head of the Niederbayern branch. In 1933 she organized her first singing week at the Saldenburg , which became an annual event until 1937. From 1933 to 1935 she was music advisor at the BDM. In this capacity she multiplied her folk dance collection for the BDM, which led to denunciation after 1945. Schützenberger was able to continue its activities unhindered until 1937, partly within the BDM.

In 1937 it came to a break when the mayor of Passau, Max Moosbauer, threatened to put them in their place during their singing week in Fürstenstein because of their idiosyncratic non-conformity to the Nazi system. Some members of the Passau BDM play group, who also belonged to Schützenberger's circle, had decided not to travel north on the KdF ship Wilhelm Gustloff in order to be able to take part in the Schützenberger Singing Week , which was taking place at the same time. This break can also be seen in her professional career.

The Passau Quickborn then stopped its activities in 1938. Schützenberger's activities then shifted into the private sphere or took place under the protective cloak of church organizations. These were viewed with suspicion by those in power, also because of their non-membership in the NSDAP. In 1939 a house search took place in her apartment. After 1945 the Quickborn group's singing and dancing group was reactivated as the “Passau Folk Dance Circle”, of which she remained chairman until around 1970 and which still exists today. The main focus of the dance work was no longer the round dances of the Quickborn era, but the recorded folk dances of the youth movement.

Role in the Third Reich

According to the Spruchkammer documents , Erna Schützenberger was a music advisor at the BDM from 1933 to 1935 and also a member of the VDA (Volksbund für das Deutschtum abroad) in 1934, a member of the NS-Volkswohlfahrt from 1934 to 1945 , of the German Red Cross in 1937 and from 1938 to 1938 1945 in the NS-Frauenwerk . However , she was not a member of the NSDAP . With the exception of the trade unions, which she classified as followers, the institutions (mayor, political parties, finance and employment office, trade union) asked to comment by the public plaintiff in the arbitration chamber proceedings also confirmed that she was not a supporter of the NSDAP ; the arbitration board proceedings were then not even opened.

Erna Schützenberger was never a supporter of National Socialism. There is also everything to indicate that their membership in various organizations was only pro forma. Their seemingly incompatible cooperation despite the opposition could be observed at this time among many supporters of the youth movement . They hoped to be able to cautiously continue the youth-driven reform movement within the Nazi associations and thus to gain intellectual and cultural supremacy over the activism in these associations, which was largely perceived as spiritless. As we know today, these intentions have largely all failed.

Field research

Compared to the repertoire of the Lower Bavarian dance landscape, Erna Schützenberger's verifiable field research work with around 28 recorded folk dances in the Passau area looks comparatively modest. However, their verifiable activity in dance research is limited to the years from around 1930 to 1932 (16 dances) and 1949 to 1959 (12 dances).

The cessation of research activity around 1932 can probably be explained by the fact that from around 1930 men began to dominate dance research. Correspondence with Hermann Derschmidt when the joint dance book was published or certain traits in their handling of dance do not suggest that Schützenberger was particularly skilled, but rather that he was a rather average musical level, but this cannot be clarified in retrospect. But this may be the reason why she lacked the necessary self-confidence to compete with her male “competitors” with her own field research from 1932 onwards. Schützenberger subsequently subordinated Hermann Derschmidt's authority. Another reason for the rather manageable collecting activity can be found in their worldview, which was rather critical of civilization, which was shaped by the youth movement of the 1920s. In the later dance work in the folk dance group, only dance forms were considered that corresponded to her worldview and in which she felt an inherent power to lead towards the higher goal of human education. She did not practice folk dance maintenance for the sake of preserving tradition, but for the self-discovery of people irritated by modern civilization, a core concern of the cultural work of the German youth movement.

records

Most of Erna Schützenberger's dance recordings are today largely part of the standard program of folk dance bands in Lower Bavaria, even if they were only created within a limited time frame and within a limited radius around Passau:

year	place	Dance name (s)
1928 / around 1930	Emergency rope	The beautiful Marie
circa 1930	Bavarian forest	Marching polka
	Bavarian Forest, Nottau, Breitenberg	Spinning wheel as a couple dance
	Salzweg	Mazurka (from Salzweg, better known as "Niederbayerische Mazurka")
1930	Emergency rope	Munich shower polka I
		Salzburg lathe operator
		Manchester
		Cross polka
		Boxhamerisch ("Our old Kath" - Zwiefacher )
		Munich polka
		Slide there, slide here
		Wintergrea ("Wintergrün" - Zwiefacher)
	(Without location)	Massiner
	Hauzenberger area	Kikeriki
1931	Oberfrauenwald	Good morning, Mr. Fischer
1932	Ringelai	Oacholber (" Eichel Ober " - Zwiefacher)
1949	Hinterschmiding	s'Luada (double)
1950	Wotzdorf	Shower polka
		Landler from Wotzdorf (better known as "Niederbayerische Landler")
1953	Breitenberg	Hunter polka
1954	Obernzell	Funny waltz
		Hott check
1955	Aubach near Hauzenberg	Hadalump
1959	Böhmzwiesel	Munich shower polka II
o. year	East Bavarian border marks 1926	Sommermichl
o. year	Bavarian forest	Iron wedge nest (Zwiefacher)
o. year	Hauzenberger area	Haxnschmeißer
o. year	lower Bavarian Forest	Hangers
o. year	Hinterschmiding	Farmer's wife vo da Hoi (Zwiefacher)
o. year	Steinbrunn near Passau	Innviertel Landler

Works

• Erna Schützenberger: Singspiele - round dance - folk dances. Passau 1935 (mach.) Or Bavarian folk dances ; Passau 1935 (mach.)
• Erna Schützenberger: Spinning wheel. Old Bavarian folk dances. Passau 1949
• Erna Schützenberger: Singspiele - dance. Passau 1952
• Erna Schützenberger; Hermann Derschmidt: Spinnradl - Our dance book. Munich 1959 ff .; 5 episodes

Honors

• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (1966)
• Bavarian Order of Merit (1974)

literature

• Manfred Seifert: Erna Schützenberger: Folk dance care from the spirit of the youth movement . In: Folk music in Bavaria. No. 17/2 (2000), pp. 17-34.

Web links

• volkstanzkreis-passau.de

Notes and footnotes

1. ↑ According to Seifert: In 2000, Lederergasse 19 is recorded as the place of birth (after the invitation to the unveiling of the memorial plaque), Schustergasse 5 as "place of residence since birth" (according to the population register).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Manfred Seifert: Erna Schützenberger: Folk dance care from the spirit of the youth movement . In: Volksmusik in Bayern 17/2 (2000), pp. 17–34.
3. ↑ According to the lecture on the 75th anniversary of the Passau Folk Dance Circle (2002) by Wolfgang A. Mayer from the Bavarian Association for Homeland Care, around 100 different types of dance are documented in today's administrative district of Lower Bavaria .