Ernst Ahnert

Ernst Ahnert (1908)

Ernst Richard Ahnert (born June 21, 1859 in Neumark / Sa. , † December 29, 1944 in Dresden ) was a German teacher and stenographer . He is considered to be the co-creator of today's German unified shorthand .

Life

He was the son of the carpenter and later landowner and brickworks owner Karl Gottlob Ahnert. At the age of eleven, he was already enthusiastic about shorthand and acquired his first basic knowledge autodidactically. He received his first systematic introduction in 1872/73 at the Second Order Secondary School in Reichenbach / Vogtland from Georg Hagen, a renowned representative of the shorthand method according to Franz Xaver Gabelsberger in Saxony. From 1876 to 1879 Ernst Ahnert attended secondary school 1st order in Zwickau . There he founded his first stenographers association in 1877 , which was to be followed by numerous associations throughout Germany.

After graduating from high school, Ahnert studied modern languages, German, history and education from 1879 to 1883 at the University of Leipzig and - for a year - in Paris . After taking the state examination for higher education and the stenography teacher examination in Leipzig, Ahnert completed the probationary year for teachers at the secondary school in Zwickau. During this time he worked as a parliamentary stenographer in the Alsace-Lorraine regional committee and in the regional parliament of Altenburg in East Thuringia .

In 1884 Ernst Ahnert took over a teaching position at the secondary school in Varel / Friesland . Through his work as a functionary and teacher of the Gabelsberger shorthand in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg , he became known throughout Northwest Germany as a leading representative of shorthand. During his time in Varel, Ahnert traveled several times to Friedrichsruh , Otto von Bismarck's retirement home , in order to record speeches and table discussions of the ex-Chancellor in shorthand on behalf of newspapers, especially the Hamburger Zeitung , which is close to Bismarck . In 1897 Ernst Ahnert, promoted to senior teacher in Varel, returned to his Saxon homeland and taught at the secondary school in Oschatz until 1901 .

In 1901 Ahnert was appointed to the State Stenographic Office in Dresden , and at the same time he was appointed professor by the Saxon king. In 1910 he was promoted to government councilor. As a practitioner, propagandist and association functionary of Gabelsberger's shorthand, he took on a variety of tasks. So he worked z. B. from 1901 to 1924 as a stenographer in the Saxon state parliament and in 1917 in the German Reichstag . Ahnert, who had an excellent command of the French language, worked as a stenographer during the peace negotiations in Versailles in 1919 . At the beginning of the twenties he played a key role in committees that created the German unified shorthand that was adopted in 1924 and is still valid today. In 1924 he retired.

The high level of awareness of Ahnert in the German-speaking stenography movement resulted primarily from his numerous lecture tours and from his z. Teaching and exercise scripts, some of which had high editions, which he wrote for the broad mass of stenographers. He also made a name for himself as the editor of shorthand magazines and yearbooks. Ahnert was particularly effective as a teacher. His commitment to young stenographers was evident in the series of stenographic youth library that he published in Heckner's publishing house in Wolfenbüttel . The expressionist poet, journalist and translator Ferdinand Hardekopf (1876–1954) is one of his best-known stenography students .

Works (selection)

Fonts (selection)

• Guide to Gabelsberger's shorthand , Wolfenbüttel 1907.
• Course in Gabelsberger stenography for school and club lessons , Wolfenbüttel 1907
• Exercise on shortening sentences , Wolfenbüttel 1914
• Course in German shorthand for school and club lessons , Wolfenbüttel 1925
• Textbook of the English shorthand (with Albert Tansen), Dresden 1929

As editor (selection)

• Reading and exercise sheet. Supplement to the Deutsche Stenographen-Zeitung , Wolfenbüttel 1901 ff.
• Stenographic youth library , series of publications, Wolfenbüttel 1904 ff.
• Bunte Blätter , monthly magazine to promote reading and writing skills in shorthand, Wolfenbüttel 1907 ff.

literature

• Herrmann AL Degener : Degeners Who is it? Berlin 1935, p. 10

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Sauer: A stenographer from Varel near Bismarck. Ernst Ahnert, pioneer of the "art of speech drawing" in the Oldenburger Land. In: Kulturland Oldenburg. Journal of the Oldenburg landscape. Issue 165 (3.2015), ISSN  1862-9652 , pp. 20-23 ( PDF ; 3952 kB; accessed on December 26, 2018).
2. ↑ See Ernst Ahnert: How does the stenographer do it? A childhood memory , in: Heckners Nachrichten , Jg. 1926/27, Wolfenbüttel 1927, pp. 17-19.
3. ↑ See Hans Sauer: Ernst Ahnert, an important representative of the shorthand movement and his early years in Zwickau , in: Cygnea. Series of publications by the Zwickau City Archives , No. 14 (2016), pp. 45–55.
4. ↑ See Nordwestdeutscher Stenografenverband (Hrsg.): 100 Years of Stenography in Oldenburg , Oldenburg 1957, p. 12.
5. ↑ See Ernst Ahnert: On the shorthand recording of the speeches of Prince Bismarck after his release , in: Korrespondenzblatt, official journal of the Royal Stenographical Institute in Dresden , Dresden 1916, pp. 157-163.
6. ^ Richard Helmrich: Government Councilor a. D. Prof. Ernst Ahnert , in: Nachrichten aus Heckners Verlag , Wolfenbüttel 1927, p. 14.
7. ↑ Hans Sauer: Memories of the poet and Reichstag stenographer Ferdinand Hardekopf and his teacher Ernst Ahnert , in: Neue Stenografische Praxis , 63rd vol., No.3, Berlin 2015, pp. 65–81.