Erwin Lesch

Erwin Lesch (* 1. July 1893 ; † 25. April 1974 in Munich ) was a German special - / remedial teacher .

Live and act

Erwin Lesch worked as an auxiliary school teacher in Munich from 1921, most recently as headmaster of the auxiliary school on Kirchenstrasse for almost 30 years. As an experienced auxiliary school teacher, he had published several lesson books for the auxiliary school. Under the direction of Rupert Egenberger, Lesch completed the first state special education training course in 1922/23. Subsequently, he worked in his function as managing director of the "Society for Curative Education e.V." played a key role in the implementation of the curative education congresses in Munich in 1924 and 1926, as well as in Leipzig in 1928 and in Cologne in 1930 . He was also responsible for the publication of the Congress reports. From 1925 to 1943 Lesch worked as a pedagogical assistant at the advice center of the Munich University Clinic and the Heckscherklinik . After Rupert Egenberger had resigned responsibility for the special education training courses, Lesch took over the management of these for the years 1935/36 and 1941/42. In this regard, "he was mainly responsible for genetic health and racial hygiene". On May 1, 1937, he joined the NSDAP, the NSLB , student council V, he had been a member since the beginning of November 1933, the NSRKB ( National Socialist Reich Warrior Association ) since 1934, and the SA since 1934. In addition, since 1935 he was responsible as a youth welfare officer in the NSV . Lesch dealt intensively with the selection of students for auxiliary schools. With this in mind, he developed a special "recording / selection process", the so-called "Munich screening process", in order to identify and sort children who are unable to attend education and school. An interdisciplinary team of psychiatrists and teachers should sort out the children at the age of seven.

After 1945 Lesch did not admit to his rough past, literally denying "his membership in the SA and NSDAP. He was able to achieve that he was classified as a fellow traveler and was reinstated in office and honor. Some special schools in Bavaria had adopted Erwin Lesch When his involvement with the Nazis became known, they put down the name of the "pioneer of special education": Erwin-Lesch schools / support centers in Munich-Unterhaching and Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate. The branches of the support center in Neuburg an der Donau (Aresing and Schrobenhausen) dropped the name Leschs earlier.

After the collapse of the Nazi dictatorship, Lesch had not made any real technical literary turning point with the brown past, as Sieglind Ellger-Rüttgardt pointed out and the following text example shows. In 1943 the auxiliary school rector wrote an article in the magazine "Die Scholle" with the title "Which children belong in the auxiliary school?": "When we look back on the auxiliary school of yesteryear, since (40 years ago) it was still like a gathering of idiots, we have to confess: it has changed its face significantly; the school for the feeble-minded of that time has been steadily upwardly developing into the auxiliary school with profitable value in the new spirit, the auxiliary school that 'educates the children who have been referred to it ... to become useful members of the national community' ". ' Eight years later he formulated on the same topic: "The school for the feeble-minded at that time became, in constant upward development, the high-performance school for the weakly gifted and learning disabled, the auxiliary school, which forms, educates and forms the children who have been referred, entrusted and handed over to still usable members of the human community educates ".

Works (selection)

• The knowledge of colors in auxiliary school children and children of pre-school age, in: Die Hilfsschule 1930 (special print)
• From the auxiliary class, Munich 1936
• Exercise materials (series) for the auxiliary school lower level, Munich 1934
• The word-writing treasure trove of simple capitalized words for the work in the auxiliary school lower level compiled, Munich 1935
• Which children belong in the auxiliary school ?, in: Die Scholle 1943, S, 264–268
• At the gateway to life, Munich 1950
• Which children belong in the auxiliary school ?, in: Zeitschrift für Heilpädagogik 1951, pp. 14-17
• We learn to paint, write and read. Primer for auxiliary schools, Munich 1956
• Happy reading hour. Reading book for special schools, Munich 1959

literature

• Speck, O .: Erwin Lesch †, in: Zeitschrift für Heilpädagogik 1974, pp. 496–497
• Ellger-Rüttgardt, SL: History of Special Education. An introduction, Munich / Basel 2008
• Heimlich, U .: Bavarian special education in the Nazi era illustrated using the example of Erwin Lesch from Munich, in: traces 2013, pp. 37–42
• Heimlich, U .: Erwin Lesch: Aktivist oder Mitläufer ?, in: traces 2014, pp. 44–46
• Fangerau, H./Topp, S./Schepker, K. (Ed.): Child and adolescent psychiatry during National Socialism and in the post-war years. On the history of their consolidation, Germany 2017, p. 135

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heimlich 2013, p. 37
2. ↑ Heimlich 2014, p. 44
3. ↑ Speck 1974, p. 496
4. ↑ cf. on this Ellger-Rüttgardt 2008, p. 295
5. ↑ Lesch 1943, p. 268
6. ↑ Lesch 1951, p. 27