Protestant teacher training college in Oldenburg

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The Evangelische Lehrerseminar Oldenburg in Oldenburg was an educational institution of the Duchy or Grand Duchy of Oldenburg / Free State of Oldenburg and served from 1793 to 1927 as a teacher training college for Protestant primary school teachers . The seminar was an indirect forerunner of the Pedagogical Academy (from 1945) and the Pedagogical University of Oldenburg (from 1948), from which in 1973 today's Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg emerged . As a replacement for the seminar, the Deutsche Aufbauschule Oldenburg was founded in 1922, which after the seminar was completed in 1927, continued to give students from rural areas of the Free State the opportunity to obtain university entrance qualifications. Today's Graf-Anton-Günther-Gymnasium emerged from the advanced school in 1938 .

The seminar in the Wallstrasse building, 1807–1846

Protestant teacher training college Oldenburg 1807–1846

The Oldenburg teachers' seminar was established in Oldenburg (Oldb) by a decree of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig on March 7, 1793 . The initiative came from the evangelical superintendent of Oldenburg, Esdras Heinrich Mutzenbecher , who had the aim of expanding and improving scholar education in the spirit of enlightenment ideas. By introducing the seminar training, Mutzenbecher set content-related accents and at the same time laid the foundation for greater practical relevance. The seminarians received their basic education as part of their training through lessons at the grammar school and were able to practice practical classroom work in the school for the poor, newly built in 1790, which was run as an industrial school (with work lessons ). Through his visitations, Mutzenbecher recognized grievances in the seminarians' teaching arrangements, especially in catechesis , which he countered by practicing appropriate methods and procedures in exemplary teaching that he himself gave.

In 1807 the seminar received a seminar building specially built by Georg Siegmund Otto Lasius at the corner of Wallstrasse / Heiligengeistwall (today's house number Wallstrasse 14), which was originally planned to accommodate 12 seminarians. The second police station is currently (2013) in the building.

The seminarians were international standard housed and were subject to a rigid supervision by the teaching staff, then the informal term "that convent " until completion of the seminar held in 1927, although the boarding school had been abolished already 1875th

In the 1820s, seminarians took one and a half to two and a half years to train. Were taught Biblical history and catechism , geography , singing , mind exercises , movements outdoor, mental arithmetic , instruction for arithmetic , mathematics , physics , grammar, spelling , catechetics , reading and thinking exercises and history. Classes including Saturday started at 6:00 a.m. and lasted until 9:00 p.m. and were only interrupted by the lunch break from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. In 1832, the curriculum also provided for one lesson in English , drawing and world studies. From 1822 to 1842 only eight seminarians were accepted annually.

The new seminar building in Peterstraße 1846

Evangelical teacher training college in Oldenburg 1846–1927

In 1835 the idea of ​​a larger seminar building arose because 45 students had to be accommodated at the same time in a three-year training planned for the future. In addition, the old building did not have its own music room, the classrooms were quite dark and, above all, there was no hospital room that was urgently deemed necessary to prevent the infection of healthy students by the sick. The model was the new seminar building of the Grand Ducal Teachers' College Weimar , in which 70 students could be accommodated at the same time.

After a ten-year planning and construction phase under the architect Hero Diedrich Hillerns (1807–1885), the new seminar building was inaugurated on February 26, 1846 in the presence of Grand Duke Paul Friedrich August in Peterstraße (today's house numbers 42 and 44). The training of the seminarians was now carried out by specially employed assistant teachers and no longer by seconded high school teachers .

A drastic institutional change occurred in 1855 when the seminary was nationalized and placed under the Evangelical High School College. From this point on, the seminar was financed from the state budget, which was decided by the state parliament .

In 1857 the seminar's first educational trip took place. The didactic goal was, among other things, knowledge of the railroad and the topography of mountains . On July 4, 1857, an 18-person seminar group left Oldenburg and marched via Cloppenburg , Quakenbrück and Osnabrück to Iburg . Here the group was transported to Bielefeld on carts . After visiting the Hermann Monument , the group took the train from Paderborn via Kassel to Eisenach to visit the Wartburg . The return journey took place by train to Kassel, from Kassel to Münden the group marched again on foot. The journey home from Münden was again by train, but presumably only to Bremen , as the rail connection from Bremen to Oldenburg was not completed until 1867.

These group trips were carried out by the seminary with interruptions during the First World War until 1925 and usually formed the climax in the life of the seminarians, most of whom worked as elementary school teachers in relatively remote towns in the duchy and could not afford to travel on large amounts.

The seminarians spent the holidays with their parents. Since the Grand Ducal Oldenburg Railway (GOE) only started running on some main routes from 1867 and then initially, the seminarians were sometimes forced to walk very long. If the march could not be done in one day, the seminarians were sometimes forced to spend the night outside.

The seminary reform of 1875

In 1875 a comprehensive reform of the seminar took place, which went back to seminar director Friedrich Sander. The so-called sending of seminar teachers to schools during their training was abolished, as was the boarding school.

By eliminating the boarding school and thus the dormitories, space was created for a physics room, a drawing room and smaller teaching material rooms. In addition, a fourth class was set up, which meant that the seminar was still behind the corresponding Prussian and Saxon institutions. Chemistry classes as well as voluntary French and English classes have also been introduced .

In 1882 a teaching garden was laid out in which the seminarians could acquire practical agricultural knowledge, since the Oldenburg seminarians were mostly employed as teachers in the countryside and the teachers' households owned gardens for the necessary self-sufficiency. Fruit and vegetable cultivation and beekeeping for self-sufficiency with honey were taught . The teachers' gardens in the country, in turn, often became role models for the peasant population, who could thus become familiar with new methods of horticulture. The botanical garden, which is now part of the University of Oldenburg, emerged from the teaching garden.

The physical education was introduced in 1836 and has been gradually to other sports expanded. In 1894, the so-called seminar pastures on Haarenesch, which had actually served to finance the seminar by leasing them to farmers or institutions, were set up for ball games. Football was very popular , and in the years before 1914 the seminar leaders tried to reduce the number of soccer seminarians played in clubs because the seminarians exerted themselves physically at away games.

Seminar director Ostermann (1877-1896) endeavored for years to introduce a 5th class, but this only succeeded in 1900. He was also strongly committed to the health of the seminarians. So they had to walk for two hours every day. Compulsory swimming lessons were held in the military bathing facility on the Hunte outside of the soldiers' swimming hours. Twice a year the seminarians were examined by a doctor and, if necessary, looked after by the seminar doctor.

Further expansion measures from 1902

On August 8, 1893, a so-called jubilation took place on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the seminar, in which Grand Duke Nikolaus Friedrich Peter and numerous former seminarians also took part.

After Ostermann left the service voluntarily due to serious conflicts with the extremely conservative high school college, his successor Emil Künoldt finally succeeded in introducing the 5th seminar class in 1900. As a result, renovation work became necessary, so that in 1902 an extension with an auditorium and a gymnasium could be set up. Soon after, Künoldt demanded the introduction of a 6th grade and justified this with the fact that even the small Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen had a 6-stage teacher training program. It was introduced in 1903; In 1905, 1908 and 1910 double classes were set up to cope with the increased rush of seminarians.

In 1904, first the director's apartment, then the seminar itself, was connected to the municipal water supply. Until then, the drinking and industrial water was drawn from a seminar's own well . In 1912 gas lighting was replaced by electric light. A telephone connection was only made in 1921.

Participation of the seminarians at lunch was compulsory. Example of a weekly menu around 1910:

Monday: soup and roast beef
Tuesday: green beans with beef
Wednesday: buttermilk, pancakes with compote
Thursday: applesauce and roast pork
Friday: fried fish and sweet soup
Saturday: beef soup

French lessons remained a stepchild in the classroom. The goal of teaching the ability to read French literature failed. In spite of this, the teaching was retained, although several calls for its abolition were made. It was only discontinued after the First World War , when much more streamlined curricula were introduced for former combatants.

The seminary in the First World War

When the First World War broke out, the entire 1st class volunteered, which in no way corresponded to the intentions of Director Künoldt, who assumed a short war and saw the volunteer registrations as a considerable threat to teaching. Some of the volunteers served in the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment No. 91 .

In September 1914, Künoldt obtained a regulation from the high school college according to which war volunteers required its approval. Since these were never granted, the volunteer registrations did not take place. Irrespective of this, from this point in time, the seminar members were gradually drafted when they reached the age of compulsory military service. Since Künoldt's deputy Ludwig Pfannkuche (1872–1915) volunteered and the seminar teachers Georg Röver (1883–1962) and Alfred Hoyer (1884–1918) were drafted, the training company suffered tremendously.

Apparently at the end of 1914 Künoldt began to create a collection of field post letters and postcards from both seminar members and former seminarians, now elementary school teachers, who were in contact with him. The collection is now in the holdings of the teachers' seminar at the State Archives in Oldenburg and is considered to be one of the most comprehensive collections of field post letters from World War I in northwest Germany. Of the total of 243 drafted or volunteer seminarians, 59 fell and 29 were taken prisoners of war . The seminar teachers Pfannkuche, Hoyer and Gerhard Sandstede (1884–1915) also fell. Künoldt, physically and psychologically broken by the war, left the service at his own request on July 1, 1919:

The emperor's escape, the military collapse, the revolution with its workers 'and soldiers' councils, the rise of social democracy, all of this appeared to Künoldt, this conservative man who believed in the throne and the altar and was supported by the idealism and belief in progress of the early 20th century was a slide into terrible abysses. Hundreds of young teachers and numerous seminarians who had been his previous students - mostly gifted young people - had remained in the field as volunteers. The 69-year-old, to whom a good part of his life's work seemed to have been destroyed with the defeated fatherland, could no longer find the strength to start again.

Steinhoff, The Seminar in Oldenburg , p. 144.

Künoldt who over 42 years at the seminar had been working, committed suicide on January 8, 1920 suicide .

The post war period. The handling of the seminar 1922–1927

For the new seminar leader under Friedrich Korte (1872–1952), the reintegration of the former combatants and prisoners of war, a large number of whom had served as reserve officers , proved to be a not inconsiderable disciplinary problem. For them, much shortened curricula were drawn up, in which French and gymnastics were omitted and pedagogy and teaching ( didactics ) were promoted instead . Course I lasted only six months, course II 12 months. The seminarians completed a teaching program in 18 months, which normally lasted six years.

Korte, according to Steinhoff “a pragmatist”, was also confronted with an extremely heterogeneous faculty who had completed completely different training paths. From the winter of 1920, two seminarist classes from the closed Neuchâtel teachers' seminar were added to the seminar and the teachers Lüschen and Hinze were added to the teaching staff. The seminarians completed their practical training at the Volksmädchenschule and the Cäcilienschule Oldenburg .

In 1920 the Ministry of Churches and Schools announced that the seminar would be held. It was supposed to be completed in 1927. In fact, the seminar was converted into a so-called advanced school in 1927, in which rural students in particular were to continue to be given the opportunity to attain higher education entrance qualifications in a shortened secondary school . There were also plans to set up a teacher training institute with a two-year course.

While the advanced school was being set up under Korte, the seminar was held. In 1925 the advanced school, which was housed in the seminar building, received its own director in Otto Modick. In 1933 he was removed from his position by the National Socialist state government because of "political unreliability" and was forcibly transferred to the Cäcilienschule Oldenburg as a teacher . The last seminarians left at Easter 1927. The advanced school was transformed into today's Graf-Anton-Günther-Schule in 1938 .

In 1926/27 the artist Elsa Oeltjen-Kasimir created a memorial stone for the fallen (Protestant) primary school teachers in the country on behalf of the Oldenburg State Teachers' Association . The memorial stone was installed in the seminar building in front of the auditorium and consists of fired Bockhorn clinker . The inauguration took place on April 2, 1927 in the presence of the Prime Minister of Oldenburg, Eugen von Finckh, as part of a closing ceremony for the dissolution of the seminar. The memorial stone was laid down around 1986 during renovation work for unknown reasons and is now in the attic of the building.

The continued use of the seminar building from 1945 to 1965

In 1945 the seminar building became the seat of the Pedagogical Academy Oldenburg, which was converted into the Pedagogical University (PH) Oldenburg in 1958. The PH continued to use the building until 1965, while teaching began at the current university building on Ammerländer Heerstraße. After the building was apparently only used as a storage room for various institutions for a good 20 years, it has housed monument protection authorities since about 1986 , currently an office of the State Construction Management Ems-Weser.

Directors

  • Philipp Carl Willich (1806–1882), 1851–1874
  • Friedrich Sander (1840–?), 1874–1877
  • Wilhelm Ostermann (1850–1922), 1877–1896
  • Emil Künoldt (1850–1920), 1897–1919
  • Friedrich Korte (1872–1951), 1921–1927

Known members of the seminar

literature

  • Closing ceremony of the seminar. Consecration of the memorial for teachers and seminarians who died in the World War. In: News for Town and Country of April 2, 1927.
  • The “dear old seminary”. Seminarians return to the "monastery" after 40 years. In: Nordwest-Zeitung of April 2, 1962.
  • Karl Steinhoff: The seminar in Oldenburg. In: Karl Steinhoff / Wolfgang Schulenberg (ed.): History of Oldenburg Teacher Training, Vol. 1: The Protestant Seminars , Oldenburg 1979, pp. 10–194. ISBN 3-87358-106-X .
  • Hilke Günther-Arndt : History lessons in Oldenburg 1900–1930 , Oldenburg 1980.
  • Hilke Günther-Arndt / Klaus Klattenhoff / Friedrich Wißmann: From seminar to university 1793–1993. 200 years of teacher training in Oldenburg , Oldenburg (library and information system of the University of Oldenburg) 1993. ISBN 3-8142-0422-0 .
  • Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 .
  • Oliver Gradel: The teachers' seminar on Peterstrasse and the Augusteum . In: Jörgen Welp (Red.): Dedicated to the well-being of Oldenburg: Aspects of the cultural and social work of the House of Oldenburg, 1773–1918 (= publications of the Oldenburg landscape . Vol. 9). Published by the Oldenburg landscape , Isensee, Oldenburg 2004, ISBN 3-89995-142-5 , p. 83 ff.
  • Heinz Kanngießer / Wolfgang Schieke (editor): 1922–1972. 50 years of Graf-Anton-Günther-Schule , o. O., o. J. (Oldenburg 1972).
  • Gerhard Wiechmann (Ed.): "You can say that war is a life-threatening sport". Oldenburg teachers and seminarians experience the World War 1914–1918. Documentation, created on the basis of the collection of the director of the Oldenburg teachers' seminar, Dr. Emil Künoldt (1850–1920) , Oldenburg (BIS-Verlag der Universität Oldenburg) 2002. ISBN 3-8142-0815-3 .
  • Memorial stone rediscovered by accident. Epitaph commemorates the teachers of the Oldenburg teachers' college who died in World War I. In: Nordwest-Zeitung of March 4, 2003.
  • Jörgen Welp : The Oldenburg teachers' seminar. An advanced facility of the late 18th century . In the S. (Red.): Dedicated to the welfare of Oldenburg: Aspects of the cultural and social activities of the House of Oldenburg, 1773–1918 (= publications of the Oldenburg landscape . Vol. 9). Edited by the Oldenburg landscape , Isensee, Oldenburg 2004, ISBN 3-89995-142-5 , p. 241 f.
  • Richard Sautmann: "Then he'd better stay at the front." Local government, war welfare and food supply in Oldenburg 1914–1918 , Oldenburg (Isensee) 2012. ISBN 978-3-89995-927-7 .
  • City of Oldenburg (Ed.): Oldenburg 1914-1918. A source volume on the everyday, social, military and mental history of the city of Oldenburg in the First World War . (Publications of the Oldenburg City Archives, Vol. 7), Oldenburg (Isensee) 2014. ISBN 978-3-7308-1080-4 .

Web links

Commons : Evangelisches Lehrerseminar Oldenburg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Klattenhoff, Rolf Schäfer : Mutzenbecher, Esdras Heinrich In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg. Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 504-507 ( online ).