Fides by Gontard
Fides von Gontard (born January 28, 1917 in Kassel ; † October 9, 2007 in Imshausen ) was a German welfare worker and head of the Protestant seminar for social professions in Kassel.
Life
Fides Dorothea Magda was the eldest of four children of the engineer and factory director Hans von Gontard and his wife Dorothea, geb. Raven von Pappenheim . Gontard wrote about her childhood:
“We grew up in the security of our parents' home. Since my father often traveled for months, my mother shaped our upbringing. We did have teachers, but she was decisive. In terms of their origins and history, Prussian values were decisive: self-discipline, honesty and frugality. We lived simply, even though there was ample funds available ... We siblings had a lot of leeway in the big house, the spacious children's room and the big garden, where playmates from the neighborhood also came. "
In March 1935 she passed the school leaving examination at the Malwida von Meysenbug School , which on January 1, 1940 was renamed Heinrich Schütz School after the German composer Heinrich Schütz , as the previous name was no longer acceptable to the Nazi rulers was. Gontard then completed a domestic and agricultural internship on an estate in East Prussia, which, in a village in the Rhön, was followed by the voluntary labor service. Before Gontard began her training at the Inner Mission welfare school in Berlin, she worked in Kassel a. a. in a milk kitchen of the NSV and for three months in a spinning mill. After completing her training as a people's nurse, as it was called at the time, she was conscripted to the army ammunition factory in Ihringshausen near Kassel. Here the "22-year-old young woman should set up a company welfare scheme without guidance."
In November 1940 she began studying political economy at the University of Munich, moved to the University of Frankfurt for the winter semester of 1941/42, and finally to Freiburg im Brsg in the spring of 1942. Gontard graduated from the university in the latter city and subsequently worked as an assistant at the Faculty of Law and Political Science. There she did her doctorate in 1946 under Walter Eucken with a thesis on the labor market and labor reform . In the same year, Hermann Schabric brought the young academic to Kassel to set up the Protestant seminar for social professional work:
“The first course, for which 18 women and one man had registered, began in autumn 1946. Almost all of them had worked actively and responsibly during the Nazi era, mostly as labor service or BDM leaders, most of them were older than me. "
For the first two years, the seminar was housed in three rooms of the von Gontard family's house before it moved to Hermannstrasse 6. The headmistress had a decisive influence on the social education sector in the post-war period. For example, she was one of the 45 participants in a conference that was held in 1948 in the Rhenish Hessian youth home on social training issues. Hertha Kraus was the initiator of this event . Gontard headed the social training center in Kassel until 1961. In technical terms, Gontard took up impulses from US social work as early as the 1950s, transferring basic concepts of democratic life to the relationship between care and clients. In relation to this she wrote:
“We are rediscovering the importance of group relationships as an effective aid and are on the way to developing a new method of social work in group work - not only for children and young people, but also for adults. The case-work and group-work methods developed in the USA are an essential stimulus and help. "
Gontard had a very intimate relationship with Vera von Trott zu Solz, whose brother Adam was executed in 1944 with the group around Graf von Stauffenberg . After the collapse in 1945, Vera von Trott zu Solz founded the Imshausen Evangelical Community , which Gontard joined on October 1, 1963. She made her profession on October 11, 1966.
Gontard had been a member of the Social Work Guild since 1948 and was elected to the Guild Office (board of directors) in 1949. She was also a member and initiator of the working group of the Federation of Protestant Women in Social Service founded in Bethel in 1950 (renamed in 1951 to Bund Evangelischer Fürsorgerinnen ), a Christian community of Protestant women who were involved in the social service of the churches and wanted to deepen the Protestant belief. Gontard was the chairman of the Hessen State Association. The federal government was dissolved at the end of 1970.
Gontard died in their community and was buried in their cemetery.
Publications (selection)
- Labor market and market reform, Freiburg / Brsg. 1946 (diss.)
- Basic demands for social education - Lecture at the annual meeting of GILDE Social Work, Hamburg 1953
- Cells of renewal. Introduction to the conference topic, in: Rundbrief Gilde Soziale Arbeit 1955 / H. 1/2
- Thoughts after the conference, in: Rundbrief Gilde Soziale Arbeit 1957 / H. 3/4
- The job of women in professional social work, Freiburg 1963
literature
- Sabine Hering / Edith Kramer (eds.): From the pioneering days of social work. Eleven women report, Weinheim / Basel 1984, pp. 113–123
- Community Imshausen e. V. (Ed.): ... ask me - you have to ask me! Memoirs of the years 1917-1967 from Fides von Gontard, Bebra 2008
- Rosemargrit Lohmann: Farewell to Dr. Fides von Gontard (January 28, 1917 - October 9, 2007): Head of the Evangelical Seminar for Social Work in Kassel 1946-1963, in: Rundbrief Gilde Soziale Arbeit vol. 62, 2008, No. 1, pp. 75–80
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gontard, Fides of |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German welfare worker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 28, 1917 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | kassel |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 9, 2007 |
| Place of death | Imshausen |