Georg Küffer

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Georg Küffer (born September 17, 1890 in Biel , † June 14, 1970 in Bad Nauheim , Hesse) was a Swiss educator, writer and co-founder of the Bern Adult Education Center .

Life

Georg Küffer grew up in Biel and from 1906 to 1910 attended the Bern teachers' seminar in Hofwil in Münchenbuchsee. After acquiring his teaching license, he worked for a short time as a primary school teacher in Oberried (municipality of Zweisimmen , Canton of Bern). This was followed by training as a secondary teacher. At the University of Bern , he continued his studies with a combination of German studies, philosophy and art history and study visits to Berlin and Munich, which he completed in 1926 with a doctorate. After various deputies, he taught at the boys' secondary school in Bern from 1917. From 1926 to 1960 he worked as a German teacher at the Hofwil teacher training college.

Küffer was interested in poetry and dialect poetry, legends, religious and folklore topics, but also in pedagogical innovations in school lessons and in adult education.

In 1915 his first volume of poetry, “Seelchen”, appeared, and he published his collected sagas a. a. in the two volumes "Lenker Sagen" (1916) and "Sagen aus dem Bernerland" (1925). By the mid-1960s he wrote numerous other volumes of poetry, short stories, plays, educational texts and worked as a member of the Swiss Youth Literature Works.

Shaped by the events of the First World War and the national strike in 1918 and impressed by the adult education system that he had learned about on a study trip to Sweden and Denmark, Georg Küffer campaigned for the establishment of an adult education center in Bern in 1919. In 1919 he was a member of the commission for adult education programs, then first secretary of the adult education college in Bern, founded in December 1920, and editor of the magazine Die Volkshochschule Bern . In the first few years after the association was founded, until 1924, he worked closely with the sculptor Karl Hänny , who was the association's first president from 1920 to 1939. From the mid-1920s he withdrew from the association and the editorial team.

With the help of popular education, Georg Küffer wanted to overcome political-social polarization. By training the spiritual and spiritual life and with increased participation of everyone in the cultural property, he aimed to create a "true cultural community of all social classes". In particular, the workforce should be better integrated into the national community through education.

Georg Küffer's estate is in the Burger Library in Bern . In addition to extensive correspondence (including from Otto von Greyerz and Simon Gfeller ), it also contains drafts and manuscripts of his publications, materials on his activities for the adult education center and personal documents.

Awards

  • Book Prize of the City of Bern, 1950
  • Award of the Biel City Council for the volume of poetry in Biel dialect "Dialect poem" (1948)

literature

  • Obituary, in: Berner Tagblatt, June 19, 1970, p. 5.
  • Obituary, in: Der Bund, June 25, 1970, p. 33.
  • Hanspeter Mattmüller , Anton Lindgren : Adult Education Center Bern 1919–1979. Adult Education Center Bern, 1979.
  • Bern writers' association (ed.): Bernese contemporary literature, 1925-1950 . A. Francke, Bern 1949, p. 92-93 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hanspeter Mattmüller, Anton Lindgren: Volkshochschule Bern 1919–1979 . Ed .: Volkshochschule Bern. Bern 1979, p. 12-35 .
  2. ^ Hanspeter Mattmüller, Anton Lindgren: Volkshochschule Bern 1919–1979 . Ed .: Volkshochschule Bern. Bern 1979, p. 16 .
  3. ^ Georg Küffer estate in the catalog of the Bern Burger Library
  4. ^ Awards for literature since 1940 - City of Bern. (PDF) Retrieved June 13, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Küffer, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss educator and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 17, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Biel
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1970
Place of death Bad Nauheim