Gerhard Heine

This article deals with the pedagogue and writer Gerhard Heine. For the businessman and politician see Gerhart Heine .

Gerhard and Margarethe Heine born Hoffmann

Gerhard Heine (born January 13, 1867 in Köthen (Anhalt) , † December 19, 1949 in Dessau ) was a German writer , headmaster and literary historian .

Life

Gerhard Heine was born as one of 6 children of the theologian Gerhard Heine and Elisabeth Heine, geb. Schubring was born. The son Gerhard grew up in a politically conservative, spiritually and musically influenced, Protestant family in Köthen. He attended the Ludwigsgymnasium there.

From 1886 student years followed in Greifswald, Berlin, Göttingen and Halle in the faculties of theology and philology. In Göttingen he joined the latter in a dispute between so-called Orthodox Protestant believers and modern, liberal Ritschlians. As a pupil, Ritschlians followed Albrecht Ritschl's (1822–1889) religious guidelines, which meant a departure from the literal tradition of Christianity. Instead, a scientific methodology was introduced. This led Heine to a conflict with a sermon text at an exam in which he was refused admission. If he initially wanted to take a theological exam, he only later did his doctorate with the philological work The relationship between aesthetics and ethics under Schiller in 1894 for Dr. phil. At the beginning of the 20th century he worked as senior director of studies at the Herzoglicher Karls-Gymnasium in Bernburg. In 1897 he married the pastor's daughter Margarethe Hoffmann (1871–1948). Four sons were born from her: Hansgerd (1898), Bruno (1899), Walter (1902) and Ulrich (1906).

In 1911 he left the grammar school in Bernburg and took over the management of the North Sea pedagogy in Wyk auf Föhr. Because the First World War resulted in the closure of the education center a year later, in 1915 he applied for a position as a teacher at the Dessau Oberlyzeum. From then on, Dessau remained the home and center of life for the Heine family.

1914–1918 while his two older sons were drafted into the army, Gerhard Heine was able to escape the war at almost 50 years of age.

In 1918 he decided to join the DP (national-liberal) party in order to become more socially and politically involved in the turmoil of the post-war revolution. His commitment is rewarded by a long friendship with Hugo Junkers (1859–1935), the pioneer of German aviation from Dessau. The connection came about in 1920 through the mediation of the mayor of Dessau, Fritz Hesse (1881–1973), and Gerhard Heine thanked him for the new construction of the airport for the Junkers works near Dessau with the help of his relations with politics. The close friendship with Hugo Junkers lasted until his death.

In 1922, Gerhard Heine took over the management of the Dessau Friedrichsgymnasium as director. Here he relied on a more revealing teaching structure instead of the usual school discipline at the time. He founds a school camp in which natural history was predominantly emphasized outside of the classroom. He reached retirement age in 1932, when the National Socialists exerted their influence on public life on a broad scale. He is asked to extend his office for a year and has to experience how his life's work is publicly declared by party members to be unpatriotic. He is attacked and threatened several times on the street. After all, when he said good-bye on April 1, 1933, the entire teaching staff, parents and students could not be prevented from handing over several thousand Reichsmarks in his honor at a farewell party. It is donated by him for the country school home. But in the following years, during which he wanted to stay connected to his high school after his retirement, his successors distanced themselves from him. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the grammar school, he is openly accused of having striven for many years to fill the grammar school with a democratic spirit, to have given its classes too much independence and even to have created a kind of parliament out of classes and committees - Allegations that were grave in 1935. When there was an acute shortage of teachers during the war, he was called to his grammar school again until 1943 to teach German.

The time in his retirement was the time of new releases of some of his earlier works. But many new works were added. He took most of his educational trips within Germany. His novels sell well because they often focus on the heroes on the German side in the fight against Napoleon.

Works

Literary works

• 1913: Kings: Two dramatic. Seals
• 1922: The Liberation: A Game
• 1922: Ulricus uff dem Ziebigk or the summer festival: a game
• 1923: King Fredo: A dramat. ballad
• 1924: The Crown Prince in Küstrin: A game of today
• 1924: Osfried: Dramat. ballad
• 1925: The King from the Orient: A Christmas Sp.
• 1926: Glum: A heroic game
• 1935: Princess Sidonie awakens: Erz. Aus e. small residence
• 1938: Gneisenau: A great life
• 1939: Ernst Moritz Arndt: Der Weg e. German man
• 1940: The man who went for a walk to Syracuse: the adventurous life of Johann Gottfried Seume
• 1941: The experiences of Baroness Fritze von Riedesel

Educational works

• 1916: Mobilizing the School: Pedagogical Thoughts
• 1925: The importance of poetry in education

Scientific works

• 1894: The relationship between aesthetics and ethics in Schiller
• 1905: From the silver age of our literature: Mörike, Ludwig, Hebbel and CF Meyer

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gerhard Heine: Memoirs (unpublished)

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Heine in the catalog of the German National Library