Gerhard Storz

Gerhard Storz (born August 19, 1898 in Rottenacker ; † August 30, 1983 in Leonberg ) was a German educator, writer, literary scholar, CDU politician and from 1958 to 1964 Minister of Culture of the State of Baden-Württemberg .

biography

Gerhard Storz was born on August 19, 1898 in Rottenacker (Württemberg) as the son of a Protestant pastor. He visited in Esslingen am Neckar the school and served from 1916 to 1918 as a soldier in the First World War . Storz studied philology and did his doctorate on "The linguistic representation of the concept of truth in Greek literature before Plato". As a student he became a member of the Tübingen royal society Roigel . After completing his studies, he worked for a number of years as a theater director and director at the Württemberg Volksbühne Stuttgart and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe . In 1932 he entered the school service, went to the secondary school in Biberach an der Riss as a study assistant , was then senior director of the Dortmund City Theater for a year and in 1935 came to the Mergenthaler secondary school in Schwäbisch Hall . From 1935 until it was banned in 1943, he wrote for the renowned Frankfurter Zeitung . The committed teacher, convinced humanist and secret opponent of National Socialism reassured each other with Dolf Sternberger of his dissidence. Erhard Eppler was one of his students .

He returned from military service and imprisonment in November 1945 and was appointed head of his former high school in Schwäbisch Hall in 1947 (from 1955 "Gymnasium near St. Michael"). In addition, for some time he was head of studies at the State Academy for Teacher Training on the Comburg . As a councilor and co-founder of the CDU city and district association, Storz was committed to a new democratic beginning.

1958 he was appointed Prime Minister Gebhard Müller to Minister of Culture . As such he was u. a. responsible for the reform of the upper level of the grammar school, the founding of the universities of Konstanz and Ulm , the expansion of the universities of teacher education as well as for important art acquisitions of the Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart . In 1964 he resigned his ministerial post and in the following years worked as an honorary professor in Tübingen and as a visiting professor at various universities in the USA and Canada .

Despite his political offices, Storz remained a writer, was a member of the PEN Club and for many years president of the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt . He published numerous titles, especially on literary topics, but also dealt with the theater, published school books for German lessons, wrote novels and travelogues as well as two autobiographical books. Schiller research owes him essential impulses. His linguistic critical work includes the book From the Dictionary of the Unmenschen (1957) , published together with Dolf Sternberger and Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind , on the language of National Socialism , which was based on a series of articles published between 1945 and 1948 in the magazine Die Wandlung .

Gerhard Storz died on August 30, 1983 in Leonberg. His son was the filmmaker and writer Oliver Storz .

The Gerhard Storz Prize awarded today by the Humanism Foundation is named after him . It is awarded for performances of ancient theater pieces or of pieces that tie in with the tradition of the ancient world. Theater groups from schools in Baden-Württemberg can take part in the competition, which takes place every two years.

Independent publications

• The theater in the present. A time-critical consideration. Karlsruhe 1927
• Layman's training on dealing with the language. Frankfurt a. Main 1937
• The teacher. Narrative. Frankfurt a. Main 1937 (under the pseudonym Georg Leitenberger)
• Friedrich Schiller's drama. Frankfurt a. Main 1937
• Music in the country. With 15 drawings by Albert Fuß, Frankfurt a. Main 1939 (under the pseudonym Georg Leitenberger)
• The everlasting garden. A story. (under the pseudonym Georg Leitenberger), Tübingen 1940
• Thoughts on Poetry. Frankfurt a. Main 1941
• The billeting. Narrative. Stuttgart 1946
• Joan of Arc and Schiller. A study of the relationship between poetry and reality. Freiburg i Br. 1947
• The teacher. Narrative. Stuttgart 1948
• Trip to France. Narrative. Stuttgart 1948
• Dealing with the language. Stuttgart 1948
• Goethe vigils or attempts in art to understand poetry. Stuttgart 1953
• Do you know the country ...? Italy Con Amore toured by Gerhard Storz. (Small tower library, no.9), Stuttgart 1955
• Language and poetry. Munich 1957
• together with Dolf Sternberger and Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind : From the dictionary of the monster. Hamburg 1957
• The poet Schiller. Stuttgart 1959
• Friedrich Schiller. (Athenaeum writings, vol. 2), Frankfurt a. Main / Bonn 1960
• Figures and brochures. Outlook on poets and mimes. Language and Landscape, Stuttgart 1963
• 40 years of Schwäbisch Hall open-air theater. Schwäbisch Hall 1966
• Swabian romance. Poets and poets in old Württemberg. Stuttgart 1967
• Heinrich Heine's lyric poetry. Stuttgart 1971
• Over the years. A life report from the first half of the century. Stuttgart 1973
• Speech analysis without language. Notes on Modern Linguistics. (Experiments, Vol. 21), Stuttgart 1975
• The game on the stairs. Schwäbisch Hall open-air theater. Schwäbisch Hall 1975
• Between office and inclination. A life report from the time after 1945. Stuttgart 1976
• Capriccios. Stuttgart 1978
• The word as a sign and reality. On the dual nature of language. An essay. Stuttgart 1980
• Karl Eugen. The Prince and the “old good law” Stuttgart 1981
• German as a task and a pleasure. Stuttgart 1984

(Note: without claim to completeness!)

Autobiographical

• Over the years. A life report from the first half of the century. Stuttgart 1973
• Between office and inclination. A life report from the time after 1945. Stuttgart 1976

Articles and essays (selection)

• Venice. In: bread and wine. Annual gift of Swabian poetry 1958. pp. 16–22
• Meditation on Swabian. In: Swabians among themselves about themselves, Frankfurt a. Main 1976, pp. 195-199
• Comments on dialect and dialect poetry. In: Badische Heimat 59 (1979), pp. 71-74

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Storz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography from the school newspaper of the Wieland-Gymnasium Biberach
• Humanism Today Foundation: Gerhard Storz Prize