Gustav Conrad (pedagogue)

Gustav Conrad (born March 29, 1875 in Topersdorf , Transylvania , † November 21, 1923 in Sibiu , Kingdom of Romania ) was a Transylvanian pedagogue and orphanage director in Sibiu.

Life

Gustav Conrad was a son of the Transylvanian naturalist and local historian Gustav Adolph Conrad (1841–1903), imperial-royal district forester, head of the imperial and royal forest and lordship office Topersdorf in the Transylvanian Ore Mountains and then head of the imperial and royal district forest office Sibiu. In 1909 he married Helene Giesel (1880–1955), daughter of the Bucharest businessman and paper merchant Johann Georg Friedrich Giesel (1853–1905).

plant

Gustav Conrad was director of the Saxon orphanage in Sibiu and, like his father, a member of the Masonic lodge “St. Andreas zu den three Seebl Blätter im Orient zu Hermannstadt ”, which once played a special role in the social, cultural and political areas of Transylvania. This most influential Masonic lodge in what is now Romania, which was founded on May 15, 1776, later had 276 members. The nine founders of the lodge were all Transylvanian personalities, namely Simon Edler von Daubnern, Johann Georg Eckardt, Thomas Filtsch, Johann Hammer, Johann Christian Schmidt, Lucas Baron von Hermannsfeld, Michael Gottlieb Neustädter, Johann Michael Linzing and Michael von Ahlenfeld.

Although Freemasonry was banned in Austria around 1795 and in the later Austro-Hungarian Empire, this lodge continued to exist and was not dissolved until 1920, when Transylvania fell to the Kingdom of Greater Romania as a result of the Trianon Peace Treaty .

As a pedagogue and educational scientist, Gustav Conrad made special contributions to the expansion and modernization of the orphanage in Sibiu, of which he was director. After the death of his father (1903) Gustav Conrad designed the property and the "Villa Conradi" based on the example of the Miramar palace gardens . In addition, he had a skylight installed on the upper facade of the left wing of the building, visible from afar, resembling a large Star of David (Magen David) - a well-known symbol of Freemasonry . This window remained the only and last architectural evidence of Freemasonry in Sibiu before 1918 after 1945 and during the communist era.

When Gustav Conrad died unexpectedly in 1923 at the age of 48, the entire culturally and historically significant property came into the possession of the Evangelical Church AB in Romania . As a result of the nationalization after the Second World War - due to the nationalization law of June 11, 1948 in Romania (Romanian: Legea Naționalizării din June 11, 1948) - the new communist state authorities set up a state children's home in the main building, after which the two parks - the English garden and the Italian "Giardino" - were left to decay. The symbolic “Miramar Tower” had already been removed.

Literature (selection)

• Georg Adolf Schuller: The old church registers as sources of our cultural history. In: Kirchliche Blätter (Hermannstadt / Nagyszeben), 1906/1907, pp. 777–780, 791–796, 813–815.
• Wilhelm Bruckner: Stammliste of the family Brekner von Brukenthal. Hermannstadt (club archive), 1910, p. 34 ff.
• Nester H. Webster: Secret Societies and Subversive Movements. London , 1924, pp. 205 ff.
• Emil Sigerus : Chronicle of the city of Sibiu, 1100–1929. 2nd edition. Honterus printing and publishing house. Sibiu, 1930, p. 14 and P. 96.
• Hermann Hienz: Sources on folklore and local history of the Transylvanian Saxons. Vol. I. Leipzig : Verlag S. Hirzel, 1940, p. 217.
• Otto Czekelius : family tree of the direct line Johann Conrad (1615–1682), pastor in Rosch - Gustav Conrad (1875–1923), head of the orphanage in Sibiu. Reprint, Sibiu, 1953.
• Erika Schneider: From private gardens to urban parks. On the history of the old Hermannstädter green areas (Michael von Brukenthal's English park at the Soldisch-Bastei). In: Die Woche (Sibiu / Hermannstadt), No. 616, October 5, 1979, p. 5.
• Wilhelm Beer, Richard Gober; Helmut Beer: Wolkendorf in Burzenland . Home book of a Transylvanian community. Feldhaus Verlag: Hamburg , 1990, p. 206.
• Nikolai Dobrolyubov: Secret Societies in the Twentieth Century. St. Petersburg, 1996, p. 23 ff.
• Thomas Şindilariu: The Masonic Lodge “St. Andreas on the three sea leaves in Sibiu ”(1767–1790). In: Zeitschrift für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde ( Heidelberg ), 25 (2002) 218–227.
• Michael Edling: Leschkirch legacy of the Brekner von Brukenthal localized. In: Siebenbürgische Zeitung (Munich), volume 3, February 28, 2003, page 3.
• Balduin Herter: The Brekner families from Brukenthal. On the history and genealogy of the Transylvanian-Saxon families, volume 6. In: Siebenbürgische Familienforschung (Heidelberg), 20th year 2003, pp. 45–48.
• Gustav Binder: The Testament of Samuel von Brukenthal. In: Siebenbürgische Zeitung (Munich), volume 1, January 15, 2003, page 3.
• Leopold von Lehsten: Breckner von Brukenthal ancestral list. In: Archive for Family History Research (AfF), 9th year, issue 1/2005. CA Starke Verlag: Limburg an der Lahn , 2005.
• Ioan Codrea; Ștefan Botoran: Primii masoni din Transilvania. Sibiu - cel mai important center masonic din Transilvania (The first Freemasons in Transylvania. Sibiu - the most important Freemasons' center in Transylvania). In: Monitorul de Făgăraș ( Făgăraș / Fogarasch), 17.09, 2012, pp. 1–8.