Hans Ulrich Eberle

Hans Ulrich Eberle (born August 7, 1927 in Holzgerlingen , † June 16, 1988 in Heilbronn ) was a German librarian . From 1960 until his death in 1988 he was in charge of the Heilbronn City Library . Within the Association of German People's Librarians , of which he was state chairman from 1967 to 1971, he campaigned for the democratization of library holdings, which he was one of the first to implement in the house he directed. He was also one of the most important cultural sponsors of the city of Heilbronn thanks to a wealth of events and exhibitions over several decades.

Life

He was the son of a teacher and a bookseller. The father came from Urach and had been a teacher in Holzgerlingen since 1924. In 1928 he moved to Dettingen an der Erms and in 1930 to Baltmannsweiler , where he was headmaster. Hans Ulrich, the second of four children, grew up in the Baltmannsweiler schoolhouse and initially attended school there. After the father retired early in 1940 due to illness, the family moved to Eßlingen am Neckar , where Hans Ulrich attended the Georgii grammar school.

In 1943 he was drafted as an air force helper to the light flak battery 2/858 in the Stuttgart area, then in the autumn of 1944 to the Reich Labor Service and finally to the front line, which consisted almost entirely of retreat battles. At the end of the war, Eberle was interned in the Heilbronn camp, which he was able to leave in March 1946.

Back in Esslingen, he made up for his Abitur. He joined the YMCA and began studying at the preacher's seminary in Stuttgart , because he initially wanted to be a pastor. However, his career aspirations were anything but pronounced, so that Eberle often doubted it and considered not becoming a teacher after all. At this time of uncertainty, the worried mother finally sent him documents about the job description of the librarian, which convinced him. He soon switched to the Stuttgart librarianship training institute, which he left in 1952 with a diploma. During his apprenticeship he was mainly influenced by the librarian Erwin Ackerknecht .

His professional career began in 1952 with a part-time position in the city library in Ludwigsburg. In 1955 he became head of the Friedrichshafen City Library , where he also looked after the library of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its surroundings . Finally he moved to Heilbronn in 1960 , where he succeeded Berta Danner as head of the Heilbronn City Library . One of his first tasks was moving the library from the post-war provisional facility in the Old City Theater to the rebuilt Deutschhof , where the new premises were inaugurated on September 29, 1961. Under his leadership, not only was the library stock modernized, but the city library soon developed into a center of diverse cultural life. In addition to readings, there were also record evenings, concerts, lectures and much more. There was a particularly intensive collaboration with the Heilbronn Artists' Association , which repeatedly used the library for exhibitions. This broad cultural orientation of a library was new at that time and Eberle propagated a new understanding of the profession of librarians on many opportunities that arose.

In the first ten years under his leadership, the stock of the Heilbronn library grew from 39,000 to 85,000 books. Eberle initiated the establishment of two library branches in Böckingen and in 1965 introduced a mobile library .

From 1967 to 1971 Eberle was state chairman of the Association of German People's Librarians, where he initiated a lively training program, for which he a. a. and Walter Jens and Hermann Bausinger won and within it's 1970 in Pforzheim on the tasks of the municipal public library in the democratic society spoke. In this fundamental presentation, he advocated that the limits of the book selection should not be set by the head of the libraries, as was previously the case, but, as far as the financial possibilities allowed, were defined solely within the framework of the Basic Law and the Criminal Code , so that ultimately the taste and the Citizens' selection criteria should outweigh academic arrogance or educated bourgeois resentment. Although Eberle found little attention with these ideas in 1970, he anticipated an attitude that in the further course of the 1970s then prevailed in many public libraries.

The cultural program initiated by Eberle in Heilbronn reflects his demands for versatile commitment. The guests he invited include newcomers and regional authors as well as Martin Walser , Astrid Lindgren and Ingeborg Drewitz , who were inspired by Eberle's "oddity". Far more than with readings and receptions, however, Eberle made the library known with its book exhibitions, which also received national attention. The English librarian G. Alan Howe praised the exhibition Heilbronn Authors of the 20th Century (1971) as "exemplary". The exhibition The War in the Novel of the 20th Century (1985), which Eberle had put together with Werner Schweikert - at a time when Heilbronn was in the focus of the peace movement because of the medium-range missiles stationed on the Waldheide , and authors such as Günter Grass also attracted great attention and Robert Jungk met for talks in Heilbronn. Further exhibitions were dedicated to Otto Rombach , Heinrich von Kleist , Oskar Maria Graf , Wilhelm Waiblinger , Martin Buber , Heinrich Heine , Erich Schairer , the book burning of 1933 and German exile literature. Eberle designed the posters for the exhibitions together with regional artists such as Joachim Bertsch, Peer Friedel and Jul Schönau. The year ended with the annual Neue Bücher exhibition since 1968 , which was far more than a book show, as Eberle always invited numerous prominent guest speakers from the press and publishing industry, most recently in 1987 the newspaper column head Fritz J. Raddatz .

As a member of the advisory board of the Heilbronner Kunstverein , Eberle campaigned for avant-garde art in the city of Heilbronn, which was otherwise dominated by post-war architecture and conservative art of the 1950s. For the new construction of the city garden in 1972, the art association recommended kinetic art by Hans Geipel and Hein Sinken , but, as with many other urban building projects, went unheard. The Art Association has pointed money to acquire the peace Stele of Erwin Wortelkamp collected and donated it to the city, which they then set up in the city garden 1984th In the case of buildings in the state in Heilbronn, recommendations for contemporary art were more successful.

As a municipal employee, Eberle was always in tension with the respective lord and cultural mayors of the city of Heilbronn, who did not necessarily agree with Eberle on cultural matters. But it was precisely the pleasure in culture and less in its management that made Eberle a sharp-tongued critic of Heilbronn's cultural promotion, a "criticism", as many wrote. He remained sharp-tongued to the end. During his last public appearance on the roof terrace of the Heilbronner Insel-Hotel on June 15, 1988 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the bookstore Fr. Stritter , he was able to comment on Friedrich Schiller's quotation on freedom of trade and the spirit, the Lord Mayor Manfred Weinmann had previously cited in praise of the city, do not resist: According to Eberle, the Heilbronn crux is that trade enjoys more freedom than the spirit . Even during the event, he felt weak. Late in the evening he was still on the phone with a friend, the next morning he was found dead in his apartment.

Eberle was buried on June 21, 1988 in Ostfildern-Nellingen.

family

Eberle married a colleague from Ludwigsburg in the early 1950s. The connection, from which no descendants arose, broke when he moved to Heilbronn in 1960.

Appreciation

The Lord Mayor of Heilbronn, Manfred Weinmann, praised Eberle in an obituary at the municipal council meeting on June 28, 1988 as a person who has distinguished himself in a special way through his literary work and his high level of cultural expertise both inside and outside the city and who has made lasting contributions to the library system has .

The author Eli Weinmann-Adorno dedicated her 1989 book Heilbronner Schmunzelgeschichten to Eberle .

One year after Eberle's death, the commemorative volume HUE or the pleasure of culture was published , in which almost 60 authors have collected their memories of Eberle. Contributions to this book include a. Herbert Asmodi , Alexander Bertsch , Ulrich Dehn , Werner Gauss , Albert Großhans , Uwe Jacobi , Jürgen Lodemann , Harry Mergel , Ingeborg Pilgram-Brückner , Erwin Rosenthal , Will Schaber , Helmut Schmolz , Helmut Sembdner , Manfred Tripps and Klaus Wagner .

literature

• Karl-Heinz Dähn et al. (Ed.): HUE or the pleasure in culture. People, the city and Heilbronn's cultural life. Friends of HUE, Heilbronn 1989

Remarks

1. ↑ Harald Derschka : The association for the history of Lake Constance and its surroundings. A look back at one hundred and fifty years of club history 1868–2018. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings 136, 2018, pp. 1–303, here: p. 218.