Hartmut Holzapfel

Hartmut Holzapfel (born September 5, 1944 in Ringgau-Röhrda ) is a German politician ( SPD ), former Hessian minister of culture and member of the Hessian state parliament .

childhood

Holzapfel was born the son of an elementary school teacher. In the district town of Eschwege , he attended the Friedrich Wilhelm School, where he graduated from high school in 1963.

Conflict over school newspaper

Until 1963 he was the editor in charge of the school newspaper "Laterne"; from 1964 to 1967 state chairman of the Young Press Hessen, a “state working group for young newspapers”. A conflict between this newspaper and the school management, who wanted to make the approval of distribution on the school premises dependent on a control of the content, attracted national attention. Education Minister Prof. Schütte (SPD) decided beyond the individual case in favor of the freedom of the school newspaper; In Hesse, a decree dated August 13, 1964 stipulated for the first time in Germany that school newspapers were also subject to press law and that their rights could therefore not be revoked by school house rules.

Studies and professional career

From 1963 to 1969, Holzapfel studied sociology at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. He was a member of the Socialist German Student Union and one of the editors of the student newspaper “Diskus”, which played an important role in the student movement of the 1960s. In 1969 he finished his studies with a diploma.

After graduation, he taught as a teacher at a grammar school in Hofheim (Main-Taunus-Kreis) - the Main-Taunus-Schule - where he helped to develop a social science branch as part of the reform of the grammar school upper level. In the same year he became a consultant in the ministerial office of the Hessian minister of education Prof. Ludwig von Friedeburg (until 1974) and in this function was significantly involved in the establishment of numerous comprehensive schools and the development of the support level, which extended the joint school time beyond four years of primary school to Grade 6 should continue.

Functions in the SPD

He had already joined the SPD in 1961. From 1968 to 1972 he was a member of the district board of the Young Socialists Hessen-Süd, from 1973 to 1988 a member of the sub-district board of the Frankfurt SPD. He was a member of the Frankfurt city parliament from 1972 to 1974; there he was the cultural policy spokesman for the SPD. He was first elected to the Hessian state parliament in 1974, to which he was a member until 2008 (interrupted by a resignation as a member of the government from 1995 to 1999). He ran in the constituency of Frankfurt am Main III , but was elected via the SPD state list. From 1978 to 1991 he was education policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, deputy parliamentary group chairman from 1987 to 1991 and European policy spokesman from 1999 to 2003. From 1982 to 1991 he was chairman of the working group for education issues of the SPD Hessen-Süd and also its state chairman. He was a member of the Education Policy Commission of the SPD party executive from 1984 until its dissolution in 1993.

Hessian Minister of Education

In 1991 Holzapfel became minister of culture in the first red-green Eichel cabinet (SPD). Under his leadership, a new school law was created, which was largely based on the draft of the Juristentag from 1980; this draft marks the end of the understanding of the school as a special relationship of violence. A school conference in which teachers, parents and students should take responsibility together and the concept of the school program should enable the schools to develop their profiles. For its time, the law provided for extremely far-reaching decision-making powers for the school - also for deviations from the lesson table and the ability to create epochs in the year. At the same time, the law placed a focus on the requirement to include increasingly disabled children in regular lessons and to strengthen the parents' rights of participation ( inclusion ). For the choice of the educational path, the law provided for a final right of parents to decide. In terms of content, it strengthened the level-related elements of the school rather than the type of school by means of cross-school timetables and curricula. The critics of the law saw it as a way to a “unified school” “on velvet paws”.

Shortly before the change of government, the Wallmann government (CDU / FDP) decreed a reduction in working hours for teachers, increasing the number of lessons lost at schools. The additional teaching positions made available by the red-green government were not sufficient, even against the background of the increasing number of pupils. Compensation should u. a. bring about the introduction of the five-day week, which was associated with a reduction in the time table. The growing number of pupils, on the one hand, and the budgetary restrictions caused by the costs of German unification, on the other hand, meant that the problem of missed lessons could not be solved without increasing the teachers' working hours and promoting the exhaustion of the upper class limits. Against this background, the decision-making competencies of the schools, which were expanded again in the 1997 School Act, remained controversial: While some saw them as a way of dealing with a difficult situation on site more flexibly, others saw it merely as “self-administration of the shortage”.

Holzapfel's second term of office after the state elections in 1995 was marked by the disputes connected with it; He himself put the number of lessons lost in 1998 at around 5 to 7%, but insisted on the schools' scope for decision-making and refused to restrict this in favor of statistically better class coverage. The clashes led to a violent conflict with the teachers' union GEW, of which he had been a member since 1969. A teachers strike announced by this in 1997 was prohibited by him and the union was fined. An expulsion procedure was even initiated by a district association of the union, but this was discontinued. Holzapfel left the GEW on election day 1999.

From 1996 to 1999 Holzapfel represented the Federal Republic of Germany in the Council of Education Ministers of the European Union.

Acting Minister for Science and the Arts

After the election of Minister of State Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt as Federal Constitutional Judge , Holzapfel also took over the office of Minister for Science and Art from January to April 1999. Immediately before the change of government, the “culture contract” was concluded with the city of Frankfurt , which concluded the transfer of the municipal university until 1967 to state responsibility by releasing the city from the remaining financial obligations for the university clinic and the city and university library secured the expansion of the university on the new Westend campus, the former IG Farben site.

In the 1999 state elections, the SPD was able to improve its result from 38% to 39.4%, but because of the slump of the Greens from 11.2% to 7.2%, red-green just lost the majority to a black-yellow coalition below Roland Koch. The CDU politician Karin Wolff became the successor to the office of minister of education .

Relations with Hessian partner regions

During his tenure, Holzapfel was particularly interested in the relationship between Hesse and its partner regions and the establishment of a cooperation with Lithuania, which has become independent again, with which he concluded a cultural agreement in 1994. After that, the country promoted German lessons in Lithuania a. a. through the further training of Lithuanian German teachers and the sending of German teachers to Lithuania; Ways were also found to financially support the only Lithuanian school abroad in Lampertheim-Hüttenfeld, Hessen. In 2005, Holzapfel received the Commander's Cross of the Lithuanian Order of Merit "Pro Lituania" for this commitment. An agreement on cooperation in the field of vocational training was concluded in 1998 between Hesse and the American state of Wisconsin; it was the first agreement between a German state and an American state that went beyond the scope of general education schools. After the change of government, Holzapfel continued his commitment as founding chairman of the Hesse-Wisconsin Friendship Association.

Hessian Literature Council

In 2001, Holzapfel was elected chairman of the committee for science and art in the Hessian state parliament and held this position until he left parliament in spring 2008. A particular focus of his work was supporting the establishment of a Hessian literary council , which was finally founded in 2003 and chose him to speak.

Since 2008 the Literature Council has had an office in the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art. Almost a hundred literary institutions in the country now work together in it. On the one hand, the focus is on maintaining the literary traditions of Hesse. a. through the close cooperation with the Hessischer Rundfunk in the project "Literaturland Hessen" and a biennial day for literature, on the other hand a scholarship program, which is carried out in exchange with the Hessian partner regions Aquitaine, Emilia-Romagna and Wisconsin as well as Lithuania, Prague and Romania becomes. Holzapfel sets particular accents in the continuation of the cooperation he founded with Lithuania, which goes beyond the field of literature, as well as in his direct involvement in the establishment of a Prague literary house for German-speaking authors, for which the Hessian Literature Council was the first partner in Germany. Since 2011 he has also been chairman of the board of trustees of the German-Czech Society in Frankfurt and a member of the national board of the German-Lithuanian forum.

Donaldism

Holzapfel has been a member of the Donaldists since 1993 . With publications, u. a. also to school and upbringing, he contributes to the spread of news from Duckburg as well as through lectures, etc. a. in connection with the Duckomenta , in literature houses, museums, libraries and state missions - or on the hundredth birthday of the translator Erika Fuchs in her home town of Schwarzenbach .

Honors

• 1986: Cross of Merit on the ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2005: Commander's Cross of the Lithuanian Order of Merit "Pro Lituania"

Publications

• Freedom and responsibility. For the balance between open design spaces and the necessary standardization . In: Martin Schindehütte (ed.): School in Hessen = Hofgeismar Protocols 295. Evangelical Academy, Hofgeismar 1991.
• School 2000. Theses on educational policy for the school of tomorrow . Publishing house for academic writings, Frankfurt 1996.
• Let's release the education system into freedom . In: Andrea Grimme (ed.): Education between the market and the state. Perspectives of a second educational reform = Loccumer Protocols 12/1998. Evangelical Academy, Loccum 1999.
• About the topicality of Adolf Reichwein's “Schaffendes Schulvolk” . In: Roland Reichwein (ed.): We are the living bridge from yesterday to tomorrow . Weinheim and Munich. Juventa, 2000.
• New control models in education . In: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Bildungsverwaltung (Hg.): New control models in education = documentation of the 22nd annual conference 2001 in Hamburg. Frankfurt 2002.
• School and Civic Engagement . In: German Bundestag (ed.), Enquête Commission “The Future of Civic Engagement” Vol. 3. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2003.
• Unfinished business . In: Walter Gropp, Stefan Hormuth (eds.). Erwin Stein in memory. Forum Verlag Godesberg, Mönchengladbach 2003.
• "Who? I? Oh no - I have a stomachache ”. Carl Barks' unique universe anatium: Duckburg . In: Maren Bonacker (ed.): Peter Pan's children. Double addressing in fantastic texts. Scientific publishing house Trier, Trier 2004.
• Duckburg is everywhere. Geography and sociography of an imaginary (?) City = series and materials of the Fantastic Library, Volume 77. Wetzlar 2004.
• What is being negotiated and what should be negotiated . In: Dominik Haubner, Erika Mezger, Hermann Schwengel (eds.): Knowledge society, distribution conflicts and strategic actors. Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2004.
• Not nothing, but the wrong thing . In: Zs. Neue Sammlung, Volume 44, Issue 4. Friedrich, Seelze 2004.
• All unnecessary waste of time. School and education in Duckburg . In:
  • Hermann Avenarius, Klaus Klemm, Eckhard Klieme, Jutta Roitsch (eds.), Education: design, explore, select. Luchterhand, Neuwied 2005;
  • Zs. Der Donaldist (published by the Reducktion Berlin of the German organization of non-commercial supporters of pure Donaldism [DONALD]), issue 124. Berlin 2005.
• The Triumph of Paul Watzlawick, or: The Logic of Politics . In: Zs. Law and Education 3/2005 (published by the Institute for Educational Research and Educational Law). Hanover 2005.
• Ten years later - a polemic on the occasion . In: Dorit Bosse and Peter Bosch (eds.): School 2020 from an expert perspective. Publishing house for social sciences, Wiesbaden 2009.
• So where is this duck house actually? In: interDuck, Art of the Duckomenta [with English and French translation]. Egmont Verlagsgesellschaft, Cologne 2010.
• The duck became human. Anatids and other humanoids in the Barks universe . In: Maren Bonacker (ed.): Hasenfuß and Löwenherz. Animals and beasts in the fantastic children's and youth literature = series of the fantastic library, volume 99. Wetzlar 2011.

literature

• Jochen Lengemann : The Hessen Parliament 1946–1986 . Biographical handbook of the advisory state committee, the state assembly advising the constitution and the Hessian state parliament (1st – 11th electoral period). Ed .: President of the Hessian State Parliament. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-458-14330-0 , p. 285 ( hessen.de [PDF; 12.4 MB ]).
• Jochen Lengemann: MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 193.

Web links

• Website of the Hessian Literature Council

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interduck: Art of the Duckomenta (2010) ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.