Hein Herbers

Hein Herbers , completely Heinrich Maria Caspar Herbers , (born March 2, 1895 in Warendorf , † August 21, 1968 in Bilthoven, Netherlands ) was a German educator , publicist and pacifist .

youth

Hein Herbers was born in 1895 as the second youngest of nine siblings of a conservative and strictly Catholic family in Warendorf, Münsterland . His father Johannes Herbers was an authorized representative of a local textile factory and was involved in local politics for the Catholic center . In order to be able to maintain the high bourgeois standard of living made possible by the father's income, despite the large number of children, mother Elisabeth Herbers also ran a shoe shop in Warendorf.

Because of this double burden on the mother, the parents decided to let Hein Herbers and some of his siblings grow up temporarily with their grandparents in Meppen in the Emsland region , where Hein Herbers also attended elementary school. Grandfather Casper Herbers represented an explicitly critical attitude towards Bismarck , which also shaped Hein Herbers, and which developed into a coherent view of the world in early adolescence with the strict Catholicism conveyed by the parents.

At Easter 1905 Hein Herbers returned to Warendorf to switch to the traditional Laurentianum grammar school . This educational institution, founded in 1329, was originally shaped by a self-confident Catholic and anti-Prussian spirit until the school sponsorship passed from the city of Warendorf to Prussia in 1875 . From then on, an increasingly Prussian-militaristic spirit was conveyed at this school, which also shaped Hein Herbers. This influence seems surprising, as it was in contradiction to its anti-Prussian and Catholic character, and Hein Herbers was not an avid student, but regularly attracted attention due to lack of discipline and a lack of school care. This meant that Hein Herbers had to repeat two classes. During his years at the Laurentianum, Hein Herbers developed both a strongly patriotic and still strictly Catholic attitude, which he vehemently defended both inside and outside the school.

This was probably also the reason for his expulsion from school in 1912. On the night before the Reichstag election on January 12th, he and his classmates destroyed the roof panels of the Evangelical Christ Church in Warendorf in order to give the hated opponents of the Catholic "center" a reminder. The following day, he and the classmates involved were expelled from school.

Hein Herbers' parents, who were striving for civil recognition, tried to cover up this incident, which was perceived as a scandal in the small town of Warendorf, by trying to justify his absence from school with health problems. At Easter 1913 they found in the Stiftsgymnasium in Andernach a turn strongly Catholic embossed and traditional school that Hein Herbers recorded, and where he his war contingent in June 1915, Notabitur took off, only to sign up as a volunteer to the front.

War experience

His strong patriotic sentiments motivated Herbers to volunteer for military service in the First World War . He was drafted into the Munster garrison for military training , at the same time he enrolled at the Westphalian Wilhelms University there and studied German studies , history and philosophy , but did not take part in any university events until 1917 due to his military service.

His military service as well as the experience of the First World War soon led to a disillusionment and a reorientation. Shortly after joining the army, Herbers learned that his brother August had died in Galicia , and he also lamented the death of many of his comrades as "dying for a lie" . The strict military hierarchy and the required unconditional submission to a command of his superiors, which he repeatedly questioned, led Herber to turn away from the nationalism and militarism of the Prussian empire and initiated his turn to pacifism .

It is not known which theater of war Herbers was deployed in, but he returned from the front in 1917 with severe pneumonia and spent some time in various hospitals before he was released from military service.

Interwar period

After his recovery, Herbers resumed his studies in Münster. After his wartime experiences, he looked for new ideals, made contact with a local DADA group , joined the USPD as a pacifist in November 1918 , was involved in the socialist student movement in Münster and joined the pacifist German Peace Society (DFG) . In December 1921 he completed his studies and acquired the first state examination for the higher teaching post for the subjects of German, history and philosophical propaedeutics.

At the beginning of 1922, Herbers began his legal clerkship at the Laurentianum Grammar School, the school from which he had been expelled ten years earlier. With his socialist and pacifist attitude, he offended again there, now as a teacher. He advocated a modern, emancipatory approach to education and was seen as having a great charismatic influence on his students. A conservative-minded colleague wrote about a student speech on the occasion of leaving school: "Such cheeky, unpathetic and sincere speeches have never been heard in our auditorium. My colleagues, at least most of them, were massively outraged. Herbers had all the boys among his demonic ( !) Influence forced! "

During his time at the Laurentianum grammar school, Herbers was active in the pacifist movement. In March 1923, Herbers passed his second state examination and thus acquired his teaching qualification for high schools.

Since hardly any teaching positions were advertised during the crisis of 1923, he initially continued to work for a year at the Laurentianum grammar school for free before accepting the offer made by Fritz Küster to take over the feature section of the pacifist weekly Das Andere Deutschland , in which, among other things Kurt Tucholsky and Erich Kästner published. Within the editorial team, Herbers stood out as a radical pacifist and shaped the direction of the paper with his attitude.

In 1928 Herbers switched back to school, also to consolidate his financial situation, but remained active as a journalist in "Other Germany". He accepted representation positions at schools in Attendorn , Herne and Bad Ems . In all positions, Herbers' political stance became the subject of disputes within the college, with the school inspectorate, or with the local public. From April 1931 Herbers was employed at the politically very differently oriented Realgymnasien I and II in Kassel . At Realgymnasium II he found a political home, which was not only due to the political agreement with the social-democratic and pacifist-minded director August Fricke , but also to the general orientation of the college of the Kassel school, which was dubbed the "Red Palace". His journalistic activities in "Other Germany", which he continued alongside his school service, and his public advocacy of pacifist ideas attracted local attention at his places of work and led to campaigns against Herbers by nationalist and Nazi-oriented students and newspapers.

After Adolf Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, Herbers was quickly dismissed from school. At first he stayed in Kassel and lived with August Fricke, but then began to hide in different places, including in the Harz Mountains, and in 1934 emigrated to the Netherlands in order to evade the Nazis.

Emigration to the Netherlands

For Herbers, his long-term contact with the influential Dutch educator Kees Boeke was an opportunity to escape Hitler's sphere of influence. In autumn 1934, Herbers took a position as the third teacher at the reform pedagogical school Werkplaats Kindergemeenschap in Bilthoven, founded by Boeke . Together with Boeke, he built this school in which the focus was on the individual and emancipation from socially and state-mediated expectations of the individual was an essential part of pedagogy.

After the German Wehrmacht attacked the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, Herbers managed to evade persecution through inconspicuous behavior. Because of his intensive language acquisition and cultural assimilation, many of his Dutch acquaintances did not know that he was German, and many of his German friends did not know that he was still politically active. Despite his protective and outwardly inconspicuous life as a Dutch teacher, Herbers remained politically active and maintained contact with resistance groups in the eastern Ruhr area, especially in Dortmund , and supported these groups, for example as a courier. Nevertheless, thanks to his camouflage, he managed to spend vacations in Germany and even, unmolested by the National Socialists, to visit his sick mother in Warendorf.

After the Second World War, Herbers decided to stay in his new home and continue to work in the "Werkplaats Kindergemeenschap". Due to its educational reform orientation, the school developed an attraction and notoriety, which induced the Dutch Queen Juliana to enroll her daughters, the princesses Irene , Margriet and Beatrix , at this school. Hein Herbers was during her school days there (1947-1951) the mentor of Princess Beatrix, who later became Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

Herbers campaigned against the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany and against NATO . He died on August 21, 1968 at the age of 73 in Bilthoven.

literature

• Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: swastika and dove of peace. "The Herbers Case" (1895–1968) . dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Nain, 1988
• Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: Heinrich Herbers . In: Democratic Ways. A bibliographic lexicon. Edited by Manfred Asendorf and Rolf von Bockel, Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2006
• Ludger Fittkau / Marie-Christine Werner: The conspirators. The civil resistance behind July 20, 1944 , wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2019, ISBN 978-3-8062-3893-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: Swastika and Dove of Peace. "The Case of Hein Herbers" (1895–1968) . dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 29
2. ↑ Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: Swastika and Dove of Peace. "The Case of Hein Herbers" (1895–1965). dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 38f.
3. ↑ Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: Swastika and Dove of Peace. "The Case of Hein Herbers" (1895–1965). dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 45. The quote comes from a letter Herbers wrote to a friend himself. In this respect, the source value should be viewed with caution.
4. ↑ Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin: Heinrich Herbers. In: Democratic Ways. A bibliographic lexicon. Edited by Manfred Asendorf and Rolf von Bockel, Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2006