Heinz Dähnhardt

John Heinrich Otto Viktor "Heinz" Dähnhardt (born July 14, 1897 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf ; † October 30, 1968 in Flensburg ) was a German journalist , political multifunctional of the Bundischen youth movement , lecturer in adult education , leading member of the Conservative People's Party and civil servant in National Socialist Ministry of Education .

Life

Participation in the World War, Freikorps and studies

The son of Vice Admiral Harald Heinrich Dähnhardt , a co-founder of the German Fatherland Party , attended the Werner Siemens Municipal Realgymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg . He passed his secondary school diploma on August 8, 1914 and was deployed as a war volunteer with the 5th Guards Regiment on foot in East Prussia , Poland and Russia from September 1914 . In June 1915 he suffered a joint disease due to nerve paralysis, which led to permanent walking difficulties and thus to his discharge from the army.

At the beginning of the summer semester of 1915, Dähnhardt studied German and history at the University of Berlin . In addition, he taught as a school assistant at his old school until September 1917. He was also involved in student self-administration. He was a member of the Deutschvölkischer Student Association and 1st Chairman of the General Student Committee of the University of Berlin. In September 1917 he was drafted again on a trial basis and volunteered for the front in January 1918. He was released in January 1919 as a vice sergeant in the reserve to his parents' residence in Altona .

In March 1919, Dähnhardt joined the Bahrenfeld Volunteer Guard Department as a temporary volunteer and was deployed in April and June 1919 to suppress revolutionary unrest in Hamburg. Since August 1919 this Freikorps called itself Zeitfreiwilligenkorps Groß-Hamburg ("Die Bahrenfelder"). On March 15, 1920, he joined the Reichswehr Brigade 9 in Schwerin under General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck , which supported the Kapp Putsch . At the same time, he continued his studies at the University of Hamburg from April 1919 , which he completed in February 1926. In 1927 he received his doctorate with a study of Joseph Görres ' early political development (1776-1805) under Max Lenz .

Functionary of the Bundischen youth movement and the people's conservatives

As a student, Dähnhardt had belonged to the German Scout Association . In 1919 he joined the German National Youth Association (DNJ) and the Young German Association . In August 1921 he was one of the co-founders of the Young National League ( Junabu ), whose split from the DNJ he had decisively promoted, and became its first federal leader. In 1922 he handed over the leadership of Junabu to the national revolutionary Hans Ebeling , but took over the interim leadership again in 1924 when, after conflicts over the political orientation of the Bund Ebeling, part of Junabu split off as an independent federation.

Dähnhardt was close to the German National Trade Aid Association (DHV). From May 1919 to May 1921 he worked as a member of the employment office of the Fichte-Gesellschaft from 1914 in Hamburg, financed by the DHV, in their public education and youth work. He also published regularly in the DHV magazine Deutsches Volkstum . The Fichte Society of 1914 had also founded its own " Fichte University " in 1916 , which was financed by the DHV in Hamburg and which spread the nationalist, anti-liberal, anti-Marxist and anti-capitalist ideas of this society. Dähnhardt was from 1926 to 1934 head of the Reich office of the Fichte Society from 1914 and adult education officer at the Fichte School. In 1926 he transferred the seat of the association and the Fichte School to the Spandau Evangelisches Johannesstift Berlin .

Dähnhardt ran for the DNVP in the Reichstag and Landtag elections in 1928 . As executive chairman of the Christian Social Reich Association (since August 1929) he belonged to the Protestant workers' wing within the party. He was instrumental in the split of this wing of the DNVP and became chief executive of the Conservative People's Party founded on June 23, 1930 . Since February 1931 he was also a member and since June 5, 1932 spokesman of the Führerring of the People's Conservative Association. From June 1932 to March 1933 he was finally chairman of the party that was now called the People's Conservative Party.

From 1927 to 1932 Dähnhardt sat on the board of the Reich Committee of the German Youth Associations . Since 1929 he was its first chairman. He published the magazines of Junabu , the Bannerträger and the Young National Voices , and from 1930 to March 31, 1933 also the People's Conservative Voices .

Dähnhardt worked on a political network that Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher tried to establish in 1932. With the aim of creating a political “ cross-front ”, the Reichswehr Ministry had sought close relationships with the youth movement and, through Dähnhardt in particular, maintained a permanent connection with the Reich Committee of German youth associations. At the beginning of October 1932, the “young people” Schleichers made contact with the Left via the Reich Committee, through the managing director of the Reich Committee, the Social Democrat Hermann Maass .

Ministerial Officer during National Socialism

On May 1, 1933, Dähnhardt joined the NSDAP and the SA . On April 1, 1934, he was appointed provisional lecturer for historical education at the College for Teacher Education in Cottbus . From October 1, 1934, he was delegated to the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and National Education , where he was appointed to the scheduled Upper Government Council on August 20, 1937 . Dähnhardt worked in the ministry as a specialist for adult education and public libraries ; In 1938 he also became chairman of the Reich Examination Office for the library system. In this function, he significantly shaped the guidelines of the National Socialist library system, which provided for a “cleanup” of the library holdings, followed by a uniform structure within the meaning of Nazi cultural policy.

Journalist and adult education worker

In April 1945 Dähnhardt fled Berlin to Hamburg-Bergedorf . He was denazified as a “ fellow traveler ” (cat. IV) and worked from 1948 to 1953 as a journalist and member of the editorial team at the Sunday paper published by Hanns Lilje in Hamburg. When Hans Zehrer switched to the daily newspaper Die Welt as editor-in-chief from the Sunday newspaper , Dähnhardt briefly took over the editorial office. Soon afterwards, Zehrer caught up with him as head of the culture department for the world . From October 28, 1954 until his retirement on February 2, 1968, Dähnhardt was director of the Sankelmark Border Academy near Flensburg and headed the pedagogical department of the German Border Association .

In 1947, Dähnhardt played a key role in the development of the Free German Circle , a kind of rescue organization for former members of the youth movement of the Weimar Republic . Between 1962 and 1968 he was a member of the ZDF television council . From 1965 to 1968 he was also a member of the Provost Synod in Schleswig-Holstein . In 1968 he was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the FRG .

Publications

• Young national will and belief. Heinz-Dietrich Wendland. Self-published by the (Jungnationalen) Bund (printed in the Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt), (Hamburg) (1921).
• The Bahrenfelder. History of the time volunteer corps Gross-Hamburg in the years 1919/20. Alster, Hamburg 1925.
• The young national movement. In: The new youth. Volume 1, 1927, pp. 46-56.
• with Werner Pleistern : The German speaking tube. 2nd Edition. Hanseatic Publishing House, Hamburg 1934.
• The world of the book. A customer of the book. W. Langewiesche-Brandt, Ebenhausen near Munich 1942.
• The public libraries in the nation's total war. Radelli & Hille, Leipzig 1943.
• Romance. [Lecture given in Loccum in front of the Free German Convention]. , Loccum 1959.
• Which educational goal contains youth association work in modern society? Lecture. [Heinz Dähnhardt]. State Youth Association Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel 1959.
• with Johannes Meyer and Gert Roßberg: Federal Republic of Germany currently. Wolff, Flensburg 1968.

literature

• Alexander Hesse: The professors and lecturers of the Prussian educational academies (1926-1933) and colleges for teacher training (1933-1941) . Deutscher Studien-Verlag, Weinheim 1995, ISBN 3-89271-588-2 , p. 224-226 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Henning Kohler: Labor Service in Germany. Berlin 1967, p. 203.
2. ↑ Harald Steiner: The public libraries in Erlangen in the 19th and 20th centuries. Wiesbaden 1992, p. 93.