Helmut Kentler

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Helmut Kentler (born July 2, 1928 in Cologne , † July 9, 2008 in Hanover ) was a German psychologist , sexologist and professor of social education at the University of Hanover . Since the beginning of the 1990s, sexual-political positions in his writings and his practical work as actively promoting pedosexuality have been criticized.

education and study

After graduating from high school, Helmut Kentler first wanted to study theology in order to become a pastor. His father, on the other hand, required him to complete technical training. Kentler first completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith at the Henschel locomotive factory in Kassel and then got a place in electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen University . After the death of his father, he broke off his studies in Aachen. From 1953 to 1954 he trained as an interpreter in English and French. He then studied psychology, medicine, education and philosophy in Switzerland and Freiburg im Breisgau . During his studies, he took part in a multi-year field test with young workers, which he documented and reflected on in his book on youth work in the industrial world. In 1959 Kentler published his first book about it (youth work in the industrial world) ; in it “Christian faithfulness… is still explicitly proclaimed” (according to Rüdiger Lautmann 2008 in his obituary for Kentler for the Humanist Union), in later publications this was no longer the case. In 1960 he passed the main diploma examination for psychology.

Pedagogical work for the Protestant Church, change to science

After completing his studies, he initially worked as a youth education officer at the Evangelical Academy in Arnoldshain . He then worked from 1962 to 1965 as a research assistant and "first teacher" in the Josefstal study center (Protestant youth work) near Neuhaus am Schliersee . The theory of emancipatory youth work , which he helped to develop , made him known nationwide. The following year he worked as an assistant to Klaus Mollenhauer at the PH Berlin . He then became department head for social pedagogy and adult education at the Pedagogical Center in Berlin and from 1967 to 1974 department director there. In 1975 he received his doctorate in Hanover with the dissertation parents learn sex education , which was also published as a book and had a circulation of 30,000 copies by the 1990s. In 1976 he was offered a professorship for the training of vocational school teachers for special education at the University of Hanover, where he taught until his retirement in 1996.

Act

Kentler was one of the proponents of “emancipatory” youth work and was one of the representatives of sex education in the 1960s and 1970s. In his work as a court expert and expert on child and youth sexuality, he achieved fame in specialist circles. From 1979 to 1982 he was President of the German Society for Social Science Sex Research , later he was on the advisory board of the Humanist Union . He was also a member of the German Society for Sex Research .

For Helmut Kentler, theory and practice belonged closely together throughout his life. Working with adolescents and young adults during his studies and in the five years of his career in church educational institutions gave him insights into a theory of emancipatory youth work. He made it possible to experience in theory and practice what group pedagogy and what teamwork means as trusting and respectful cooperation between educators with different specialist skills and what the insight into psychosocial relationships means for the learning and emancipation process for young people and adults. This was a novelty for church educational work in the 1960s. In addition to his professional tasks, he also worked as an adviser and teacher in various practical educational fields, for example from 1970 to 1974 on the educational advisory board of the first residential community for Trebegänger and runaway welfare pupils on the Maxdorfer Steig funded by the Berlin Senate .

During the student riots in Berlin, Kentler temporarily worked as a “psychological advisor for police issues”. The sexual liberation attempts of the Berlin students in municipalities and shared apartments resulted in his advocacy of emancipatory sex education in his parents' home, which was also reflected scientifically in his dissertation in 1975 and made him an expert in sex education in the further course of his professional life .

At the end of the 1960s, in a model experiment , he brought several neglected 13 to 15-year-old boys, whom he assessed as "secondary insane", with known pedophiles in order to rehabilitate them under their care and let them grow into mature adults. Due to the associated criminal offenses - § 175 StGB was still in force - he only made this public after the statute of limitations more than a decade later. Kentler expected the experiment that the young people would be socially strengthened again by the men. Kentler was aware that the adults would in all likelihood engage in sexual acts with the minors. These events were publicly debated in 2015; the Senate Youth Administration then commissioned the scientist Teresa Nentwig from the University of Göttingen to deal with the incident and the responsibility of the authorities.

At a parliamentary group hearing of the FDP in 1981 he reported: "These people only endured these idiotic boys because they were in love, crush and infatuated with them." In an opinion for the Senate Department for Family, Women and Youth , he described them Results of the experiment in 1988 as “complete success”. At that time he no longer had to fear criminal consequences due to the statute of limitations. During his teaching activity in Hanover, he maintained contact with the former participants and recommended in an expert opinion for the Berlin family court in the early 1990s that one of the abused young people should stay with his pedophile foster father, whom he described as a natural educational talent .

Kentler was single, homosexual, and had three adoptive sons and a foster son.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Kentler lived in the Gartenhofsiedlung in the Marienwerder district of Hanover after he had previously lived in a “huge, high old building” in Berlin .

Positions

Sexuality and society

In Kentler's view, it is not enough that parents do not put obstacles in the way of their children's sexual desires; rather, they should introduce their children to sexuality, because otherwise they “run the risk of remaining sexually underdeveloped, of becoming sexually crippled ". Parents have a high degree of responsibility here: "It must be made clear to parents that a good relationship of trust between children and parents cannot be maintained if the children are denied the satisfaction of urgent and urgent needs such as sexual ones." makes sense, because adolescents with experience of coitus “demand an independent world for teenagers and more often reject the norms of adults”.

A particular concern of Kentler was the reduction of sexual repression against girls: “Often the repressive upbringing was so successful with them that they no longer feel sexual drive pressure at all. A sexually open-minded boy then calls such a girl 'uptight', 'unfashionable' - he is probably not so wrong. "

Based on the knowledge that children can have sexual needs even before puberty, he clearly differentiated their free satisfaction among their peers or with adults from sexual abuse : “Sexually satisfied children who have a good relationship of trust with their parents, especially when it comes to sexual questions are best protected against sexual seduction and sexual assault. "Kentler warned the parents that involuntary sexual contact between children and adults would become too problematic:" The worst thing now would be for parents to lose their nerve, panic and would run straight to the police. ”If the adult had been considerate and tender, the child could even have enjoyed sexual contact with him. Kentler did not consider equal and non-discriminatory sexual relationships between adults and children to be problematic: "If such relationships are not discriminated by the environment, then the more positive consequences for personal development are to be expected, the more the older feels responsible for the younger", he wrote in 1974 in his preface to the brochure Show me!

Activity as a court expert

Kentler has also acted as a judicial expert on abuse cases. About the almost 30 cases that he had dealt with up to this point, he said in 1997: "I am very proud that so far all the cases in which I have acted have ended with the proceedings being discontinued or even acquittals." Kentler measured that sexual activity by adults with children does not contribute to any injustice, only to the violence that may be used. This, however, is atypical, since real pedophiles do not use violence, but on the contrary are "highly sensitive to harm to children". In 1999 Kentler announced a book publication on "the 35 or so trials of innocents that I have accompanied as a reviewer," but then left the manuscript (Parents Under Suspicion - On Abuse of Sexual Abuse) unpublished. In the same year he declared:

"I have [...] in the vast majority of cases the experience that pederastic relationships can have a very positive effect on the personality development of a boy, especially when the pederast is a real mentor of the boy."

reception

Kentler did not keep the fact that he was placing young people with known pederasts a secret. He reported about it in his book Leihväter from 1989. After the magazine Emma reported about it in 1993 , he was shouted down by feminist activists at an event in Hanover in 1993 and received one Punch in the face by a listener.

Jan Feddersen praised Kentler in an obituary in the daily newspaper on July 12, 2008 as a “meritorious champion for permissive sexual morality”. Protestant church bodies expressed themselves similarly. In an obituary, the Study Center for Protestant Youth Work referred to Kentler's controversial positions, but nevertheless praised Kentler's impulses for “institutional structure and professional socialization” and attempts to make homosexuality socially acceptable in the church. While the Working Group of Evangelical Youth in Germany immediately removed the obituary after a synodal motion, the Kentler study center defended without addressing the misconduct set out in the motion to protect against sexual exploitation of children. Rather, Helmut Kentler has "shaped the conceptual development and the study work in Josefstal sustainably, to this day".

The Humanist Union acknowledges Kentler's person and life's work positively . In her obituary it says: “A lighthouse of our advisory board has gone out. Like no other, Helmut Kentler embodied the humanistic task of enlightening sex education, and he was also a role model for public science. (...) His habitus seldom combined the qualities of competence, authenticity and approachability, with which Kentler impressed his readers and listeners ... Since he immediately aroused sympathy, many people confided in him. "

Ursula Enders , the founder of the Victims Aid Association “ Zartbitter ”, criticizes Kentler as a man with positions that are friendly to pedosexuals. In an editorial in the Frankfurter Rundschau in March 2010, Stephan Hebel assessed a passage from Kentler's foreword to the brochure Show me! 1974 as "an outright call for pedophilia"; Alice Schwarzer made a similar statement in Emma magazine . The Protestant authors Andreas Späth and Menno Aden also attacked Kentler in their book The Abused Republic - Enlightenment on the Enlightenment . Due to an article by Ursula Enders in Emma 1997 “at the last minute” Kentler was prevented from receiving the 1997 Magnus Hirschfeld Prize . He was to receive the award primarily for his commitment to the ecumenical working group on homosexuals and the church .

In October 2013, in Die Zeit , Adam Soboczynski critically classified Kentler in a pedophilia derogation of the 1970s. For example, Die Zeit published a treatise by the “pedophilia-friendly scientist” in 1969. Soboczynski explained this in such a way that the mainstream at the time , following Wilhelm Reich, considered “sexual liberation” to be an “anti-fascist project”. This article by Georg Diez was panned out on Spiegel online : Soboczynski was not at all about taking Kentler "seriously and analyzing". Rather, his remarks are in the series of obsessive, confused settlements with the 68ers ; he makes hardly verifiable, "tightly screwed claims", such as that sexual liberation was considered an anti-fascist project.

In 2013, the political scientist Franz Walter from the Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research , who at the time examined the earlier position of parts of the Greens and the FDP on pedophilia, assigned Kentler a key role in German networks of pedophile activists.

Investigations against Kentler

Following public pressure, in 2015 the Berlin Senate Department commissioned political scientist Teresa Nentwig from the Institute for Democracy Research in Göttingen to conduct a study on the experiment that Kentler had carried out in Berlin in the late 1960s with the support of the youth welfare office. In this context, the Berlin Senator for Education, Sandra Scheeres, called it a “crime under state responsibility”. Those affected, who contacted the responsible senator in 2017, were disappointed with the lack of support. In 2017/18 Nentwig was commissioned to research the work of Kentler in Lower Saxony. He had also dealt with behavioral adolescents in Hanover, where he had contacts with the youth welfare office and on whose behalf he was supposed to scientifically accompany the first guardianship of a lesbian couple, but this did not happen because the couple refrained from guardianship for personal reasons.

In January 2018, Leibniz Universität Hannover announced that it had initiated further investigations into Kentler. "I am downright shocked that the executive and the judiciary allowed themselves to be absorbed", said President Volker Epping at the New Year's reception. "I am also completely irritated that the specialist community did not comment on Kentler's actions, nor did they cry out!" Only after completion of the project The role of the sexologist in the pedosexuality discourse funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture - for example Helmut Kentler is the university ( nine years after Kentler's death) the extent of the case became clear. The aim of the further investigation will be to examine the circumstances of Kentler's doctorate, appointment and work up to his retirement. This also includes the behavior of the university, faculty and department with regard to himself. For proper processing, orders would be given to external, independent persons.

On June 15, 2020, a report on the results of Helmut Kentler's work in the Berlin child and youth welfare service prepared by scientists from the University of Hildesheim was presented in Berlin . The Senator of Education Scheeres promised those affected by abuse in this context financial compensation from the State of Berlin.

Fonts (selection)

  • Youth work in the industrial world. Report from an experiment. 2nd Edition. Juventa Verlag, Munich 1962.
  • What is youth work? together with CW Mueller, K. Mollenhauer and H. Giesecke, Juventa, Munich 1964.
  • For a revision of sex education. Juventa-Verl., Munich 1967.
  • Youth work with emancipated youth. In: Deutsche Jugend, 1969, issue 5.
  • Sex education. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1981 (1st edition 1970).
  • Texts on socio-sexuality. Leske, Opladen 1973.
  • Show me! (Preface by H. Kentler); Author Helga Fleischhauer-Hardt with photographs by Will McBride ; Jugenddienst-Verlag, Wuppertal 1974.
  • Vacation with a difference. Düsseldorf (Ed. DGB-BuVo, Dept. Youth) 1975.
  • Parents learn sex education. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995 (1st edition 1975).
  • Pocket dictionary of sexuality. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1982.
  • The humanity of sexuality. Kaiser, Munich 1983.
  • Sexual beings human. Piper, Munich 1988.
  • Loan fathers. Children need fathers. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1989.
  • Perpetrators of sexual abuse of boys. In: Katharina Rutschky , Reinhardt Wolff (ed.): Handbook of sexual abuse. Klein, Hamburg 1999.

literature

  • Andreas Späth, Menno Aden (Hrsg.): The abused republic - Enlightenment about the Enlightenment. With contributions and a. by Christa Meves , Harald Seubert and Albert Wunsch . Verlag Inspiration Un Limited, London / Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-9812110-2-3 , pp. 127-148: The Pedophile Movement (Helmut Kentler).
  • Teresa Nentwig et al. a .: The support of pedosexual or pederastic interests by the Berlin Senate Administration. Using the example of an “experiment” by Helmut Kentler and the “Address List on Gay, Lesbian & Pedophile Emancipation”. Study on behalf of the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Science . Institute for Democracy Research Georg August University, Göttingen 2016 ( PDF ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.emma.de/artikel/falsche-kinderfreunde-263497
  2. ↑ https://taz.de/!1599466/
  3. ↑ From: Parents Learn Sex Education, cover page
  4. ↑ »www.evangelische-jugend.de« ( memento of the original from March 19, 2012 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. Retrieved March 12, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.evangelische-jugend.de
  5. ↑ See: Youth work in the industrial world - conclusions for youth work
  6. ↑ See: New circular . Information about family, youth and sport, Berlin, 3/1970, 2/1972, 2/1974
  7. ↑ Berlin / Police: Feind im Innern , Der Spiegel, August 7, 1967
  8. ↑ Parents learn sex education, Rowohlt, 1975
  9. ↑ a b c Nina Apin, Astrid Geisler: The attempt. In: taz of September 14, 2013, accessed on July 26, 2017.
  10. ↑ Liberalism: FDP was more tolerant towards pedophiles than previously known. Spiegel Online , September 1, 2013.
  11. ↑ a b c d e Jutta Rinas: Sexual abuse: The professor and the little boys. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , January 12, 2018, p. 18.
  12. ↑ Dagmar Albrecht (ed.) Et al. : Experience of the residents , in this: Today in Marienwerder. A district book about different people, historical sights, the environment and nature , 199 pages, with drawings by Gisela Blumenbach and others as well as photographs by Kristin Beier et al., Hannover-Marienwerder: D. Albrecht, 1992, p. 25f.
  13. ↑ Parents Learn Sex Education, p. 32
  14. ^ H. Kentler: Sex Education. 1970, p. 179
  15. ↑ Kentler: Sexualedbildung, p. 171
  16. ↑ Kentler: Sex Education, p. 173
  17. ↑ Parents Learn Sex Education, p. 103
  18. ↑ Parents learn sex education, p. 103 f.
  19. ↑ Show me! Wuppertal 1974, foreword
  20. ↑ Is the psycho wave rolling over the law? In: Emma, Nov / Dec. 1997, pp. 30-38
  21. ^ Rüdiger Lautmann : Obituary for Helmut Kentler, on the website of the Humanist Union ; quoted from Späth / Aden: The abused Republic , pp. 145, 148.
  22. ↑ perpetrators of sexual abuse of boys . In: Katharina Rutschky , Reinhardt Wolff (Hrsg.): Handbook of sexual abuse . Klein, Hamburg 1999, p. 208.
  23. ↑ Obituary from July 12, 2008 on taz.de.
  24. ↑ See www.evangelische-jugend.de (as of the beginning of 2010) and Späth / Aden (2010), p. 147.
  25. ^ Rüdiger Lautmann : Obituary for Helmut Kentler. In: Communications of the Humanist Union. Journal for education and civil rights. Issue No. 202 (Issue 3/2008) of October 30, 2008, pp. 26-27. Retrieved June 23, 2013.
  26. ↑ Ursula Enders: Is there an "abuse with abuse?" In: Ursula Enders (Ed.): I was tender, it was bitter. Manual Against Sexual Abuse. 4th edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-462-03328-1 , pp. 454-469. ( Chapter from the 2001 edition online )
  27. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau of March 8, 2010 , accessed on April 21, 2013
  28. ↑ See literature (Späth / Aden (Hrsg.): The abused Republic. Pp. 127–148)
  29. ^ Adam Soboczynski: Pedophile anti-fascism . In: Die Zeit from October 10, 2013, p. 49 f. ( online , accessed March 23, 2014).
  30. ↑ Georg Diez: The defilement of the 68er. Spiegel online, October 11, 2013, accessed March 23, 2014.
  31. ^ Olaf Wedekind, Berlin Senate, mediated youths to convicted pedophiles , Berliner Zeitung , December 2, 2016.
  32. ↑ Those affected by the Senate disappointed , Der Spiegel 7/2018 p. 24
  33. ↑ Jutta Rinas: Pedophilia advocate taught at university . In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung , January 12, 2018, p. 15.
  34. ↑ The Helmut Kentler case: Leibniz University implements process for comprehensive processing ( memento from January 23, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), press release from Leibniz University Hannover from January 17, 2018
  35. ↑ Now an expert opinion sheds light on the responsibility of the University of Hanover . taz from August 15, 2018.
  36. ↑ Susanne Leinemann: Berlin Compensates Victims of Abuse - Under the aegis of reform pedagogue Helmut Kentler, foster children were abused by pedophiles. , Morgenpost.de, June 15, 2020, accessed on June 16, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Kentler, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 2008
Place of death Hanover