Herbert Koch (pedagogue)

Herbert Koch (born May 3, 1886 in Jena , † November 16, 1982 in Wedel ) was a German pedagogue, Romance studies and local historian.

Origin and family

Herbert Koch came from a Jena banking family. His grandfather was Hermann Koch , an honorary citizen of Jena , whose sons Wilhelm and Rudolf continued to run the Koch bank together. Rudolf's son and Herbert Koch's cousin Arwed Koch (1888–1946) took over the banking business in 1906. In 1910 Koch married Charlotte Czapski (1888–1974), Siegfried Czapski's eldest daughter . The sons Helmut, Jürgen (first married to Ernst Wandersleb's daughter Brigitte) and Gerhard emerged from the marriage.

life and work

After graduating from high school in 1905 at Carolo-Alexandrinum , Koch studied history, art history, classical philology and German at the universities of Munich , Leipzig , Berlin and Jena . In 1909 he was in Jena with an excellent work on the Saxon fratricidal doctorate and 1911 after the state examination for teaching in the same year he was at the high school seminars in Jena and Sondershausen operates. On April 1, 1913, the family first went to Argentina , where Koch taught history methodology in Buenos Aires as a (non-qualified) professor . Because of the First World War he was fired as a German and he went to Blumenau in 1917 as school director and to São Paulo in Brazil in 1919 . After returning to Jena in 1923, he was refused recognition of the title of professor. In 1923 he became a teacher at the Jena Lyceum , today's Grete-Unrein-Schule , as well as an honorary lecturer for Portuguese at the University of Jena. In addition, Koch worked as a local historian, published a number of studies and articles in the Jenaer Volksblatt and the Zeiss -Werkzeitung, and worked on an overall presentation of the city's history.

From 1935 onwards, due to his marriage, Koch was considered to be “Jewish misfits” (his father-in-law was Jewish) and, despite various protective measures, “politically intolerable”. At the end of 1942 he was removed from the university. The campaign carried out by local Nazi functionaries in the "Koch case" culminated in his forced leave of absence and assignment to a work camp of the Todt Organization in Weißenfels, a branch camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp from October 1944 to February 1945.

Immediately after the end of the Second World War , Koch became involved in local politics. He helped with the salvage of the destroyed city ​​museum , was acting head of the cultural office and the city archive and after the change of occupation (June 1, 1945) head of the public education office and the "cleansing committee" for "denazification" and director of the lyceum. He also joined the Democratic Party of Thuringia (since December 2, 1945 LDPD ) and headed the Jena office. Also in 1945 he became a co-founder of the local branch of the Kulturbund ; from 1946 he led the home history section. In the same year Koch was defamed as an allegedly active National Socialist (he had been a supporting member of the SS ) and removed from many of his offices. Despite a large number of advocates, the rehabilitation failed. Regardless of this, Koch continued to work in Jena until his retirement in 1950, became a university lecturer for Portuguese and Spanish in 1949 and completed his habilitation here in 1956 at the age of seventy with a thesis on French literary history. It was not until 1963 that Koch moved from the GDR to Bad Berleburg , later to the retirement home in Wedel , where he died in 1982.

Appreciation

With his numerous writings on local history, Koch is considered one of the most productive urban historians of Jena. Especially in the context of the city's anniversary in 1936, Koch published numerous overview studies, but was not included in the official anthology as an author due to his political stance. The "History of the City of Jena" was published as a summary in 1966 by the former Gustav Fischer Verlag in Stuttgart, which became a standard work. Despite a political campaign against the book, it was widely used. It was reissued in 1996 and is also out of print. Most recently, an unpublished manuscript on the history of Jena Romance Studies was edited.

After the Peaceful Revolution in 1990, Koch was named on a list of suggestions, not least as a sign of rehabilitation, after which numerous streets were to be renamed. He did not get a chance because there has been a Koch-Strasse in Jena-West named after his grandfather since 1898. Koch's grave of honor is located in the Jena North Cemetery , a commemorative plaque on the Johannisfriedhof and a memorial plaque at the Grete-Unrein School, August-Bebel-Straße 1.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

• Berleburg Castle (= major architectural monuments. Issue 217). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1968, 13th edition 1997.
• History of the city of Jena. Fischer, Stuttgart 1966 (new edition Jena 1996).
• The St. Johanniskirche in Jena (= monuments of the city of Jena and its surroundings. Issue 1). Jena 1936.
• The floor book of the city of Jena from 1406. Jena 1932.
• with Arwed Koch: The Koch banking house in Jena. 1778-1928. Jena 1928.

Editorships

• Architectus Jenensis by Mag. Adrian Beier . Newly published by Herbert Koch, Jena: Vopelius 1936
• The oldest chronicle of the city of Jena. 1532-1546. Vopelius, Jena 1937
• with Helga Militz: Pocket dictionary Spanish-German. Enzyklopädie-Verlag, Leipzig 1963 (9th edition 1989)

literature

• Christian Faludi, Joachim Hendel (ed.): The "History of Romance Studies at the University of Jena" by Herbert Koch: An edition supplemented by portraits of professors and a list of Koch's writings (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Jena, Volume 14), Steiner, Stuttgart 2019.
• Christian Faludi: Art. Herbert Koch. In: Matias Mieth, Rüdiger Stutz (ed.): Jena. Lexicon on city history. Tümmel-Verlag, Berching 2018, p. 364.
• Jürgen John : Afterword. In: Herbert Koch: History of the City of Jena. Unchanged reprint of the 1966 edition. Gustav-Fischer-Verlag, Jena 1996, pp. 395–412.

Web links

• Literature by Herbert Koch in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joachim Hendel: "From someone who loved Jena" - Ottogerd Mühlmann (1908-1987). Heimatforscher, Denkmalschützer, Rassewart , in: Gerbergasse 18 , Edition 71 (2014), Issue 2, pp. 29–34, here p. 34. Biography and bibliography. geschichtwerkstatt-jena.de, accessed on July 1, 2018 .