Hermann Otto Stölten

Hermann Otto Stölten (born February 26, 1847 in Holm , Schleswig-Holstein , † June 21, 1928 in Gerstungen , Thuringia ) was a German author and Protestant pastor in Tautenburg , Frauenprießnitz and Gerstungen.

Life

Childhood and youth

Otto Hermann Stölten was the son of a farming family. His father died early, so that Stölten grew up with his grandfather in Haseldorf . He started school in the local elementary school, received additional "private lessons" from the pastor's daughter and was particularly talented in arithmetic. At his grandfather's side, he learned the basics of carpentry . Teachers and pastors recommended that the Stöltens family further education at a grammar school , he was accepted as a student at the Christianeum in Altona in 1861 , which he successfully completed in 1866.

Education

In 1866 he began studying theology at the State University in Kiel . He took philosophical and historical studies and canon law. In 1868 he left Kiel and went to Switzerland to continue studying theology there. In 1869 he returned to Kiel and trained as a field medic in 1870/71. He volunteered for military service in France , which was refused. After graduating, he was released from military service. He earned money with a position as private tutor in Schönewald near Eutin and attended a teachers' seminar in Eckernförde . He passed the official examination successfully. In 1872 he applied in Leipzig to deepen his knowledge and appeared as an assistant preacher. After the Holstein church authorities rejected an application for a pastor's position, he applied for a pastor's position in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach .

Working life

Tautenburg

On July 2, 1878, Stölten took over a pastor's post in Tautenburg with the Steudnitz branch (now Dorndorf-Steudnitz ) near Jena . He studied the history of Tautenburg and wrote the book Wanderfahrt nach Dornburg und Tautenburg .

During this time Stölten married the daughter Bianka of pastor Zahn from Steudnitz and moved into the so-called Paradies rectory in Tautenburg. Together with chief forester Böttner, Stölten founded the local beautification association on May 9, 1878. Until 1882 the Carl-Alexander-Bastei was designed as an excursion destination and opened up by a network of paths. Thanks to Stölten, Tautenburg developed into a summer resort with prominent visitors such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé . In his largely unpublished autobiography, Stölten talked about the visit of the unequal couple in Tautenburg in 1882 and, in particular, portrayed Lou Andreas-Salomé very negatively; these texts are now published. The construction of a new church was completed on September 16, 1883 with its inauguration. In 1884, on the initiative of Stölten, a new school was built near the new church. Even during the construction there was a dispute with the local council, Stölten was very angry about this development and tried to find a new job, in 1886 he went to Frauenprießnitz .

Frauenprießnitz

In Frauenprießnitz he entered the service of the parish on January 1, 1884 as a vicar and in 1886 as a pastor. Here he did not find such a field of activity and applied for the pastor's position in Gerstungen.

Barley

In 1896 he was appointed superintendent of Gerstungen and settled in the Gerstungen rectory with his wife and five children.

About 15 parishes belonged to his district, the majority of the old village churches were built before the Reformation and had a large number of important art treasures as inventory. For Stölten, research into the church history of the Gerstung office soon became a focus alongside pastoral work. The general renovation of the Gerstung church, which lasted until 1901, also required constant supervision.

The state government of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach commissioned the art historians Paul Lehfeldt and Georg Voss with the publication of an art history guide, the series comprised an inventory of the architectural and art monuments of Thuringia. Stölten was won over as a collaborator for Booklet 38 - “Gerstungen District Court District”, published in 1913; he dealt with the presentation of the respective church history.

At the turn of the century, the Gerstungen railway junction underwent enormous economic development due to the expansion of the potash industry in the central Werra Valley. In the neighboring towns of Heringen , Dippach and Dankmarshausen , potash shafts, power plants and the first factories ( Berka / Werra brewery, Berka / Werra milk factory, Gerstungen brickworks) were built. The influx of factory workers and employees from all parts of the German Reich changed the social structure of the village community of Gerstung, which had been a rural community up until then.

As a pastor he also had to take care of the newcomers and integrate the strangers into the village community. Stölten used his influence to found associations to make people known to each other, he initiated the tourist and beautification association, choral association and the civil cultural association "Erholungsgesellschaft".

The establishment of the “Higher School for Girls and Boys” in Gerstungen in 1905 was initiated by the Wintershall potash plant and supported by Stölten as much as possible. The club school was set up in a rented house on Bahnhofstrasse. This unconventional approach enabled the community to calmly search for a suitable building site for a new school. A gymnasium for the local gymnastics club "Gut Heil" was soon built on the property of Schalls inn , which was also used by the school and other clubs in the community. In addition to Stölten, who himself gave lessons as a French teacher at the school, four teachers and one teacher for girls were employed, and the school director was Pastor Siedenkopf from Gestagen.

With the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, the Gerstungen station , which was important as a railway junction, became an almost daily resting place for troop transports, which had to be supplied with fresh food and drinks by the Gerstungen population. Stölten and his employees organized this troop support, and later also the establishment of auxiliary hospitals to care for the wounded returning home from work at the front.

For health reasons, Stölten had to apply for retirement in 1919 because he had diabetes mellitus . As his successor, Pastor Ludwig Peißker took over the Gerstunger Sprengel in October 1919. He continued to teach Stölten until 1924, including chairing his association. Stölten died on June 28, 1928 in Gerstungen.

Works

• Hiking trip to Dornburg and Tautenburg , printed by Otto Hendel, Halle (Saale), 1894
• Historical relationships between Naumburg and Frauenprießnitz-Tautenburg , Schulze Hans K. (Ed.), Naumburg, 1894
• Jena: a brief guide through its history , published in 1939
• On the location of Wolmeritz: a sheet on the history of Frauenprießnitz
• Co-author and advisor on the church history of his district: Gerstungen district court . In: Paul Lehfeldt (Hrsg.): Architectural and art monuments of Thuringia . Issue 38. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1913, p. 96 ( as digitized version ).

Honors

The grave of honor in the municipal cemetery in Gerstungen

• The Gerstungen community honored Hermann Otto Stölten as superintendent, club founder and promoter of the Gerstungen school system with numerous events during his lifetime.
• A few months after his death, a hiking trail into the community forest (Kohlbachwald) was decided as a job creation measure. Erich Stegel was inaugurated as Stöltenweg.
• The Stöltenstrasse was named after him in the village .

literature

• Fredy Richter: Life and Work of Lic. Sup. Int. Hermann Otto Stölten and his time 1847-1928 C-graphics and printing: G. Richter individual production, self-published, 1997
• Andreas Urs Sommer (ed.): Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou von Salomé in Tautenburg. Excerpts from the unpublished autobiography of Pastor Hermann Otto Stölten, in: Nietzsche Studies. International Yearbook for Nietzsche Research, Vol. 38 (2009), Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter 2009, pp. 389–392
• Stölten on google books

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andreas Urs Sommer (ed.): Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou von Salomé in Tautenburg. Excerpts from the unpublished autobiography of Pastor Hermann Otto Stölten, in: Nietzsche Studies. International Yearbook for Nietzsche Research, Vol. 38 (2009), Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter 2009, pp. 389–392
2. ^ Gerhard Schaumann: Tautenburg near Jena cultural history of a Thuringian summer resort Quartus-Verlag, Bucha near Jena, 1st edition 1998, ISBN 3-931505-38-3 , pp. 1–120
3. ↑ Bernd and Giesela Freiberg: Our Church through the ages . In: Gerhard Rösing (Ed.): 1250 years of Gerstungen. A home book. Verlag Gajewski-Druck, Ringgau-Datterode 1993, p. 125-152 .
4. ^ Helmut Hofrichter: From club school to high school . History of a school. In: Gerhard Rösing (Ed.): 1250 years of Gerstungen. A home book. Verlag Gajewski-Druck, Ringgau-Datterode 1993, p. 170-176 .
5. ↑ Fredy Richter: Life and Work of Lic. Sup. Int. Hermann Otto Stölten and his time 1847-1928 C-graphics and printing: G. Richter individual production, self-published, 1997, pp. 1–72
6. ↑ Jena: a short guide through its history Digital version in the Universal Multimedia Electronic Library of the Thuringian University and State Library Jena
7. ↑ http://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/receive/jportal_jparticle_00207008
8. ↑ Hilmar Brack: Something about the landscape around Gerstungen and history . In: Gerhard Rösing (Ed.): 1250 years of Gerstungen. A home book. Verlag Gajewski-Druck, Ringgau-Datterode 1993, p. 108-111 .
9. ↑ Gerstungen municipal administration (ed.): Decades in retrospect . Gerstungen and its district of Untersuhl. Geiger Verlag, Horb am Neckar 1993, ISBN 3-89264-845-X , p. 227 .
10. ↑ Stöltenstraße in Gerstungen on Straßenkatalog.de, accessed on January 25, 2013