Honterus High School

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Honterus High School
Main building (building B)
type of school high school
founding 1541
address

Curtea Honterus no. 3
loc. Brașov, RO-500025

place Brașov
circle Brașov
Country Romania
Coordinates 45 ° 38 '26 "  N , 25 ° 35' 16"  E Coordinates: 45 ° 38 '26 "  N , 25 ° 35' 16"  E
management Radu Chivărean
Website Liceul Teoretic Johannes Honterus

The Honterus-Gymnasium ( Romanian Liceul Teoretic Johannes Honterus ) is a school in Brașov (Kronstadt) , Romania .

History of origin

In the course of the Reformation in 1541, the Kronstadt city school gave rise to the “Studium Coronense”, founded by the German reformer and humanist Johannes Honterus (1498–1549), the first humanistic grammar school in Southeast Europe. The educational establishment, which was subject to school fees until 1948, attracted not only the daughters and sons of the Kronstadt citizens over the centuries due to its excellent reputation, but also students from all over Transylvania , Hungary and Romania. The monument by Johannes Honterus, a work by the Berlin sculptor Harro Magnussen , stands by the parish church “ Black Church ” and points with the index finger at the grammar school.

General

The grammar school, which today is mainly attended by Romanian students, is still considered very cosmopolitan and has well over 1000 students. Around 95% of the students have Romanian as their mother tongue. The language of instruction is German, except in art classes and psychology. Not all teachers are German native speakers as it is difficult to bring teachers from Germany to Romania. The teachers with Romanian as their mother tongue often went to a German school themselves. Pupils like to attend German schools because they learn an additional foreign language. English, French and Latin are also offered. Student exchanges with schools in Germany are maintained and popular with students.

Although, according to the teachers' conference of 1933 ( National Socialism ), political topics did not belong in the school, these topics were dealt with despite everything. Adolf Meschendörfer (poet and rector) was the 93rd rector of the Honterus School and at the same time the last under the sponsorship of the Protestant regional church . His son Harald Meschendörfer (painter and graphic artist), who also attended this school, was a student of Adolf Meschendörfer and suffered greatly from the severity of his father. Later, his grandchildren traditionally attended the Honterus grammar school. In the 19th century, Ludwig Korodi was a principal of the grammar school.

In World War II

The changes in school policy due to the political situation in World War II were already clearly noticeable after Adolf Meschendörfer's departure (1940). As early as the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht occupied various rooms in the Honterus School to set up a hospital there. In November 1941 the sponsors of all German schools were subordinated to the National Socialist- oriented German People's Party of Romania . Immediately after the "takeover" there was conformity and secularization, religion and belief no longer fit into the political concept. August 23, 1944 became the fateful day for the Germans in Romania and for the Honterus School. On this day the Romanian army dissolved the alliance with Germany. When the news center of the German troops with a direct connection to Wolfsschanze ( East Prussia ) was found in the cellar vaults of the school on the same day , all members of the Romanian People's Party occupied different classrooms, parts of the Romanian army took up positions in front of the school to access them shoot at. All Germans were insulted in the worst possible way and collectively referred to as Nazis (colloquially: Hitlerists). At the same time, the Germans in Romania were deprived of all civil rights, teachers were imprisoned, teaching materials destroyed and all Germans and Hungarians between the ages of 16 and 65 were required to report to the respective police stations. As of August 23, 1944, the German schools no longer had a legal basis, and it was not until the end of 1945 that the regional church received provisional approval to continue the German minority schools.

the post war period

The sponsorship of the schools was not handed over to the regional church until 1946, supposedly forever. Despite the joy of being able to save the schools from being dissolved immediately, the regional church was not in a position to raise the financial means for the repairs; salaries for teachers and expenses for teaching material were either not paid at all or much later. From 1945 the Honterus grammar school was again housed in the buildings of the Evangelical Church at the Black Church . At the end of the 1948 school year, the Honterusgymnasium was informed that it could move into the building of the former German girls' grammar school at Katharinentor . This building was requisitioned by the Red Army in 1945 and used as a hospital. The teachers and students of the Honterus High School cleaned up the hospital at the beginning of the summer vacation and looked forward to the new school where they should start the next school year. At the beginning of the new school year, the cleaned school building was confiscated by the Romanian authorities and handed over to the Forestry Academy. Today the Honterusgymnasium is housed in its old renovated building on the square of the Black Church .

In October 1948 a new school law followed that again separated the schools from the church, the German school law was abolished by law, school fees abolished, better care and salaries for the teaching staff were resolved; Girls and boys could now attend schools together without restrictions. Despite the supposed benefits of the new law, there was collective opposition from most teachers and students as the new law had dire consequences. The teaching staff was forced to represent the ideology in the sense of Marxism - Leninism , the textbooks and curricula were all kept uniform and the school was infiltrated by an unmanageable network of the Romanian secret service ( Securitate ). This resistance had consequences, so the parish priest Konrad Möckel was charged (so-called Black Church Trials) because he opposed the state nationalization measures, and walled the document of the nationalization of the Honterus Gymnasium into the walls of the sacristy of the Black Church in order to preserve it for posterity . The Honterus grammar school lost its name in 1948, it was now called "Lyceum No. 2 with German language of instruction" (from 1956 again Johannes Honterus Lyzeum) and for a long time was the only German grammar school in Romania; only elite students, selected from all over Romania, were able to attend the Honterus School, which only moved back to the old building opposite the Black Church in 1956.

  • Building A (grades 1-4)

  • Building B

  • Building c

Personalities

Teacher

student

literature

  • Joseph Dück: History of the Kronstädter Gymnasium , Johann Gött, Kronstadt, 1845. ( online at Google Books )

Web links

Commons : Honterusgymnasium  - collection of pictures