Humboldt-Gymnasium Cologne

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Humboldt-Gymnasium Cologne
School logo of the Humboldt-Gymnasium Cologne
type of school high school
School number 166649
founding 1833
address

Carthusian Wall 40

place Cologne
country North Rhine-Westphalia
Country Germany
Coordinates 50 ° 55 '35 "  N , 6 ° 56' 55"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 55 '35 "  N , 6 ° 56' 55"  E
carrier city ​​Cologne
student 1223
Teachers 106
management Andreas Graefe
Website www.humboldt-koeln.de
The Humboldt-Gymnasium, front side

The Humboldt Gymnasium Cologne is the largest high school in downtown Cologne . It is named after the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859).

The school is a linguistic and scientific high school. One of their special features is the strong focus on music education . In order to belong to the "branch of music", the pupils have to pass a multi-stage aptitude test when they start school, so they have to have previous musical knowledge. The “M classes” formed from these students work together with the Rheinische Musikschule and the Cologne University of Music and Dance .

history

The forerunner of the Humboldt Gymnasium was the Provincial Trade School founded in 1833 in the Carmelite Monastery on Cologne's Waidmarkt. Here 30 children were taught in two classes. Trade schools were one of three types of school that the Prussian government demanded from the cities in their area of ​​influence to provide general education for children. In the trade school, in addition to the natural sciences and technical drawing, manual skills and - in contrast to the Latin schools - living languages ​​were taught.

In 1869 the school moved to a new building on Humboldtstrasse. In 1882 the trade school rose to the rank of upper secondary school, i.e. a grammar school. In 1933 the then Oberrealschule 41 Humboldtstraße became the Humboldt Gymnasium. After the building was destroyed in the Second World War in 1943, the students were sent to other grammar schools in the city, such as the Irmgardis grammar school and the Nippes grammar school . In 1958, the school started as a mathematics and natural science high school in its new building on Kartäuserwall, where it is still located today. From then on it was called "Humboldt-Gymnasium" after the natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt.

time of the nationalsocialism

From 1931 to March 1945 Johannes (Hans) Halfmann was the head of the school. As with all state institutions during the time of National Socialism , the pupils of the Humboldt-Gymnasium should also be educated in accordance with the NSDAP . In October 1933 Halfmann announced “drastic measures” to the teaching staff, such as the requirement to teach the pupils the “leadership principle”.

From January 30, 1933, the following applied to teaching:

  • Flag honoring before and after class
  • "Heil Hitler" greeting before and after each lesson
  • new subjects: race and family / morality

"Pupils with poor racial and genetic makeup, physical disabilities, lack of courage and lack of commitment in sport, lack of willingness to take care of their bodies, and lack of intelligence and willingness to learn" were excluded from higher education, especially the Abitur . From 1934 the "national political lessons" began, which should educate the students "to racial awareness, military ability and loyalty to the allegiance". To this end, one-week seminars were held in “national political educational institutions”. Members of the Hitler Youth were exempt from this. The Abitur topics were also influenced by the NSDAP. Three examples:

  • German: "Goethe's Faust, the image of a real German fighter" (1938)
  • German: "I should recommend a newer German poem to a comrade from the labor service" (1939)
  • History: "What follows from the fact that modern war is total war?" (1939)

The subject “ racial studies ” intensified the discrimination against non- Aryan , especially Jewish, students.

"Then suddenly you went to the swimming pool, to the Hohenstaufenbad , and then they didn't take the two of us with them because it said, 'Jews and dogs are not allowed in."

- Yehuda Levi : Interview

In the school year 1935/36 there were 24 Jewish students at the Humboldt Gymnasium, a year later there were only seven. On November 15, 1938, the last three Jewish students were expelled.

In 1938, collections were made at the school for the Volksbund for Germanness abroad , the National Socialist People's Welfare and for the Winter Relief Organization of the German People . After the beginning of the war at the end of 1939, Director Halfmann took over the planning and organization of civil defense in Cologne city. Air force helper classes (the "flak helper classes") were established in this and other schools; which consisted of an eighth grade, two seventh and a sixth grade. These children and adolescents also looked after flak positions z. B. the one under the Mülheim bridge .

Several air raid shelters were built in the school's basement, alarm plans were drawn up and alarm exercises were carried out. In June 1943 the school was completely destroyed. Most of the students were relocated to the Irmgardis School in Schillerstraße until the general school closure in autumn 1944.

Music high school

In 1966, together with the Rheinische Musikschule, the focus was on music by founding the "music high school branch". The initiator of this connection was the first director of the Rheinische Musikschule, Hugo Wolfram Schmidt. Schmidt had been active as a music teacher at the Kreuzgasse grammar school from 1930 , became a teaching function for the National Socialists , lost his teaching license after the war because of his “fellowship” with the Nazis, but returned in 1949 as a music teacher, this time at the Humboldt grammar school. It remained with a “school trial” until in 1969 the state government approved the school's status as a “music high school as a special kind of music high school”. Schmidt and others' plans to outsource the music classes to an independent school with a boarding school were therefore obsolete.

The model led to success as professional musicians for many students. Up until 1986 there was no high school graduate with music as a desired course of study who failed the entrance examination for a music college. In 1986, high school students performed the children's opera The Two Musicians by Peter Maxwell Davies in cooperation with the Cologne Opera . Numerous pupils were successful in the music competition Jugend musiziert .

Furnishing

Top view, 2017

In addition to two main buildings, a container wing, a sports hall and a triple sports hall, the school also has its own swimming pool and a sports field with a sprint track and jumping facility. Below the large auditorium there are several rehearsal rooms for bands and a language laboratory.

An extension with classrooms and specialist rooms, a library , a teaching kitchen with dining room and a chamber music hall was completed in 2019 and inaugurated by Cologne's Mayor Henriette Reker in January 2020 . The planning and construction phase took ten years and was delayed several times. The construction costs amounted to 17.6 million euros.

Known students

1833 to 1958 (the school was founded until the Carthusian Wall moved in)

Since 1958 (chronological)

Student Council

Over 600 handprints on the "Humboldt against Homophobia" banner, which was hung in front of the school in May 2013.

The student council of the Humboldt-Gymnasium currently consists of more than 40 students of the Gymnasium.

See also

  • List of Alexander von Humboldt schools
  • List of Humboldt schools
  • Documentary volume of the Association of Friends and Supporters of the Music High School of the City of Cologne e. V .: “20 years of music high school: '66 - '86; Classes with practical music lessons at the Humboldt-Gymnasium ”, 1986. Call number 1K7313 in the University Library of Cologne
  • Documentary volume "150 years of school in Cologne Example: Humboldt-Gymnasium 1833–1983", Humboldt-Gymnasium 1983, OCLC 174363260 .

Web links

Commons : Humboldt-Gymnasium Köln  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The other two types of schools in Prussia were the Latin School and the Higher Citizens School .
  2. ↑ eg.nsdok.de
  3. ^ Humboldt-Gymnasium turns 175. In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger. September 10, 2008.
  4. ↑ Michael Custodis: The social isolation of new music: on the Cologne musical life after 1945. Edition 54, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-515-08375-8 , p. 137.
  5. ↑ 20 years of music high school 1966–1986. (Festschrift)
  6. ^ Joachim Neubauer: Humboldt-Gymnasium: A new chamber music hall for the southern part of the city. November 15, 2019, accessed on April 24, 2020 (German).
  7. ^ Humboldt-Gymnasium Cologne // Numrich Albrecht Klumpp. Retrieved April 24, 2020 .
  8. ↑ My Südstadt: Learn more beautifully in Humboldt. August 28, 2019, accessed on April 24, 2020 (German).
  9. ^ Matthias Harder: Experience of War. To depict the Second World War in the novels by Heinz G. Konsalik. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1999, ISBN 3-8260-1565-7 , p. 230. In this book (p. 230) Konsalik is asked about his membership in the Hitler Youth (HJ) and answers: “I visited the Cologne Humboldt Gymnaskum; one day it was said: Everyone is now joining the young people . Nobody was mutually exclusive. And our director was proud to report to the HJ area leader: 95% of my students at the Humboldt-Gymnasium are members of the Jungevolks or the HJ. "