Jürgen Byl

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Jürgen Byl (born March 12, 1920 in Leer ; † August 19, 1995 in Aurich ) was a German high school teacher and author.

Live and act

Jürgen Byl was a son of the goldsmith Friedrich Byl and his wife Elise, née Plöger. The ancestors on my father's side worked as goldsmiths. Byl wrote articles about these family members, which appeared in the first volume of the Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland . The ancestors on the mother's side were teachers from Lower Saxony and Lippe.

Byl learned from 1930 in the old-language train of the empty high school. Due to "lack of physical effort due to the student selection decree" he was expelled from school in 1938 and was not allowed to take the Abitur examination. He then did an apprenticeship as a bookseller, attended a bookseller school and passed the assistant examination in Leipzig in 1940 .

From October 1940, Byl initially served as a radio operator, then as a decipherer in a communications regmient. From 1941 to 1945 he fought in the Russian campaign . During this time he taught himself Russian. When he was taken prisoner of war in Tbilisi in May 1945 , he was therefore able to interpret and probably survived for this reason. In January 1947 he was released from captivity as a pacifist and socialist. He took part in a transitional course and passed the Abitur examination in September 1947 despite health problems. From 1947 to 1952 he studied Slavic Studies, History, German Studies and Philosophy at the University of Hamburg . He finished his studies in July 1953 with a doctorate in Slavic Studies. In his dissertation he made a form analysis of Dostoyevsky's novels.

Byl then worked as a bookseller, publishing manager, publishing co-owner and as an editor at Bertelsmann Verlag . Here he dealt with guides as well as non-fiction and specialist books. In the 1950s and 1960s he was also politically active. He was active in the All-German People's Party , took part in the Easter marches and later joined the SPD .

In 1972 Byl switched to teaching German, history and Russian at the Ulricianum grammar school . Here he learned the Low German language, which his father had spoken but not himself before. He focused on pacifism and entered the Mennonite church. As a result of these changes, he worked extensively as a journalist and dealt with scientific and popular science topics. In 1984 he retired and then intensified his writing activities.

Works

Byl was particularly interested in the history, religious history, language and literature of East Frisia. From 1979 to 1989 he edited the cultural magazine "Ostfriesland", for which he wrote his own articles. From 1983 to 1989 he was a member of the editorial team of the newspaper supplement Tweesprakenland . He was involved in the boards of the working group of East Frisian authors and the museum association Aurich and participated in several working groups of the East Frisian landscape . He worked on compilations on East Friesland, wrote many essays on history, language and literature, wrote reviews on books and the theater and many journalistic texts.

In 1992 Byl published the "East Frisian Dictionary". In the last years of his work, the "language chats" made him known. In this magazine column he discussed a mostly topical keyword in an entertaining and instructive way.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Byl, Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German high school teacher and author
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Empty
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1995
Place of death Aurich