Johannes Dornseiffer

Johannes Dornseiffer (born  February 2, 1837 in Gerlingen, today the municipality of Wenden (Sauerland) ; †  December 11, 1914 in Eslohe ) was a priest, founder of the winter school in Fretter and involved in the establishment of several savings and loan funds.

Live and act

Dornseiffer grew up in poor conditions and, after being ordained a priest on August 20, 1862 in Paderborn , initially worked as a chaplain in Melschede Castle . On April 7, 1863 he became school vicar in Fretter. Due to the Kulturkampf he was deposed as such in 1876, but remained active in pastoral care. In the same year he founded a private training school in Fretter for young people who had left school. In 1879 the Serkenrode agricultural association decided to convert it into an agricultural school. In the meantime, the district administrator of the Meschede district hadand local government and community authorities recognized the need for such a facility. On February 17, 1880, the Dornseiffers advanced training school was therefore closed and immediately reopened as the first agricultural winter school in the province of Westphalia . The management remained in the hands of Johannes Dornseiffer. On November 10, 1884, he became an assistant pastor in Eslohe, whose pastoral office had been orphaned as a result of the Kulturkampf since 1879, and on June 10, 1886, he was appointed pastor of Eslohe. Soon after his transfer to Eslohe, efforts began to move the school to Eslohe as the center of the circle. In the autumn of 1890 a corresponding agreement was reached between Dornseiffer and the municipality of Fretter, but it was not adhered to. As a result, the Eslohe agricultural association founded its own school in autumn 1890. In 1891 the two schools in Eslohe merged. On September 1, 1913, Dornseiffer retired.

Influenced by the hardship of his childhood, Dornseiffer saw the opportunity to raise the prosperity of the population through education, the creation of savings and loan funds and cooperative institutions ( dairy , forest nurseries ) and modern technology. He knew how to advertise his ideas and the cooperative spirit through newspaper articles, but also from the pulpit. He was in personal contact with Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and was involved in the establishment of three savings and loan funds: Fretter (March 30, 1882), Schönholthausen (March 31, 1882) and Eslohe (September 10, 1882). His services to the promotion of agriculture were also recognized by the secular authorities. Like his role model Raiffeisen, he also knew about the economic importance of transport routes and therefore vigorously advocated the construction of railways through the Frettertal. He was also in contact with the founder of the Westphalian Farmers' Association and initiator of the rural cooperative movement in Westphalia, Burghard Freiherr von Schorlemer-Alst . For his services he was appointed Knight of the Red Eagle Order IV Class and was awarded the Crown Order III. Class.

Works (selection)

• History about Eslohe. Paderborn 1896 ( digitized version ); Reprint: Catholic Parish Office, Eslohe 1983 (PDF file; 1.9 MB)
• The Gerlinger Chronik by Pastor Johannes Dornseiffer (1901) . Edited by Raimund J. Quiter (1998)
• Historical news from Schliprüthen. Reprinted in continuation in the Mescheder Zeitung from July 24 to August 7, 1903. (PDF file; 144 kB)

literature

• Raimund J. Quiter: Johannes Dornseiffer. A priestly life in the Sauerland on the threshold of modern times 1837 - 1914. Siegen 1997. ISBN 3-924948-47-X

swell

• Community archives Eslohe, Finnentrop and Wenden
• Parish archives Eslohe, Fretter, Schönholthausen and Wenden

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Dornseiffer in the catalog of the German National Library