Josef Reichert (music teacher)
Jakob Josef "Bob" Reichert (born January 28, 1901 in Beaumarais ; † December 9, 1973 in Saarbrücken ) was a German music teacher , choir director and radio journalist .
Family and education
Josef Reichert was the eldest son of five children of the master baker's guild Johann Joseph Reichert (1878–1935) and his wife Katharina, née. Riga (1878–1943) was born in Büren (today part of Rehlingen-Siersburg ). The parents ran a bakery business with an attached restaurant in Beaumarais, which his grandfather († 1903) had founded on his father's side. Josef attended the local elementary school and learned the bakery trade in his parents' business and in Hostenbach near Wadgassen . His interest in music, which he discovered early on, was encouraged by his parents to the best of his ability. During this time he was already taking music lessons from a local organist and violin teacher . He completed his apprenticeship as a baker with the final examination in 1918 and went after the war on wandering in the Saar Palatinate region. His later music teachers were Otto Weidner, Ludwig Zee, Wirthmann and the Pfirmann'sche Music School. His musical talent finally gave him access to the music teacher’s seminar at the Conservatory with Eduard Bornschein in Saarbrücken, a predecessor of today's Saar University of Music . He graduated as a qualified music teacher. In 1932 he married Henrietta Anna Maria, b. Albert (1912–1998) from Wallerfangen . The marriage resulted in three children, Franz-Josef (1934–2012), Harald (* 1939) and Ingrid (1943–2013). The family lived in Wallerfangen and Saarbrücken, in the course of the first evacuation of the Red Zone, temporarily in Frankfurt am Main and Würzburg . Here Josef Reichert had the opportunity between 1939 and 1941 to study composition and music as a guest student with Hermann Zilcher at the University of Music in Würzburg . He experienced the end of the war with his family in the second evacuation in Bütthard , then in Saarlouis and finally in Dillingen / Saar .
Josef Reichert died during a stay in a clinic in Saarbrücken and was buried on December 12, 1973 in the cemetery in Dillingen. His departure was accompanied by delegations of cultural life from three countries in which Reichert had worked. Among them the writer Anise Koltz , the composer Josy Meisch and Léon Blasen from the Ministry of Culture of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . From the Saarländischer Rundfunk editor-in-chief Reintgen (on behalf of the artistic director Dr. Franz Mai ), program director Dr. Garber, Emil Lehnen , Director of Commercial Radio Saar, Chairman of the Staff Council Axel Buchholz . Former colleagues of the station, Wilhelm Heinrich Recktenwald and Dr. Heinz Freiberger, next to the author Maria Croon . The Lorraine folk music group "Petits chanteurs lorrains" under the direction of his companion Auguste Rohr provided the musical framework. Members of all choirs with which Josef Reichert had ever worked appeared particularly numerous.
Professional background
Early years and Reichsender Saarbrücken
Josef Reichert initially worked as a freelance music teacher for violin and piano , choir director and conductor in the Saarlouis district . During this time, he was also given the opportunity to work as a freelancer for the Saarland Broadcasting Corporation , which had been under construction since 1929. Reichert wrote broadcast manuscripts for the “Art and Music” department with a focus on folk music , and provided his own song compositions and arrangements as program contributions for radio , which, as was common at the time, only produced live broadcasts . During the performance, which in some cases had a nationwide reach (so-called Reich broadcasts ), he was responsible for the musical program coordination, the direction of the choirs, orchestras and solo performers. After the Saar was re-incorporated into the German Reich in 1935, his involvement led him to a permanent position at the now "Reichssender Saarbrücken" radio station, headed by Adolf Raskins , which was " synchronized " with the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft . He had been a freelancer since 1936, and from March 1, 1938 Reichert became head of the “Youth and Folk Music” department. Subsequently, he participated in the development of the so-called " Rundfunkspielschar ". This consisted of children's choirs and mixed choirs, a youth orchestra and changing soloists. Reichert took over the artistic direction and was thus responsible for the program work, which had to fulfill the "practical and broadcast-ready design in musical and poetic terms". His work also included reports and presentations on cultural events in the Saar region and the neighboring Lorraine region . During this time, a friendship developed with the Wadgasser local poet Johannes Kirschweng , which had a decisive influence on his work. The folklorist and song collector Louis Pinck also exerted a strong influence on Reichert's work through his collaboration with choirs and folk music groups from Lorraine . About 40 to 50 adaptations of Pinck's "Verklingenden Weisen" (fading tunes) and other folk songs were created by Reichert for the broadcaster (in the original version that has survived, mostly unanimous) .
Second World War
On May 1, 1942, Josef Reichert was drafted into the Wehrmacht . He was deployed as war correspondent and musical director at the German soldier broadcaster Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland . Due to bomb damage and the kidnapping of his belongings, he lost his specialist library as well as all his notes and notes during the war and during the subsequent occupation .
Radio Saarbrücken and Saarländischer Rundfunk
After the end of the war , the radio operations of the former Reichsender were completely on the ground. Since the evacuation order on December 6, 1944, all the systems in the transmission center at Eichhornstaden had been dismantled, and emergency operations were still running from a small studio in Dudweiler's town hall until American fighter bombers destroyed the radio systems in Heusweiler on March 17, 1945 . The victorious powers initially pursued the plan to annex the Saar area to French territory, it was given a special status in the French occupation zone . In addition to its official broadcaster in Baden-Baden , the military government also set up the local “radiodiffusion Sarrebruck”, which initially excluded most of the former members of the Reich broadcaster from participating. In order to support his family, Reichert - escaped captivity and returned from evacuation - made his way as a representative of a Saarlouis shoe factory and at times also returned to the bakery of his deceased parents, which his brother Edmund continued to run. Only after the French integration plans finally failed and the Saarland should come under a protectorate administration again , "Radio Saarbrücken" resumed broadcasting on March 17, 1946 - two weeks earlier than Baden-Baden - in which Reichert was again able to participate creatively . In the semi-autonomous Saarland, the broadcasting company was established in the Saarbrücken “Wartburg”, a requisitioned hall of the parish hall of the Protestant parish Saarbrücken-Sankt-Johann . After initially working as a freelancer, Reichert took up a permanent position on January 1, 1951 as head of the “Choral and Folk Music, Local and Church Radio” department. During this time he founded the “Saarland Volksliederchor”, also the musical backbone of his work for the station. In his program contributions a strong local history manifested itself , local researchers and traditional folk associations regularly had their say. The focus was also on cross-border international understanding in the Saar-Lor-Lux region. Reichert's department now also worked on the newly founded Telesaar , with his series "Hüben und Drüben" he also appeared on the first (private) Saarland television from 1954 to 1958 .
The referendum on October 23, 1955 on the Second Saar Statute incorporated the Saarland as the tenth federal state into the federal territory of what was then the Federal Republic of Germany. From "Radio Saarbrücken" 1 May 1959 was public ARD -Anstalt "Saarland Radio (SR)". The workforce was adopted almost unchanged. From this time on, Reichert's work department was subject to constant change. Church radio, too, underwent a complete restructuring under the new political auspices, the station's own share in productions in the folk music division fell steadily, and the regional horizon expanded again considerably. On September 4, 1961, the company moved to the new broadcasting center on Halberg . While music-making was in the foreground for a long time for Josef Reichert during his professional career, his work now increasingly shifted to administrative work, which aimed to restructure the traditional broadcast formats in the direction of a modern, regional cultural program.
Josef Reichert retired in January 1966.
Works (selection)
Radio plays / audio pictures
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Broadcast series
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Compositions
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Film music
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Movies
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Poetry / prose
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Awards
For his efforts to promote Franco-German relations , Reichert was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany's Medal of Merit. In the border triangle of Germany, France and Luxembourg, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg honored its commitment to cultural understanding with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit .
“Josef Reichert understood how to create [something] in the simplicity of popular relationships and friendships between the singing groups and musicians, when it was not yet easy to talk to each other about the recent past. He has done a great service of reconciliation and understanding. "
The congregations, associations and choirs that he brought into the public eye through his work brought him innumerable honors. The originally intended Louis Pinck Prize from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS was posthumously accepted by his son on December 7, 1989.
Literature and Sources
- Christine Frick: Our archives , messages from archives in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, No. 45, April 2000, p. 32
- Karin Stoverock: Music in the Hitler Youth. Organization, development, contexts ; Uelvesbüll 2013
- "The Hitler Youth on the Radio" , in: "Official Guide for the 12th Great German Radio Exhibition"; Berlin 1935
- Heribert Schwan: The radio as an instrument of politics in Saarland 1945–1955 ; Publishing house Volker Spiess; Berlin, 1974; ISBN 3-920889-21-5
- Hans Bünte et al. , Axel Buchholz and Fritz Raff (eds.): History and stories of the station on the Saar - 50 years of Saarländischer Rundfunk ; Verlag Herder GmbH; Freiburg / Breisgau, 2007; ISBN 978-3-451-29818-9
- Zimmermann, Hudemann, Kuderna (eds.): Medienlandschaft Saar ; 3 vol .; Verlag R. Oldenbourg, Munich 2010; ISBN 978-3-486-59170-5
- “On the purest spring morning - Josef Reichert” , in: Saarbrücker Zeitung of November 18, 1949
- "Reflective homeland love - Josef Reichert has been working for the radio for 20 years" , in: Saarbrücker Zeitung No. 25/1958
- “Farewell to Josef Reichert” , in: Saarbrücker Zeitung of December 14, 1973, No. 290, p. 20
- "Josef Reichert died" , in: Le Républicain Lorrain (German-language column, "From the Saarland" ) of December 11, 1973, p. 13
Web links
- Lineage JJ Reichert on GeneaNet (last accessed March 6, 2015)
- The "HJ-Spielschar" at the Reichsender Saarbrücken , in: Fundstücke , online on the website of the Saarländischer Rundfunk (last accessed on November 28, 2017)
- Radio in the HJ , on the web portal Jugend 1918–1945 of the NS Documentation Center (NSDOK) of the city of Cologne (last accessed on March 6, 2015)
- Biography of Leo Clambour on the website of the Saarländischer Zupforchester (last accessed on March 10, 2015)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Reichert, Josef |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Reichert, Jakob Josef (full name); Reichert, Bob (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German music teacher, choir director and radio journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 28, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Beaumarais |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 9, 1973 |
| Place of death | Saarbrücken |