Josefine Detig

Josefine Maria Detig (born February 2, 1893 in Poppenhausen (Wasserkuppe) , † January 5, 1970 in Fulda ) was a German elementary school teacher who was persecuted during the National Socialist era.

Live and act

Josefine Detig was born as the fifth child of master baker Gerhard Detig (1854–1909) in Poppenhausen. During the fire disaster there in 1903, the family home and bakery were destroyed. She herself attended elementary school there between 1899 and 1907 . She then received private tuition in 1909 until she entered the Lyceum in Duderstadt , which was led by Ursulines . In 1910 she received her school-leaving certificate and then attended the upper secondary school there . On February 25, 1913, she successfully passed the examination to become a teacher for elementary schools in Hanover before the Royal Examination Commission.

Her first position in her hometown was to represent the sick main teacher there in November and December 1913. She then taught at a private school in Frankfurt am Main . From July 6, 1914, she was employed as a substitute and second teacher at the elementary school in Schmalnau . This position was converted into a permanent position on September 1, 1916.

Josefine Detig was a devout Catholic . In the mid-1920s she got to know the Schoenstatt Movement in Vallendar . She took part in a retreat there and became a federal sister . Groups were founded in their homeland too, and in 1934 the first Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary came to Dietershausen, just a few kilometers from Schmalnau . Josefine Detig became head of the Girls' Congregation in the former St. Andreas Provostry in what is now the Neuenberg district of Fulda and stayed that way until it was banned by the Nazi dictatorship.

Certificate of discharge from Josefine Detig

After the seizure of power by the Nazi Party, she was briefly a member of the National Socialist Women in Schmalnau. As early as November 27, 1933, she resigned from membership due to "personal disagreements". In January 1937, the National Socialist Teachers 'Association (NSLB) wrote to her that she could only be a member there if she was not also a member of a denominational teachers' association. A corresponding "voluntary" declaration must be made about it. Because she refused, she was expelled from the NSLB on February 1, 1937.

In the next two years, she had to endure at least ten to four hours of interrogation , investigative proceedings and house searches . During one of these searches the text of a report on the preservation of the denominational schools , which she had given on behalf of the Association of Catholic Teachers, was found. In another interrogation, when asked whether she would violate National Socialist laws if her bishop ordered it, she had replied that she would obey her conscience . Although she was certified that there was nothing wrong with her services, she was then dismissed from active school service on September 1, 1939 and retired as "politically unreliable" and "not usable for the National Socialist school". As a result of the harassment, she had health problems and heart problems which she suffered for the rest of her life. She then moved to Fulda, where she sublet , and worked in the episcopal vicariate general in religious and charitable areas.

After the end of the Second World War , she was informed on August 29, 1945 by the mayor of the city of Fulda and the responsible high school board on behalf of the American military administration that she could be employed again as a primary school teacher. On September 13, 1945, she received a teaching post from the military government and on September 24, 1945, the day the schools reopened, she began teaching again at a primary school in Fulda. There she was employed as a substitute for a dismissed teacher. In autumn 1946 she wrote to the head president of Kassel that, as a Nazi victim, she was forced to get by on only 120 RM , although she even had to set up a new apartment, since hers had since been confiscated by the Americans. On April 1, 1947, she was reappointed as a civil servant teacher, taking into account “no fault of her retirement”. On November 1, 1950, she was a lifetime tenured .

From 1946 to 1948 she was responsible for the CDU councilor and member of the Cultural and Welfare Committee in Fulda.

The Mariengrotte donated by Josefine Detig

In March 1957 she settled in at his own request retirement move. In the same year she moved to the “St. Josef ”in Fulda. For her life's work she received the papal order Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice and in 1961 the honorary letter of the Association of Catholic German Teachers . In Poppenhausen she donated a St. Mary's grotto on the Rote Weg .

Josefine Detig remained unmarried and died on January 5, 1970 in the St. Josef retirement home.

In 2009, her life was the subject of a school class at the Federal President's history competition under the motto "Heroes: adored - misunderstood - forgotten".

literature

• Michael Mott : Fuldaer Köpfe - Volume 2 , Verlag Parzeller , 2011, ISBN 978-3-7900-0442-7 , pp. 23-27
• Elmar Schick: Offenders and their victims , Michael Imhof Verlag , 2015, ISBN 978-3-86568-961-0 , p. 42 PDF file, p. 4

Web links

Commons : Mariengrotte (Poppenhausen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Library for Research on Educational History
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Michael Mott : Fuldaer Köpfe - Volume 2 , Verlag Parzeller, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7900-0442-7 , pp. 23-27 (first published in the Fuldaer Zeitung from 7. November 2007, p. 12)
3. ↑ Angela Keller-Kühne: Women in Democratic Construction - On the founding history of the CDU in Hesse , p. 31 ( PDF on the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung website )