Julius Ostendorf

Julius Ostendorf

Gottfried Friedrich Johann Julius Ostendorf (born April 2, 1823 in Soest , † August 31, 1877 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German educator and politician.

Family, education and work

Julius Ostendorf was born the son of the preacher at the Petrikirche, Franz Wilhelm Friedrich Anton Ostendorf, in Soest . From 1832 to 1840 he attended the Archigymnasium in his hometown. After a brilliant Abitur, he studied Protestant theology in Bonn , Halle an der Saale and Berlin between 1840 and 1843 . In Bonn he became a member of the Corps Guestphalia and the Old Bonn Burschenschaft . In 1843 he returned to Soest and studied philology until 1845 - probably in self-study. In autumn 1845 he passed the senior teacher examination in Münster and then held the statutory probationary year at the Soest high school until 1846. At the New Year of 1847 he was provisionally appointed to the Weseler Gymnasium, but had to give up his permanent position due to illness.

Ostendorf during the revolution of 1848/49

Back in Soest, he got involved in the pre-revolutionary political discussions. Since he was a good speaker, the citizens elected him as a member of the Soest / Hamm (Westphalia) constituency. From May 18, 1848 to May 26, 1849, he was the second youngest member of the parliament ( Reichsprimaner ), initially one of the secretaries in the Frankfurt National Assembly . He stood on the side of the hereditary imperial family (first Württemberger Hof , later Augsburger Hof ) and advocated a leading role for Prussia in Germany, but without Austria ( small German solution ). Ostendorf saw this, of course, with the reservation that the Prussian provinces would become independent states, “because a centralized Prussia can never stand at the top of Germany - at least not permanently. That would be a hegemony of the worst kind ”. In his opinion, Prussia should merge into a unified Germany. Ostendorf resisted the King's recall of the Prussian MPs and, after leaving the Frankfurt Assembly, joined the so-called Gotha Assembly . In 25 letters to the editor, he described and explained the political events of that time to his original voters.

Teacher and school reformer

After returning to the Prussian Soest, Julius Ostendorf was not employed. In 1850 he was offered in Lippstadt / Westf. - at that time still under the Prussian-Lippe sovereignty - the representation of a sick headmaster. In 1851 he took over the management of the higher middle school, which he led to one of the four secondary schools of the first order in Westphalia until 1859. As early as 1855 he had one of the first winter gyms built in Westphalia next to the school building. For many years, Ostendorf was also a city councilor in Lippstadt and engaged in the Protestant church. In 1872 he was appointed director of the Realschule in Klosterstrasse - later Hindenburg School - in Düsseldorf . He published several educational writings in connection with the Prussian school reform and was a leading person in the so-called Realschulmänner-Verein, several times its chairman in the conferences. “In October 1873, the Minister Adalbert Falk called a conference to discuss the higher education system of the Prussian state and Ostendorf was called to this conference. Here he vigorously advocated the necessity of the often contested first-order secondary schools and vigorously advocated the structure of the higher education system which he had recently published in his two writings, The Higher School System of Our State and With Which Language Appropriately Begin Foreign Language Teaching? recommended. "

From 1875 to 1876 he was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives for the National Liberals as a representative of the constituency of Bielefeld - Halle - Westf./Herford) in order to campaign for the equality of secondary schools with the grammar schools in the debate about a national school reform . Prussian school dispute).

monument

Julius Ostendorf died on August 31, 1877 as a result of an operation. He was buried in Lippstadt. Friends and admirers erected a memorial for him in front of his school building from 1864 in 1879. Today there is the Lippstadt City Theater and in front of it still on the old square the memorial, created by the famous sculptor of his time, Carl Cauer from Kreuznach. The municipal high school in Lippstadt bears Ostendorf's name (Ostendorf-Gymnasium). In Düsseldorf a street is named after him (Ostendorf-Straße).

His son Carl Friedrich Ostendorf (born October 17, 1871 in Lippstadt; † March 16, 1915 near Arras ( Lorettohöhe ); fallen) became a well-known architect. Ostendorf-Platz in Karlsruhe and Ostendorf-Straße in Berlin-Köpenick are named after him.

Works

• Which language should the foreign language lessons begin with? . Voss, Düsseldorf 1873 ( digitized version )

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 4: M-Q. Winter, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8253-1118-X , pp. 257-258.
• Egbert Weiß: Corps students in the Paulskirche , in: Einst und Jetzt , special issue 1990, Munich 1990, p. 31.
• Wilhelm Schulte: Westphalian heads . Münster 1977. pp. 232f. ISBN 3-402-05700-X
• Konrad Friedlaender:  Ostendorf, Julius . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 503-507.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 10 , 288
2. ^ Peter Kaupp: Fraternity members in the Paulskirche
3. ↑ Bernhard Mann (arrangement) with the assistance of Martin Doerry , Cornelia Rauh , Thomas Kühne: Biographisches Handbuch für das Prussische Abrafenhaus 1867–1918 (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 3). Droste, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-7700-5146-7 , p. 291.