Karl Heinz Potthast

Karl Heinz Potthast (born August 26, 1924 in Bielefeld ; † October 13, 2011 there ) was a German historian , educator and Protestant educational theorist .

Life

Karl Heinz Potthast was a student at the Friedrich von Bodelschwingh School in Bethel from 1937 to 1941 . Then he was drafted into the Navy , where he served in the small combat units and brought it up to the senior ensign at sea . He was trained here as a torpedo rider ("Neger driver") who steered manned torpedoes of the Neger type . The own losses with these one-man torpedoes were high with comparatively few successes in sinking. During the sea ​​combat operation off Anzio on April 20 and 21, 1944, Potthast succeeded in penetrating the port of Anzio with his negro and damaging a coastal steamer. After his vehicle went under, he swam back to the German lines. Soon thereafter, a war effort followed on the coast of Normandy against Allied ships that were involved in Operation Overlord . During a first patrol on July 5, 1944, his Negro sank due to technical defects and he had to swim back to the coast. On 8 July, 1944 around 4:30 am, he attacked the cruiser ORP Dragon (D46) and damaged him so hard that he scuttled be had. 21 seafarers (out of 462) were killed. However, Potthast's Negro was sunk by a British corvette several hours later . The bleeding and blood-spitting Potthast, who had torn lung , was fished out of the water by the British with a boat hook , nursed back to health and interrogated by the secret service in London for six weeks, during which he refused to disclose information about the positions of his unit. The sinking of the Dragon was not attributed to the missing Potthast by the German naval command, but to Corporal Walter Gerhold , who, however, most likely sank the minesweeper Cato instead and has now received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

While he was a prisoner of war in England , Karl Heinz Potthast had contacts with Hans Ehrenberg and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy . Until 1962 he was a teacher at the Friedrich von Bodelschwingh School in Bethel, where he had previously been a student. From 1962 to 1981 he was the director of the Protestant Hans-Ehrenberg School in Bielefeld- Sennestadt, which was newly founded in 1962 . From 1982 to 1989 he was a member of the church council of the Westphalian regional church and was head of the Protestant school system .

Awards

In 1985 he received the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class.

Honorary positions

• Member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany
• 1972 to 1990 Chairman of the Working Group of Protestant School Associations. V.
• Decades of executive chairman of the Comenius Institute
• Twice chairman of the EKD Chamber for Education.
• Longstanding 2nd chairman of the Barbara Schadeberg Foundation
• Co-founder of the Evangelical School Center Leipzig
• Founding member of the Lions Club Bielefeld Ravensberg

Works

• The togetherness in school, suggestions for a Christian education . Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn 1981, ISBN 3-579-00754-8
• with Hans Christoph Berg , Günther Gerth (Ed.): Teaching renewal with Wagenschein and Comenius. Attempts at Protestant Schools 1985–1989 . Münster 1990, Comenius Institute, ISBN 3-924804-41-9

literature

• Karl Ernst Nipkow , Volker Elsenbast, Werner Kast (eds.): "Responsibility for schools and churches in historical upheavals", commemorative publication for Karl Heinz Potthast on his 80th birthday, Waxmann Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8309-1409-1 , ISSN  1614-0540

swell

• Laudatio-Potthast.pdf ( Memento from March 6, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
• Werner Kast: Karl Heinz Potthast had a decisive influence on the Protestant school system , accessed on November 7, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cajus Bekker: Lone Fighters at Sea: the German torpedo riders, frogmen and explosive device pilots in World War II . Verlag Gerhard Stalling , Oldenburg 1968. pp. 49f., 56-65.