Lui Tratter

Lui Tratter (born 1937 in South Tyrol ) is a German project artist, social worker , teacher , ex- spontaneous , all-rounder and utopian-innovative pioneer in many areas of alternative lifestyle.

Life

Tratter's family fled in 1941 from South Tyrol, which Hitler handed over to Mussolini, to Tyrol , where Tratter first attended school in Innsbruck , then worked as a ski instructor, completed military service and an apprenticeship as a toolmaker .

In 1958 he came to Frankfurt am Main with the plan to become a pilot , but then studied machine fitter and toolmaking . Then he worked as a designer .

Wanderlust finally drove him to New York , where he also worked as a toolmaker. A professional perspective as a professional skier failed because of the necessary residence permit .

Back in Frankfurt, Tratter first became a “black student ” and was involved in the spontaneous movement of the early 68s . He ran a prop and film rental business ( art films , bluemovies , Africa and Vietnam films ) and organized underground film festivals.

Bicycle workshop and ski cellar at the Ernst Reuter School

He was initially hired by the Ernst Reuter School as a machine operator. However, he worked educationally with the children and developed crazy constructions with them. Thereupon he was finally hired by the Hessian Ministry of Culture as a teacher for polytechnic lessons without ever having completed a pedagogical training.

In the learning workshop of the Ernst Reuter School, he mainly built bicycles, such as B. a replica of the recumbent bike patented in 1893 by Drewitz. Tratter's recumbents quickly acquired cult status in Frankfurt and at that time could only be purchased by him and his students at the bicycle workshop. These bikes are still present in the Frankfurt cityscape today. A bicycle helicopter was also built. In addition to bicycles, he and the students developed a round pool table, a table football for three people and many other objects that were shown in specialist magazines and museums.

Lui Tratter also initiated the idea of ​​a great ski trip for all ages, which took place regularly in the 7th grade and led to Neukirchen am Walde in Upper Austria. The school set up its own ski cellar, in which old skis and boots were restored and loaned to the students free of charge during their ski holidays. The skiing leisure time was also financed by a Christmas ski bazaar. Today, skiing holidays are part of the normal excursion program at Hessian schools.

After eight years of successful, internationally renowned work, the learning workshop in the Ernst Reuter School was closed. On the one hand, handicrafts from the Wiesbaden Institute for Educational Research was viewed as an obsolete model in view of the dawning of the computer age, on the other hand, disciplinary proceedings against Tratter in the ministry aroused great resentment.

Workers' self-help (ASH)

→ Main article : Worker self-help

Since the mid-1970s, Tratter was a founding member of the Workers' Self-Help Initiative (ASH) . This initiative started its activity to develop an alternative model of life to the capitalist society based on a house clearing company. Later the antique trade and the sale of self-made bicycles were added. The initiative (now as a non-profit association Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe e.V. ) is active in these business areas with its headquarters in the Oberurseler Krebmühle .

Assisted living

In the 1980s Tratter was committed to the accommodation of young people who had fled from correctional homes in shared apartments looked after by social workers. The first such flat-sharing community he founded was on Frankfurter Ulmenstrasse. Today this pedagogical concept known as assisted living is widespread across Europe.

In addition, he has been committed to the children's home in Vogtstrasse ever since he installed a new kitchen and toilets there in the 1980s.

Own family

Lui Tratter has three daughters and one son from two wives.

literature

• Stand backwards and live forwards. In: Kiki Krebs, Ralf Löhr: City Talks from Frankfurt am Main. (= City talks). Gmeiner-Verlag, Meßkirch 2014, ISBN 978-3-8392-1633-0 , pp. 69ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tratter and his colleague Pfotenhauer had enabled a student who had been expelled from school for arson in the chemistry laboratory, at their own expense, to participate in the school ski leisure time in their private car and in their free time, because they excluded participation in this high point of the school career of an Ernst Reuter pupil as pedagogically counterproductive.