Moritz Edelmann

Karl Moritz Alexander Edelmann (born February 23, 1891 in Aßlaken , Wehlau district / East Prussia, † February 17, 1973 in Bensheim ) was a National Socialist history teacher.

Life

Edelmann was born the son of the district forester Alexander Edelmann. From 1909 Edelmann studied in Königsberg, Berlin and Freiburg i. B. History and Geography. Edelmann passed his first teaching examination in 1913/1914 in Königsberg with the grade “sufficient”. During World War nobleman served as a volunteer from October 1914 to November 1918 in a Foot Artillery - Regiment . Edelmann was slightly wounded in 1916 and received, among other awards, the Iron Cross, second and first class. He left the army with the rank of lieutenant in the reserve, having last served as an orderly officer in an infantry division. Edelmann received a permanent position in the higher education service in Prussia on October 1, 1919 as a teacher at Lyceum I in Berlin-Neukölln , after he had passed his assessor examination in July 1919 . In the 1920s Edelmann was involved in the creation of geographic school textbooks for the Leipzig Teubner publishing house and historical series of photographs. He also trained trainee teachers at a specialist seminar.

Edelmann worked at changing schools in Berlin until 1935, before finally becoming senior director and headmaster at the state Augusta School from April that year . Edelmann, who was a schoolteacher for 14 years until 1933, benefited to a large extent from the large number of dismissed high school principals, who were purposefully replaced by loyal supporters of Hitler after the transfer of power in 1933.

In 1934 Edelmann transferred the Association of History Teachers in Germany to the NSLB , without further resistance from its members , in which he was in charge of the so-founded “Fachschaft Geschichte” as “Reichssachwalter”. This happened despite the fact that the already mostly national-conservative association had willingly submitted in the summer of 1933 and announced in the association magazine “ Past and Present ” (VuG) a restructuring in line with National Socialism. In the position of “Reichssacharbeiter history” in the NSLB, Edelmann sat at the center of the official historical didactic discussion and ideology development. In order to effectively implement his ideas, Edelmann sought contact and help in particular from Walter Frank's “Reich Institute for the History of New Germany”.

At the beginning of 1934 Edelmann also took over the co-editing of VuG, which was published by Teubner, after older co-editors, including the founder of the magazine Fritz Friedrich , had been ousted. Edelmann pushed the remaining co-editor Wilhelm Mommsen aside through an intrigue in the summer of 1936 and replaced him with more reliable National Socialist colleagues Karl Alnor and Ulrich Crämer . In the following, Edelmann used the VuG as a combat paper to enforce his personal ideas about a history lesson in the sense of National Socialism. The textbook “Volk Werden der Deutschen”, which he had published since 1934/35, also served this purpose. The tendency of the volumes was racist and anti-Semitic.

On April 1, 1939, Edelmann retired from school and became - without a doctorate - professor at the University for Teacher Training in Dortmund. In 1941 Edelmann was drafted into an anti-aircraft battery of the Luftwaffe, with which his activities as editor of the VuG and as a textbook author came to an end.

On April 12, 1945 Edelmann was taken prisoner during a stay in a hospital in Braunschweig. After a short release, Edelmann was interned again and, due to his membership in the SS, spent almost two years in various camps from May 1946 to February 1948, most recently in the notorious "Camp IV" in Recklinghausen-Hillen . In 1946 Edelmann was also dismissed from office because of his party membership. In a written denazification procedure in October 1948 in Hanover, he was classified by the “Main Denazification Committee for Special Professions” in Category IV, “Supporters of National Socialism”, with the elimination of eligibility and reduced seniority; However, the committee was unable to identify any substantial promotion of National Socialism by the former "Reichssacharbeiter history". A hearing before the Recklinghausen verdict on Edelmann's SS membership in June 1948 had previously been stopped because "the culprit's fault was minor and the consequences of the act insignificant". From January 1949 Edelmann went into retirement. With a resolution of December 16, 1949, Edelmann was even transferred to category V of the “unencumbered” in accordance with §2 ff. Edelmann was also able to win a process from 1950–1951 before the denazification appeal committee in Hagen for full recognition of the claims he had acquired in office, after he was originally only supposed to be granted remuneration as a teacher. From 1957 Edelmann worked as a tour guide for the travel agency "Karawane Studien-Reisen". From around 1963 Edelmann took over the scientific management of "Caravan-Reisen" for cruises in the Mediterranean to Iceland and Norway. In addition to this activity, he published smaller articles in travel guides and in the series "Die Karawane".

Moritz Edelmann died on February 17, 1973 at the age of 81 in Bensheim.

plant

For the history lessons, which were particularly prone to ideology in the “Third Reich” , responsibility for the successful implementation of National Socialism lay with the Berlin history and geography teacher Moritz Edelmann. Edelmann developed his effect as “equalizer” of history lessons essentially as “Reichssacharbeiterer history” in the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB) and through the associated institutionally anchored sovereignty over the content-related disputes from 1933 onwards. In this context, his function in the integration played an important role of the "Association of German History Teachers" founded in 1913 in the NSLB, which was the central instrument of institutional and ideological harmonization of all teachers 'associations, as well as his work as editor of the traditional and authoritative journal of the history teachers' association "Past and Present" (VuG), his training measures, the specialist conferences organized by him and, last but not least, his role as author and editor of the history textbook series "Volk Werden der Deutschen" (People Become the Germans).

Publications

• German University of Politics (Ed.): Seminar of the NSLB for national political education. Summer semester 1938, no date (1938), no date (Berlin)
• German University of Politics (Ed.): Seminar of the NSLB for national political education. Winter semester 1938/39. o. J. (1938), o. O. (Berlin)
• Moritz Edelmann / Leo Gruenberg , (eds.): People becoming the Germans. Leipzig 1935ff. Volumes in it:
  • History tales, edit. v. Hermann Funke. Leipzig, Berlin 1940 (= becoming a German class 1)
  • History of the German people and their ancestors from the beginning to Emperor Karl, edit. v. Walter Frenzel with the assistance of Hermann Funke. Leipzig, Berlin 1940 (= becoming a German class 2)
  • From the establishment of the First Reich to 1648, arr. Hans Bartels. Leipzig, Berlin 1939 (= becoming a German class 3)
  • German history from 1648–1871, arr. v. Ludwig Zimmermann . Leipzig, Berlin 1939 (= becoming a German class 4)
  • German history from 1871 to the present, arr. v. Moritz Edelmann / Karl Disch . Leipzig, Berlin 1939 (= people becoming the Germans class 5)
  • From the prehistory to the end of the Staufer period, edit. Hans Bartels. Leipzig, Berlin 1940 (= becoming a German class 6)
  • From the German settlement in the east to the beginnings of Bismarck, arr. v. Erich Buchholz. Leipzig, Berlin 1940 (= becoming a German class 7)
  • From Bismarck to the Greater German Reich, arr. v. Karl Disch / Leo Gruenberg . Leipzig, Berlin 1941 (= people of the Germans class 8)
  • The last 15 years, arr. v. Moritz Edelmann. Leipzig, Berlin 1935 (= people becoming the Germans, supplementary volume to class 8) [in later editions under the title 'The decisive years since the World War']
• Mithrsg. of the magazine Past and Present from 1933ff.

Archive sources

• Federal Archives (BArch, Berlin, formerly BDC), NSDAP-Gaukartei and Zentralartei, Edelmann, Moritz.
• BArch (Berlin, formerly BDC), NSLB, Edelmann, Moritz
• BArch (Berlin, formerly BDC) B 130 and SSO, Edelmann, Moritz
• BArch (Koblenz) N 1478, Wilhelm Mommsen estate
• Main State Archive Düsseldorf (HStAD) NW 1037-B VI, No. 10360, NW 1091, No. 18617
• Main State Archive Hanover (HStAH) Nds. 171 Hanover 9329
• State Institute for Schools and Media (LISM), Personalblatt A for directors, academic teachers and candidates for higher teaching positions, No. 105
• Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel, Karl Alnor estate , Cb 70
• Personal form from Moritz Edelmann in the personal file of the BIL expert body in the archive database of the Library for Research on Educational History (BBF)

literature

• Tobias Arand: "(...) aim to create a unified view of history for the German youth and beyond that for the German people" - the role of the "Reich clerk for history in the NSLB" Moritz Edelmann in the process of bringing history lessons into line in the Nazi state. In: Wolfgang Hasberg / Manfred Seidenfuß (eds.): History didactics under the grip of National Socialism . Münster 2005, pp. 121–143 (= history didactics in the past and present 2)
• Tobias Arand: Moritz Edelmann's “equalizer” of history lessons and the textbook series “Volk Werden der Deutschen” . In: Saskia Handro and Bernd Schönemann (eds.): History didactic textbook research. Theory and empiricism . Münster 2006. pp. 235-247.
• Tobias Arand: Moritz Edelmann - The “equalizer” of history lessons . In: History, Politics and their Didactics . Issue 3/4, 34 (2006). Pp. 242-246.
• Alexander Hesse: The professors and lecturers of the Prussian Pedagogical Academies (1926-1933) and colleges for teacher training (1933-1941) . Weinheim 1995. pp. 249f.