Norton Camp

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Norton Camp was an English study camp for German prisoners of war in the county of Nottinghamshire near Mansfield from July 1945 to June 1948 . It was founded on the initiative of the British War Department and the Swedish theologian Birger Forell . Originally, elementary school teachers and theologians were to be trained; In addition, a large number of Abitur exams were finally held.

founding

Two different interests came together in the design of the camp. Birger Forell and with him above all German Protestant and British church districts wanted to set up a theological training center for future clergy. The British War Ministry, on the other hand, favored a training facility for future elementary school teachers in Germany, as the school system in Germany was heavily influenced by NSDAP members. A combination of both approaches was finally agreed; The YMCA played the decisive role in the implementation .

Camp No. 174 was originally set up as a camp for captured officers , who then had to leave the relatively well-equipped camp in mid-1945 in favor of newcomers from other camps. The first teachers arrived at the camp from the end of June; In July, after a few difficulties - because the camp commandants who were leaving the camp did not want to lose their best people - came the first prisoners of war and Pastor R. Damrath, who was to become the director of the theological school.

Study camp

Over the three years of the study camp's existence, 600 primary school teachers were trained in the pedagogical department to teach in post-war Germany. In the theological department, 130 students received partial or full training as clergy; 100 lay helpers were trained for the German churches, plus 125 young people as Catholic or Protestant youth workers. In a further teaching section, around 200 students took the Abitur examination.

The work of the YMCA in Norton Camp was an important component in the concept of re-education for German prisoners of war and also had an impact on Germany. At Norton Camp, for example, a short primary school teacher training program was tried out early on, starting in mid-1945, which was only implemented a few years later in the British zone in Germany with the establishment of educational faculties at universities. After the war ended, the western allies initially discussed whether and when schools in Germany could even be reopened. In the American zone, these were finally reopened in the course of autumn because the children were to be taken from the streets. Originally v. a. in the American zone a closure for several years was considered, since the entire school system was interspersed with former members of the NSDAP.

The decision to also offer high school graduation courses for soldiers who were called up far too early and in some cases without a school leaving certificate took place with the involvement of the newly formed religious authorities in the British zone. At a conference in London in the spring of 1946, the Commissioner for Education in the British Zone Adolf Grimme , the Hamburg School Senator Heinrich Landahl and the teachers from the camp who were prisoners of war at the time, the former officer from Hamburg and Student councilor Willi Lassen took part. After a visit in the autumn of that year, the first Abitur work was examined and highly praised by the Hamburg school councilor Merck. Willi Lassen, who had headed the Abitur exams, was appointed commissioner for the Abitur in the English camps.

A basic problem in setting up the camp was to find a suitable man from the group of prisoners of war who, as a camp elder, would represent the former soldiers on the one hand and act as mediator to the camp commandant on the other. Here Birger Forell even intervened personally at the beginning, which did not prevent that a camp elder who was a former party member was chosen in the meantime. The questioning and checking of the soldiers by the English military had a high error rate. In 1946 Willi Lassen was finally appointed as camp elder, who thus became one of the central figures of the camp.

Literature on the camp

Just one year after the camp was closed, the YMCA published its first article on the camp, which immediately introduced a term that is still used internationally for such camps today, the "University behind barbed wire": Walter S. Kilpatrick: Barbed-Wire University, published in the World Communiqué des YMCA, Volume 1. In the following decades a large number of articles and especially memoirs of this camp appeared. A comprehensive presentation that focuses on the theological school has been available since 1997 with Klaus Loscher's dissertation Study and Everyday Life Behind Barbed Wire - Birger Forell's contribution to the theological-pedagogical teaching at Norton Camp / England (1945–1948) .

The Abitur courses and the role of the camp as the control center for all non-political training in the English camps are presented in Nicolaus Schmidt's “biographical sketch” of Willi Lassen, the commissioner for the Abitur in English camps, as the most important part of his life. In this article, photographs from the Norton Camp were published for the first time, on which the head of the theological school Damrath, the camp commandant Major Boughton, John Barwick (YMCA), Fritz Basel, the first head of the pedagogical school and the commissioner for the Abitur Willi Lassen you can see. In a photo from 1948 at the graduation ceremony with VIP participation, Willi Lassen sits next to John Mott , who had received the Nobel Peace Prize two years earlier . All photographs are from Klaus Loscher.

Other camps

The best known training camp in England was Wilton Park near Beaconsfield (Buckinghamshire) . In the USA there were also “universities behind barbed wire”, which for several years have been the focus of historical research. Camps are also documented in Eastern Europe in which v. a. Officers trained each other, so the Yugoslavian camp for officers in Werschetz (Vršac) in Vojvodina . Here an “anti-fascist committee”, actually supervised by the Yugoslav commander, was in charge of re-education and training. After the forced unification of the KPD and SPD to form the SED in April, however, the activities were controlled by the latter. As a result, when the camp was closed or transported back to Germany, a number of prisoners who had previously taught as former officers who had converted to communism died as a result of Stalinist policies.

literature

  • Klaus Loscher: Study and everyday life behind barbed wire - Birger Forell's contribution to the theological-pedagogical teaching at Norton Camp / England (1945–1948). Neukirchner, 1997.
  • Nicolaus Schmidt: Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, pp. 193ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Loscher: Study and everyday life behind barbed wire - Birger Forell's contribution to the theological-pedagogical teaching in Norton Camp / England (1945-1948). Neukirchner, 1997, p. 63.
  2. ^ Klaus Loscher: Study and everyday life behind barbed wire - Birger Forell's contribution to the theological-pedagogical teaching in Norton Camp / England (1945-1948). Neukirchner, 1997, p. 65.
  3. ^ Walter S. Kilpatrick: Barbed-Wire University. Appeared in the World Communique des YMCA, Vol. 1 (May – June 1949), No. 3, pp. 42–49; quoted from Klaus Loscher, p. 12.
  4. ^ Nicolaus Schmidt: Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, p. 204.
  5. ^ Nicolaus Schmidt: Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, p. 209.
  6. ^ Nicolaus Schmidt: Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, p. 208.
  7. ^ Nicolaus Schmidt: Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, pp. 193ff.
  8. ^ Nicolaus Schmidt: Willi Lassen - a biographical sketch. In: Democratic History, Vol. 26, Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, pp. 202ff.
  9. ↑ Jens Flemming: "There is no doubt about his political reliability". In: Democratic History, Vol. 26. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag, 2015, pp. 190f.