Otto Driesen

Otto Driesen (born March 1, 1875 in Segnitz , † after March 25, 1943 in Sobibor ) was a German educator and director of the philanthropist in Frankfurt am Main .

Life

Otto Iwan Driesen was born in Segnitz in Lower Franconia in 1875 as the son of Jakob Driesen (1851–1912). His father was a teacher at the "Brussels Institute" founded in 1838, a commercial school with boarding school for boys in Segnitz, which was run at the time by the free thinker and SdAP co- founder Samuel Spier , and thus one of the teachers of the young Ettore Schmitz , who with two of his brothers attended this boarding school from 1874 to 1878. After the school was closed in 1881, the father took a job in Tauberbischofsheim , so that Otto spent large parts of his youth there. Around this time there were around 200 Jewish citizens living in the small town. In 1891 the family moved to Karlsruhe, where Driesen also took the Abitur. After graduation, Driesen studied law, philosophy, cultural history and languages ​​in Berlin, Paris, Heidelberg and Strasbourg. In 1900 he passed the state examination and spent the year of probation at a school in Karlsruhe . In 1901 he received his doctorate. phil. at the University of Strasbourg with a thesis on a cultural-historical problem entitled “The Origin of the Harlequin”. In the preface to this dissertation, Driesen named his "motherly friend", the writer and art critic Anna Spier , the wife of the former Segnitz school director, Samuel Spier, as a major influence on his development and research . From 1901 to 1908 Driesen was scientifically active in Berlin. In 1909 he became a senior teacher in Berlin-Charlottenburg , where he led the establishment of a secondary school. Then he was deputy director of the Waldorf School in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

He made a name for himself early on through the use of modern media in teaching from kindergarten to university. In particular, he advocated the use of the gramophone in class and published an extensive collection of records.

With the beginning of the First World War he switched to the War Ministry as a consultant. He worked as a diplomat and in 1918 a member of the Armistice Commission, which signed the Armistice of Compiègne on November 11, 1918.

At the beginning of April 1921 he moved to Frankfurt am Main and succeeded Salo Adler as director of the Philanthropin in Frankfurt am Main. He worked hard to expand the school's offerings. A one-year women's school was opened as early as 1922, which attracted interested women from all over Germany and abroad and existed until 1932. In 1924 a preschool was founded by the philanthropist. In addition, the Realschule was expanded into a Realgymnasium. In 1925, in cooperation with some new, young teachers, the school was recognized as a reform high school. At Easter 1928, the first graduation examination at Philanthropin was successfully passed. Driesen introduced working groups and a general assembly of the school. Once a week the entire student body met in the auditorium and discussed current political issues.

Reinhold Driesen, the son of Otto Driesen, founded a Jewish sports club Philanthropin as early as 1921, which was very popular.

After the establishment of the Nazi regime , Driesen organized numerous activities in preparation for the departure of schoolchildren abroad and to Palestine. I.a. An exhibition about Palestine took place in the auditorium, which was an incentive for Jewish citizens to emigrate to Palestine. On April 1, 1937, at the age of 62, Otto Driesen retired. Shortly before the start of World War II, he and his family fled to France . The further living conditions have not yet been clarified. He is said to have been deported in 1943 and murdered in Sobibor or on the way there at the end of March 1943 .

Otto Driesen was married to Paula Driesen. Several children arose from the marriage.

Honors

• In 2004 a stumbling block was laid for him in Segnitz in front of Otto Driesen's birthplace .

Publications

• 1904: The origin of the harlequin. A cultural-historical phenomenon. (Book edition of his doctoral thesis published in Chemnitz in 1903) Berlin: A. Duncker 1904. Available online free of charge: https://archive.org/details/derursprungdesh00driegoog
• 1913: The gramophone in the service of teaching and science (Dr. Driesen Collection): systematic collection of gramophone records for teaching from kindergarten to university / designed, carried out for technical recording with the help of particularly suitable lecturers and with a foreword about the grammophonic teaching method together with text samples ed. by Otto Driesen, Berlin.
• 1915: A "Gold-in-die-Reichsbank!" Organization of German philologists, teachers and clergy.
• 1918: The German people and their princes. A patriotic rally for the birthday of Sr. Majesty the Emperor (January 27, 1918), War Press Office, Berlin.
• 1929: Building blocks of a practical pedagogy. For the 125th anniversary of Philanthropin, Frankfurt am Main.

literature

• Johannes Hürter (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871 - 1945. 5. T - Z, supplements. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 5: Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , p. 428
• Article on Dr. Otto Driesen, Gemeindeblatt der Israelitische Gemeinde Frankfurt, April 1937, pp. 5-7.
• Arthur Galliner : The Philanthropin in Frankfurt, 1958.
• Norbert Bischoff: Otto Iwan Driesen. Pedagogue, patriot, victim, self-published, Segnitz 2004.
• Driesen, Otto. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 6: Dore – Fein. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-22686-1 , pp. 14-16.