Paul Merkel (educator)

Paul Merkel (born January 20, 1897 in Chemnitz , † March 7, 1978 in Hanover ) was a German educator and in 1946 the founding rector of the Lüneburg University of Education .

Merkel trained as a gardener, was active with the Wandervogel and served as a volunteer in the First World War from 1915 . Then he worked again and from 1923 became a horticultural teacher in the Gebesee educational home near Erfurt . From 1925 he worked as a curative education in Johannes Trüper's educational institutions in Jena , where he also attended educational lectures at the university. His boss was Otto Haase , who later became responsible for teacher training in the Lower Saxony Ministry of Culture . In 1931 he appointed him professor for practical pedagogy at the Pedagogical Academy in Frankfurt (Oder) . After its closure, he went with Haase to the Elbing PA , where he was dismissed by the Nazi state in 1933 for missing exams, although he had still joined the NSDAP .

As head of the German home school in Jena, the former Thuringian adult education center, he survived until 1946, when he was appointed lecturer and professor for practical pedagogy by the minister of education, Adolf Grimme . His job was to build a college of education in Lüneburg on behalf of the British military government , and he became its first director. In 1951 he was transferred to the Hanover University of Education as a professor for school education and looked after the Jenaplan groups there based on Peter Petersen's example . Because of his lack of academic qualifications, he was always on the fringes of university life.

Merkel wrote almost no writings, but showed a high level of talent in giving practical advice to teacher students. He also managed to organize the development of the PH Lüneburg.

Fonts

• Walter Horney, Paul Merkel, Friedrich Wolff and others: Handbook for Teachers , Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1960

literature

• Bernd Dühlmeier: And the school was still moving: unknown reform pedagogues and their projects in the post-war period , Bad Heilbronn 2004 ISBN 3781513289
• Ingeborg Maschmann: Hamburg - Jena - Lüneburg: 1921 to 1950 My educational journey through life in the "Age of Extreme" , BoD Norderstedt 2010 ISBN 978-3839155578