Meiningen Secondary School

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The school building erected in 1877

The Herzogliche Realgymnasium Meiningen was a scientific-technical high school in the capital and residence town of Meiningen in the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen . It was founded in 1838 as an equal alternative to the local Bernhardinum high school .

history

secondary school

As a result of the industrial revolution in the early 19th century the reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen was Bernhard Erich Freund 1837 a secondary school in Saalfeld and 1838 a secondary school set up in Meiningen. However, the Meiningen state parliament initially refused to finance the secondary school due to a lack of foresight, so that the duke provided the funds for founding and maintaining the school from his own box.

On May 1, 1838, the Realgymnasium was founded. Initially two classes moved to the upper floor of the department store on Bernhardstrasse. Until it is fully developed, the school should be called "Realschule". Karl Wilhelm Kniehauer , who until then had headed the secondary school in Neubrandenburg , was appointed the first director . Starting with 27 students, the school grew by another 14 students in the second half of the year. At the beginning of the second school year at Easter 1839, the Prima was set up and more teachers were hired, which in turn was financed by Duke Bernhard II. After the first triennium, the school had 98 students, and with the Tertia and Quarta , the Prima and Selekta, it now had three teaching levels. The Meiningen Landtag finally approved the funds for the school operation from 1841 onwards. In 1848, the secondary school received the zoological collection of the thirty-one-hundredfold forest academy. Aimed for since 1841, the construction of a new school building in Charlottenstrasse was planned in 1866. The construction project, which was already in preparation, had to be canceled due to the political upheavals that took place in 1866 . This is where the Werra Railway finally built its new headquarters.

On October 1, 1870, Rector Bonehauer retired; his successor was Hofrat Dr. Hermann Emmrich . In 1871 a further grade was set up with the Quinta . In 1877 the grammar school moved to its new school building on Berliner Straße. At the opening ceremony on September 4th, Duke Georg II as well as members of the State Ministry and the Meiningen Magistrate were present. George II left the ducal natural history cabinet as a gift from the school. Rector Hermann Friedrich Emmrich died suddenly in 1879, and on January 29, 1879 the Duke appointed Hofrat Dr. Anton Emmrich as the new director of the Realgymnasium.

Ducal high school

Postcard of the Primaner

On April 1, 1882, Duke Georg II named the school a "Ducal Realgymnasium". The grammar school now had seven teaching levels: Prima, Obersekunda, Untersekunda, Obertertia, Untertertia, Quarta and Quinta. In the school year 1884/85, 167 students attended the Realgymnasium. In 1887 the Sexta was finally added and the Realgymnasium was fully organized. In the same year, the number of grades rose to nine due to the division of the prima into upper and lower prima. Rector Anton Emmrich died on September 29, 1897, the position of director was taken over by senior teacher Dr. Putsche and then senior teacher Dr. Julius Heim. In July 1898 Wilhelm Schaper was appointed director of the Realgymnasium, which was taken into office on October 1, 1898 by Minister of State Freiherr von Heim. In the school year 1899/1900 160 pupils attended the Herzogliche Realgymnasium, in 1914/15 there were already 224 pupils. After the outbreak of the First World War , 11 upper and lower primans and 14 upper and lower secondary volunteers volunteered for military service, four of them died on the western front in the same year. During the war, the school house served as a military hospital, and school operations were held in several alternative quarters, including the Prinz Friedrich School .

After the dissolution of the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen in 1918 and the rise of the Free State of Saxony-Meiningen in the State of Thuringia in 1920, the school was named Reform-Gymnasium from 1921 and shortly thereafter Oberrealschule . From 1930 it became a reform high school with an upper lyceum , which now also included girls' classes. Further directors were Professor Hermann Pusch from 1920 and Professor Oppermann from 1930. Operated by the state of Thuringia since 1920, the Realgymnasium under Professor Oppermann regained its independence in 1934. In 1937, like all secondary schools in the German Reich, the school was named Oberschule. During the Second World War, the school building was badly damaged in an air raid on February 23, 1945, 25 pupils and teachers were killed. The physicist and teacher Minna Lang saved the spared exhibits from the natural science collection and had them deposited in Elisabethenburg Castle . It created the basis for the natural science department of the Meiningen museums . School operations had to be stopped after the bombing. In July 1945, the Soviet military administration (SMAD) dissolved the secondary school.

school-building

The first school building on Bernhardstrasse
Memorial plaque for the bomb victims of February 23, 1945

The first school building was the department store on Bernhardstrasse, built in 1831, where some rooms on the upper floor were used for school operations. Right from the start, with its cramped and inadequate conditions, it was only a temporary solution. After the Realgymnasium moved out, the building continued to serve as a school building, including the "Martin Luther" Polytechnic High School (POS). Today the Kammerspiele of the Meininger Theater , the gallery “ada”, a café and a vocational school are housed here.

The new, now listed school building, popularly known as the “Red School” because of the red clinker brick , was designed in 1877 by the architect Otto Hoppe and built by the architect Erwin Theodor Döbner . The auditorium was on the second floor and the storage room for the extensive natural history collection was located on the third floor . During the First World War, the school house was used as a hospital . The house was badly damaged in an air raid on February 23, 1945, and 25 students and teachers were killed. After the Second World War , an eight-grade elementary school was located here. From 1959 to 1993 the school house housed the ten-class “Friedrich Schiller” polytechnic. In the early 1970s, the school received its own school sports hall. In 1993 the Pestalozzi School moved in, which stayed here until 2011. Since 2012 the building has served as House 1 of the Evangelical Gymnasium Meiningen again for a higher educational institution and was extensively renovated and modernized in 2016/17.

Scholarships

Selected needy pupils received scholarships from several foundations established by former headmasters of the school . The scholarships were awarded annually. The duchy also waived part of the school fees for some students.

  • Osteenhauer Foundation
  • Anton Emmrich Foundation
  • Johannes Foundation
  • Ducal education fund

Rectors

Teacher

Graduates and students

Sources and literature

  • Program for the public examination of the pupils of the Realgymnasium in Meiningen . Meiningen 1884–1886 ( digitized version )
  • Program of the ducal high school in Meiningen . Meiningen 1887–1899 ( digitized version )
  • Anton Emmrich: History of the Meininger Realgymnasium from 1838 to 1888 . In: Program of the Herzogliche Realgymnasium in Meiningen, Meiningen 1888 ( digitized version )
  • Report of the Ducal Realgymnasium in Meiningen . Meiningen 1900–1906 ( digitized version )
  • Annual report on the school year .. . Meiningen 1907–1916 ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Anton Emmrich: History of the Meiningen Realgymnasium from 1838 to 1888 . Meiningen 1888.
  2. ↑ a b Kuratorium Meiningen (ed.): Lexicon for the history of the city of Meiningen. Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008.

Coordinates: 50 ° 33 ′ 56.2 "  N , 10 ° 25 ′ 14.9"  E