Rudolf Aeschlimann

Rudolf Aeschlimann (* 1884 in Burgdorf , Canton Bern , Switzerland ; † November 13, 1961 ibid.) Was a Swiss reform pedagogue and author. He was a co-founder of the rural education homes Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf in Thuringia and the school by the sea on the North Sea island of Juist .

family

Rudolf Aeschlimann grew up in Burgdorf as the youngest of seven children of Carl Eduard Aeschlimann (1840–1914). Two of his older brothers had already emigrated to the United States. As a result, contact with them was soon lost. Another brother, Hans Hermann, was ailing and died at the age of 25. The mother († 1912) described as humorous, hardworking and helpful and two older sisters took care of Rudolf during his childhood and youth.

From 1918 he was married to the teacher Helene Pahl (1893-1987) from Nortorf in Schleswig-Holstein , whom he met at FSG Wickersdorf , where she had been teaching since 1915. They had a son and a daughter.

School and study

Aeschlimann attended high school in Burgdorf, where he passed the Matura examination in 1902 . He then studied French, Italian and history for three semesters at the University of Bern , another three semesters at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin and one semester in Pisa . In 1904 in Bern he acquired the secondary teacher certificate for the linguistic and historical subjects. He then worked at the boys' institute Schmutz in Rolle , his first practical teaching position.

Aeschlimann is described as a humble person without great demands. He was not fundamentally opposed to the prevailing pedagogy of the time. He was not shaped by prejudices, mentally flexible and not dogmatic. The recognition of third party achievements was a matter of course for him. Against this background he was also very interested in the ideas of modern pedagogy, which was represented by reform pedagogy, which was largely inspired by the youth movement ( Bündische Jugend ). For the difficulties that can arise in the development of young people, he wanted to develop offers of help and solutions. However, he was not a theoretician, but a practitioner who learned through his work with the students and his colleagues.

He found out about the educational reformist German Landerziehungsheim (DLEH) in Haubinda ( Thuringia ) and applied there. In 1905 he was able to move from his home in Switzerland to southern Thuringia after he had been accepted.

As a Swiss who thinks freely , he neither embodied the subservience to the authorities that was often found in the German Empire, nor did he live their openly presented militarism . The youth movement and reform pedagogy were not ideologies for him. Instead, the new pedagogical direction appeared to him to be an interesting experiment that he wanted to deal with practically. The German-national and ethnic characteristics of large parts of the youth movement were rather alien to him.

“ His natural but also Swiss independence and freedom in judgment and in his way of dealing with people was a true godsend for these German schools. "

- HW Jannasch on Rudolf Aeschlimann, March 22, 1962

When the school founder Hermann Lietz leased the DLEH Haubinda a little later after internal quarrels without any coordination with the teachers, Aeschlimann and his colleagues Gustav Wyneken , Paul Geheeb , August Halm , Fritz Hafner and Martin Luserke resigned early on July 1, 1906.

In the same year, Aeschlimann co-founded the Free School Community of Wickersdorf together with Halm, Geheeb, Luserke and Wyneken . In order to gain further qualifications, he took a leave of absence, studied in Berlin and, because of his knowledge of Italian, in Pisa. In 1911 he passed the high school teacher examination in the Swiss canton of Bern.

Activity in Germany

He then returned to the FSG Wickersdorf , where he - called "Aeschli" by the students - taught until 1925, but from 1917 to 1924 he was also the manager of the private school. Several teachers, including Luserke, served as soldiers at the front during World War I and were therefore absent from teaching and school administration. Luserke also came back seriously injured; he had suffered a head injury that marked him all his life.

Aeschlimann was not the only Swiss member of the teaching staff at FSG Wickersdorf . Fernand Camille Petit-Pierre (1879–1972), who taught French like Aeschlimann, was also Swiss , but, unlike Aeschlimann, was one of Wyneken's closest followers from 1915 onwards.

With the November revolution of 1918, radical left-wing influences also flowed into reform pedagogy. Quite a few teachers showed great interest in this, such as Paul Reiner , who taught at FSG Wickersdorf from 1919 .

For the first time in mid-October 1922 and on October 28, 1924, representatives of several reform schools met under the direction of Alfred Andreesen , head of the Foundation for German Landerziehungsheime, near Heppenheim in the Odenwald School . The aim was to form an organizational network and to preserve Lietz's legacy. It was mainly about educational-conceptual parallels and similarities of these schools, less about economic or administrative law aspects. The association, the Association of Free Schools - Landerziehungsheime and Free School Communities - founded in Oberhambach in Germany , survived into the Third Reich . Martin Luserke and Rudolf Aeschlimann took part in the meeting. They expressed interest in a later participation in the association.

Aeschlimann's relationship with the school's founder and director Wyneken, with whom the staff had repeatedly had serious differences and disputes over the years, became unbearable. Aeschlimann did not comply with Wyneken's pedagogical ideas and his administration. He was not alone in the circle of his colleagues and other employees. An opposition movement against Wyneken formed at FSG Wickersdorf . It was essentially the so-called triumvirate , which was composed of the educators Martin Luserke, Paul Reiner and Aeschlimann.

The basis were allegations that Wyneken had homoerotic contact and sexual intercourse with students. In the opinion of the triumvirate , such relationships between teachers and their students were absolutely inadmissible. Since Wyneken and his followers in the college described these delicate interactions as part of their educational reform convictions, further collaboration was problematic for the triumvirate . Luserke was also the headmaster at times, so during these years in office he was responsible for all school activities. In addition to his educational role, Aeschlimann also had responsibility as managing director of the school. Wyneken's "Eros scandal" led to his judicial conviction and to the fact that many students left the FSG. In addition to the loss of public reputation, this also meant a financial bloodletting. Wyneken was deposed, but remained present as the founder of the school and tried every day to further influence school matters. Petit-Pierre, who had also had intimate relationships with students, was forced to leave school by the triumvirate in 1922, but kept in contact with Wyneken.

Aeschlimann was taken into Luserke's confidence in February 1924 and informed about his plans to found his own school. Reiner was soon one of the project planners too. At Whitsun 1924, the three of them traveled to the sea with their companions , the bears , penguins and wolves from FSG Wickersdorf . There, on the “edge of the habitable world”, they wanted to locate a suitable location for a new school. A friendly to almost family-like comradeship consisted of a group of about ten students and a teacher. They found what they were looking for on the North Sea island of Juist . After what seemed excruciatingly long for those involved, the secession finally took place on March 30, 1925 . Annemarie and Martin Luserke, Anni and Paul Reiner, Helene and Rudolf Aeschlimann, Christel and Fritz Hafner as well as the economic manager Marie Franke, who had been working in Wickersdorf since 1909, moved to Juist with their eleven children in April 1925, to the newly founded school by the sea . which opened at Easter 1925 at the start of the new school year. The educators were followed by sixteen students from their comradeships from Wickersdorf, including Herbert von Borch , Walter Georg Kühne and Günther Leitz .

“Aeschli” taught French, geography and history at the Schule am Meer on Juist, but was also the administrator, member of the board of trustees of the Schule am Meer foundation and also farmer of the ambitious boarding school, which had to struggle permanently for its funding. He is said to have felt particularly happy there and to have taken special care of the more difficult students. After exactly nine years, the school was closed at Easter 1934 against the background of the National Socialist harmonization . Due to the politically induced exclusion and the associated withdrawal of Jewish students, parents and sponsors, economic problems had increasingly played a role.

Activity in Switzerland

Aeschlimann returned to Switzerland alone at the age of 50, while his wife stayed in Germany with the small children to provide for a living as a teacher. As a returnee, he was looking for acceptance and new tasks in his home country.

On August 15, 1936, he was elected guardianship secretary in Burgdorf , at the same time as primary school secretary and official guardian as well as deputy to the town clerk . On January 1, 1938, the middle school commission elected him head of the girls' secondary school. After sixteen years, he left this office in 1954 at the age of 70. Instead, he was now head of the Burgdorf City Library. In 1957 he ended this activity for reasons of age, and also completed his duties as a member of the welfare commission , the Bern homeland security and the non-profit society of Burgdorf.

On the occasion of his 75th birthday in 1959, he received numerous letters of congratulation and recognition from former students of the Free School Community of Wickersdorf and the Schule am Meer on Juist:

“Idealism, integration into the community, humane thinking, a sense of the beautiful and the good, everyone (...) should have learned that from you. ... (in the meantime) the test has come and passed with flying colors ... the humor has also remained. But in that I already had your best support back then. "

- Edwin K. Albert, Johannesburg, South Africa, former student of the FSG Wickersdorf

“Above all, you had a major influence on the human atmosphere of this strange community. You have (...) exemplified your loyal and unswerving conviction of the correctness and necessity of (the) daring enterprise (school by the sea) and practiced it from morning to evening: lessons, school administration, camaraderie, musical activity in games and (beautiful) singing, great - and guerrilla warfare with parents, school authorities, islanders. Encouraging, participating, mediating and balancing out, almost without interruption all year round. ... «typically Aeschli» "

- Hubert H. Kelter , Hamburg-Lemsahl, formerly a student at the Schule am Meer

“Do you remember, Aeschli? ... how soon Lene (Helene Aeschlimann) and you (in Switzerland) became a center of help for friends in Germany! Also for that old Jewish classmate who came across the Swiss border after terrible experiences ... "

- Sonja Hertneck, Stuttgart

The teacher couple Aeschlimann had a lifelong friendship with their colleague, the writer Wilhelm Lehmann , whom they knew from FSG Wickersdorf .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter Frey-Mauerhofer: Rudolf Aeschlimann . In: Burgdorfer Jahrbuch 1963. S. 193–199 (PDF file; 46.6 MB)
2. ^ Walter Frey-Mauerhofer: Rudolf Aeschlimann. In: Burgdorfer Jahrbuch 1963. S. 194 (PDF file; 46.6 MB)
3. ↑ Alexander Priebe: From school running to school sport: the reform of physical training in the German rural education centers and the free school community of Wickersdorf from 1898 to 1933. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2007, ISBN 978-3-7815-1561-1 , p. 108
4. ^ Gudrun Fiedler, Susanne Rappe-Weber, Detlef Siegfried: Collecting - opening up - networking: youth culture and social movements in the archive . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8470-0340-3 , p. 174
5. ↑ Jens Brachmann: Reform pedagogy between re-education, educational expansion and abuse scandal: The history of the Association of German Landerziehungsheime 1947–2012 . Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2015, ISBN 978-3-7815-2067-7 , p. 33
6. ↑ Peter Dudek: The Oedipus from Kurfürstendamm: A Wickersdorfer student and his mother murder 1930 . Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2015, ISBN 978-3-7815-2026-4 , p. 59
7. ^ Gudrun Fiedler, Susanne Rappe-Weber, Detlef Siegfried: Collecting - opening up - networking: youth culture and social movements in the archive . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8470-0340-3 , p. 179
8. ^ Werner Kraft, Wilhelm Lehmann: Correspondence 1931–1968 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0235-8 (see register of persons)
9. ^ Rudolf Aeschlimann , on: ecole.ch, accessed on April 22, 2016
10. ^ Wilhelm Lehmann: Autobiographical and mixed writings. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1999. ISBN 3-608-95047-8 , pp. 649-650