Theodor Bierschenk

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Theodor Bierschenk (born August 16, 1908 in Sompolno , Russian Poland , † March 18, 1996 in Lensahn ) was a German teacher and expellee functionary .

Life

Bierschenk attended school in Sompolno and the Łódź German grammar school . After he had passed the Abitur exam in 1926, he studied history at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków . He wanted to become a teacher in Poland's German school system . In 1932 he completed his studies with a master's degree (“very good”). As a teacher, he taught in Laurahütte (Upper Silesia) and Bromberg (1932–1935), first at the German Lyceum, then at the German Gymnasium. Like many of his contemporaries, he saw the restrictive minority policy of the Second Polish Republic and the situation of ethnic Germans in Poland at the time as a challenge for political engagement. He therefore finished his school service in the school year 1934/35 and joined the Young German Party in Poland in Bromberg . From Upper Silesia and the Bielitz-Biala language island , she had begun the renewal and organizational unification of the entire German population in Poland. After a brief activity in Łódź , Bierschenk worked from Sompolno to activate Germanism in Kujawia , the Warthebruch , the Kalischer Land and the Dobriner Land .

In 1945 he and his family fled via Pomerania to Nidda in Hesse. The escape and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe 1945–1950 determined his further life. He found access to historical and scientific work through Kurt Lück . In 1949 he was one of the founders of the Weichsel-Warthe country team at the federal level, in which mainly the Germans from the former Prussian province of Posen , from central Poland with a focus on Lodz, from Volhynia and from Galicia had come together. As part of the documentation of the expulsion and in cooperation with the Göttingen working group , he wrote the important book about the Germans in Poland. After 34 home information centers had been set up in 1953 for the implementation of the Burdens Equalization Act , Bierschenk was given the management of the home information center Poland II based in Hanover because of his in-depth knowledge and his origin. This office was responsible for the then General Government with the whole of Galicia (Warsaw, Radom, Lublin, Krakow, Lemberg), Volhynia , Polesia , the Białystok district and the area around Vilnius . Bierschenk managed the office until reaching the statutory age limit. In 1950, Bierschenk took over the chairmanship of the Lower Saxony regional association of the LWW, which he held until 1994, and held the two major federal meetings of the Landsmannschaft in Hanover in 1958 and 1970. At the same time, Bierschenk was involved in the federal association of the Landsmannschaft: from 1953 to 1989 as a federal press officer and as editor of the monthly newsletter Weichsel-Warthe. From 1955 to 1990 he was editor of the Weichsel-Warthe yearbook. For many years he was in charge of the former associations of German university students in Poland. He sat on the commission for the history of the Germans in Poland , on the board of the Stiftung Kulturwerk Wartheland and on the foundation board of the Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk (Lüneburg). He gained great importance as a managing board member in the federal board of the Weichsel-Warthe country team and as honorary head of the federal office in Hanover (1970–1990).

Honors

  • Golden Badge of Honor of the Association of Expellees (1972)
  • Dr. Kurt-Lück-Prize of the country team Weichsel-Warthe
  • Culture award of the country team Weichsel-Warthe

Works

  • The German ethnic group in Poland 1934–1939 . Supplements to the yearbook of the Albertus University in Königsberg. Holzner, Würzburg 1954.
  • The associations of German university students in Poland 1922–1939 . Self-published
  • What happened in Poland 40 years ago? Objectives of the VDH 40 years ago and today . Akademische Blätter 66 (1964), pp. 132-134.
  • The Volksdeutsche - Fifth Column or Innocent Victims? Akademische Blätter 81 (1979), pp. 160-161.

See also

literature

  • Richard Breyer: An “idealist indeed” passed away. Theodor Bierschenk (1908–1996) in commemoration . Yearbook Weichsel-Warthe 43 (1997), pp. 47-51.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Master's thesis: The Genesis of the Polish-Brandenburg Alliance of 1421 .
  2. ^ Th. Bierschenk: The associations of German university students in Poland . Akademische Blätter 67 (1965), pp. 12-13
  3. ↑ Justice for Germany too? Critical remarks on a new book on German foreign policy . Akademische Blätter 66 (1964), pp. 59-70.
  4. ↑ Culture portal west-east
personal data
SURNAME Bierschenk, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher and expellee official
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Sompolno , Russian Poland
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1996
Place of death Lensahn