Waldus Nestler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waldus Nestler (born March 31, 1887 in Meißen ; † May 19, 1954 in Döbeln ) was a peace and reform pedagogue from Leipzig .

Live and act

The son of the senior teacher August Oskar Nestler was born in Meißen in 1887. After visiting the Prince's School St. Afra , a grammar school in his hometown, he studied in Erlangen , Kiel , Marburg and Zurich and from October 1909 to August 1911 in Leipzig theology . In the summer semester of 1909 he stayed in Zurich, where he met Leonhard Ragaz (1868–1945) and Hermann Kutter (1863–1931), the most important spokesmen for religious socialism. He became friends with his Zurich theology professor Leonhard Ragaz. Later he became secretary of the Christian Association of Young Men in Plauen in the Vogtland and spent his vicariate there.

During the First World War he was a division gas protection officer.

In August 1915, the International Union of Reconciliation was founded in Cambridge (England) as a community for reconciliation. Nestler co-founded its German department together with Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze after the end of the war.

In mid-October 1919 he became a permanent academic teacher for Latin, German and practical philosophy (as part of religious instruction) at the Second Higher Girls' School (with teacher seminar) in Leipzig, which was headed by the internationally renowned reform pedagogue Hugo Gaudig and was named after him in 1927 .

In 1925 he became secretary of the German department of the Union of Reconciliation, the chairman of which was his friend Alfred Dedo Müller . From 1924 to 1926 he worked in the administration of the New Paths published by Ragaz in Switzerland - papers for religious work in Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Finland).

Various lecture tours took place in France , Sweden , Denmark , England and Switzerland as well as in numerous German cities for the International Union of Reconciliation. In addition, he maintained close contacts with the peace organizations. In 1932 he published the peace education educational book Giftgas über Deutschland .

Nestler family burial site

Even after the National Socialists came to power, Nestler was active in peace education through publications and lectures.

In April 1933 Nestler was given a leave of absence without notice and was forcibly transferred to the Friedrich-List-Realgymnasium in Leipzig in October of the same year. He was not a member of a National Socialist organization or the NSDAP .

Under American suzerainty, he was rehabilitated in August 1945, appointed head of the Gaudig School and appointed senior director of studies. The further development path is closely related to the fate of the Leipzig Gaudig School. At the end of his long professional life, which was aimed at the contemporary realization of reform pedagogical endeavors in general and the reception of the reform pedagogy of Hugo Gaudig in particular and last but not least his passionate peace education, Nestler saw himself defamed and marginalized as an advocate of a "reactionary pedagogy". The Gaudig School was broken up in August 1951 due to the forced dissolution. The fate of Nestler is therefore an example of the rapidly prevailing exclusion of a pedagogy that is open to many ideas in the Soviet occupation zone and of a defense against pacifism that is intensifying in the context of the enforcement of dictatorship .

He looked for and found a personal way out of his professional difficulties by working as a genealogist and local researcher in the Ore Mountains , especially in the area around Scheibenberg . From his extensive research legacy, which had been handed over to the German Central Office for Genealogy , some files were further processed decades later and four booklets Regesten and two local family books were published from them.

He married Louise Jaeschke (1897–1981) in 1919 and had three children with her: Reinhart (1920–1953, economist), Helwig (born 1925, architect) and Brigitte Haas (née Nestler, born 1924, doctor).

Waldus Nestler's urn was buried in the family grave in Leipzig's southern cemetery. In the course of an area clearance, the grave site was abandoned in 2018.

Works

  • The great guilt , in: New ways - sheets for religious work , 22 (1928), issue 7/8, pp. 358–366
  • Should the civilian population be protected against air raids? , in: Die Eiche - quarterly journal for social and international working group 17 (1929) issue 3, pp. 284–297
  • Poison gas over Germany, Berlin 1932; Gas and air war , in: Leipziger teacher's newspaper 40 (1933) No. 4, pp. 105–108.

literature

  • Andreas Pehnke: For peace, international understanding and reform education. Waldus Nestler: disciplined in dictatorships - forgotten and rediscovered in democracies . In: Paedagogica Historica 34 . 1998 3, pp. 795-818
  • Andreas Pehnke: Saxon Reform Education , Traditions and Perspectives Leipzig 1998
  • Andreas Pehnke: Message of Reconciliation, The Leipzig peace and reform pedagogue Waldus Nestler . Beucha 2004. ISBN 3-934544-55-X

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nestler, Waldus and Elke Kretzschmar: Family book for Schwarzbach / Krs. Annaberg 1540-1836 . Leipzig 1993.
  2. ^ Jäger, Sabina, Grams, Kerstin and Waldus Nestler: Family book for the parish of Markersbach with Mittweida, Markersbach and Unterscheibe 1547–1740. Plaidt: Cardamina-Verlag 2010

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Nestler, Waldus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reform pedagogue
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Meissen
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1954
Place of death Chub