Werner Otto Droescher

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Werner Otto Droescher (born January 5, 1911 in Karlsruhe , † 1978 ) was a German-New Zealand philosophical anarchist , educator and linguist.

Live and act

Werner Droescher fought in the ranks of the anarcho-syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War, ran children's homes for Jewish orphans in England at the beginning of the Second World War and researched and taught as a language teacher and linguist at the New Zealand University of Auckland after the end of the war .

Origin and education

Werner Droescher was the son of Friedrich Droescher and Anna Marie geb. Bentz and grew up in a conservative family. He spent his childhood and youth in south-west Germany before starting a teacher training course at the Altona Pedagogical Academy . Many of the lecturers at the academy supported reform pedagogical approaches and the constitution of the Weimar Republic . The integrative, non-hierarchical forms of teaching and learning tried and tested at the academy had a major influence on Droescher's political and academic development.

Spain

Droescher left Germany in 1933 and went to Tossa de Mar, Spain, to protest against the political and educational harmonization by the Nazis . In the progressive international art scene in Catalonia, he met his partner, Greville Texidor, who was more than twenty years his senior. Texidor belonged to the circle of the English Bloomsbury Group and had u. a. Contacts with the artists Mark Gertler and Augustus John . She later reflected on her time in Spain in short stories and novellist texts. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War , Droescher initially supported the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) brigades, and a little later the anarchist group 'Aguiluchos de las Corts' in Barcelona. Droescher and Texidor fought against the Spanish fascists in Barcelona and Saragossa , where they u. a. became known with the American feminist and anarchist Emma Goldmann and the Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri , and later also on the Aragon front.

With the help of the English Help Committee for Spain Help for Spain Committee and English Quakers , Droescher and Texidor organized food, teaching and learning materials for children and young people in war-torn Spain in 1937. In 1938 they built an orphanage in Girona for 120 war orphans between the ages of three and five.

Germany - England

Physically and mentally exhausted Texidor returned to England before the start of World War II. When Droescher wanted to follow her via France, he was sent to Germany because of his German passport. In Hamburg he taught at a Berlitz school for a short time before moving to England in 1939. Together with Texidor, he looked after orphanages organized by the Quakers for Jewish refugee children in Ipswich and Margate . Many of the children had come to Great Britain on Kindertransport and did not speak English. In his autobiography, Droescher described his main tasks as a comforter, language teacher, football coach and assistant cook, learning how to prepare kosher meals from the older children. Due to his German passport and his involvement in anarchist and communist groups, Droescher was observed by the state and interned at the end of the war .

New Zealand

In 1940 Droescher and Texidor were able to travel to New Zealand after an intervention by the painter Augustus John . Droescher and Texidor lived in New Zealand until 1948, where Droescher was initially under surveillance until the end of the war due to his German origins, but was able to study and teach languages ​​and linguistics at the University of Auckland . The two made acquaintances and friends with a number of New Zealand artists such as James K. Baxter , Allan Curnow , Maurice Duggan , ARD Fairburn, Denis Glover , RAK Mason, Frank Sargeson and with German-speaking exiles such as Karl Wolfskehl . In 1946 Droescher received New Zealand citizenship. In 1948 Droescher and Texidor moved to Australia together with their daughter Christina. In 1953 Droescher went back to Spain, hiding his activities during the civil war, where he worked as a language teacher. In 1964, Texidor committed suicide in Australia.

Droescher spent the 1960s mainly in Auckland , New Zealand, where he taught and researched at the German Department of the University of Auckland as a lecturer and finally as a senior lecturer. He was also committed to the integration of Polynesian guest workers and  adult education (including foreign language teaching in the maximum security prison Paremoremo ) and the student theater in Auckland. His academic research focused primarily on socio and area linguistics . The most extensive study of the German language in New Zealand, the German of people who emigrated from Bohemia to Puhoi , New Zealand in the 19th century , was researched by Droescher during his visits to Puhoi in the 1960s and appeared in 1969 under the title The Egerland-German Dialect of Puhoi ( North Auckland), New Zealand . Droescher spent the last years of his life up to his death in 1978 in the alternative rural commune Wilderland on the Coromandel Peninsula, where he wrote his autobiography Odyssey of a Teacher , which appeared in 1976 and in which he also developed the main features of his anarchist philosophy and pedagogy.

In 1995, the University of Auckland established the Werner Droescher Prize in German Linguistics in his honor.

Works

• An outline structural description of German . University of Auckland , Auckland 1971 (English, online [accessed August 8, 2020]).
• Puhoi: the Egerland-German dialect of Puhoi (North Auckland) New Zealand . Self-published, Auckland 1975 (English, online [accessed August 8, 2020]).
• A teacher's odyssey . F. Hirthammer, Munich 1976, ISBN 978-3-921288-40-5 ( online [accessed August 8, 2020] autobiography).
• Towards an alternative society . Auckland 1978 (English, online [accessed August 8, 2020] manuscript (unpublished)).

literature

• Norman Franke, Werner Droescher: Out of the Shadow of War. The German Connection with New Zealand in the Twentieth Century . Ed .: James N. Bade, James Braund. Oxford University Press , 1998, ISBN 978-0-19-558363-2 , pp. 153-156 (English).
• Margot Schwass: All the juicy pastures: Greville Texidor, Frank Sargeson and New Zealand literary culture in the 1940s . Victoria University of Wellington , Wellington 2017 (English, Online [PDF; 1.5 MB ; accessed on August 8, 2020] Dissertation : on information about Werner Droescher at the time of the Spanish Civil War pp. 73–80 ff., u. during his time in Auckland and his artist contacts in the 1940s, pp. 107–114).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Texidor, Greville, 1902-1964 and Werner Droescher 1911-1978. Retrieved August 7, 2020 (English). 
2. ↑ Schwass: All the juicy pastures: Greville Texidor, Frank Sargeson and New Zealand literary culture in the 1940s . 2017, p. 74 .
3. ^ Franke, Werner Droescher , p. 154
4. ↑ Schwass, All the juicy pastures , p 80
5. ^ Aid to Spain . In: University Library . University of Warwick , accessed August 8, 2020 .  
6. ↑ Schwass: All the juicy pastures: Greville Texidor, Frank Sargeson and New Zealand literary culture in the 1940s . 2017, p. 79 .
7. ↑ Droescher, Odyssey of a Teacher , p. 64
8. ↑ Puhoi Egerländer Dialect - Dröscher, Werner Otto, 1911 to 1978. In: puhoidialect.net.nz. G. Straka, accessed on August 8, 2020 (English, German).  
9. ^ Werner Droescher Prize in German Linguistics . The University of Auckland , accessed August 8, 2020 .