Wilhelm Voss (educator for the blind)

Hinrich August Wilhelm Voss (born September 17, 1882 in Altona , † September 26, 1952 in Eutin ) was a German teacher for the blind.

Childhood, youth and education

Wilhelm Voss was a son of Hinrich Voss (born September 19, 1846 in Sandkuhle ; † June 27, 1918 in Elmshorn ) and his wife Catharina, née Kölln (born April 16, 1846 in Wisch ; † March 13, 1932 in Hamburg ). The maternal grandfather was the farmer Franz Kölln (1818-1856) from Hainholz and married to Catharina, née Schlüter (1817-1894).

Voss had five older and two younger siblings. His parents had married in 1873 and their father opened a coal shop in Altona as a carpenter. Due to the father's economic problems, the family moved four times to Altona over the course of nine years and settled in Kaltenkirchen in 1885/86 . His father opened a fish shop there. The mother also worked as a house helper and peat cutter. However, his father soon had to close the fish shop, whereupon the family moved to Elmshorn to live with close relatives of the mother and had permanent residence for the first time. The father found a job in a sawmill and later ran a small, unendurable carpentry shop. One reason for this could have been that the father was very involved in the "Christian Community Elmshorn". It was a pietistic revival movement , which led to the fact that family life was gradually shaped by almost daily Bible reading lessons, devotions and missionary events. From April 1888, Voss attended the Second Boys 'Elementary School in Elmshorn, where his classmates teased him because of his parents' religious orientation. In addition, the father was very benevolent, so that the family suffered from poverty. Voss wrote about it in his memoirs and obviously rejected religiosity. In adulthood he did not show a clear religious attitude.

Voss turned out to be only a moderately good student and had problems with the pedagogy, which was characterized by corporal punishment. His teacher Wilhelm Pumplün supported him and gave him free tutoring together with other children. Voss thus developed into a school assistant on a private basis. Due to his wealthy family, Pumplün owned a large library in which Voss read and cataloged the holdings. His teacher paid for trumpet lessons for him. Because of his teacher, Voss decided early on to take up this profession himself.

Voss' parents did not have sufficient funds to finance a visit to the preparation institute for their son. Three entrepreneurs from the religious community granted him a loan of 2000 Reichsmarks, for which he did not have to pay interest during his training. He registered at the privately operated institution in Uetersen , which he described as being very poorly equipped. There was almost no illustrative material there and the training consisted of memorizing the content necessary for the entrance exam for the teachers' seminar. Voss covered the nine-kilometer way to school on foot and used this time to study.

Due to an early exam date, Voss only attended the preparatory institute for a year and a half and at the beginning of 1900 registered for the entrance examination for teachers' seminars, which he successfully passed. Then he learned at the Royal School Teachers' College in Uetersen and lived in the boarding school there. Good performance helped him to get a small scholarship. In September 1902 he passed the first teacher examination and the exams for cantors and organists. He then did military service in Altona as a one-year volunteer.

Working as an educator

During his time at the teachers' seminar, Voss had received state funding that he would have had to repay if he had applied freely after completing his training. Therefore, at the beginning of October 1903, he accepted a position assigned to him as second teacher at the two-class parish school of Kiebitzreihe . In April 1905 he received the vacant position as first teacher and eight months later passed the second teacher examination in Uetersen. In October 1906 he switched to the first boys' elementary school in Neumünster . His contract stipulated that he had to give four lessons at the local central prison for a small allowance.

In 1910, Voss successfully applied to the Provinzial-Blindenanstalt (Landesblindenanstalt) in Kiel. This was owned by the provincial administration, had 100 students in 1909 and was given a large extension in 1910. Voss taught natural sciences and music here, took over the management of the institutional choir, the school choir and a brass orchestra, and made particular efforts to improve the didactics. He attended lectures and working groups at Kiel University. He regularly participated in working groups of the psychological seminar, in which director Johannes Wittmann dealt with problems of the psychology of the blind.

In August 1914 Voss was called up for military service. He fought on the Eastern Front, from 1916 only worked in the office. In May 1918 he was released to teach people who were blind due to the war in his homeland. He went to Kiel and continued to work officially in the military at the State Institute for the Blind. After the end of the war, he returned to his previous position.

Voss tried to establish methodical approaches to teaching the blind that were based on empirical psychology. He was particularly concerned with the synaesthetic emergence of photisms in the blind. As part of his research, he cooperated with Georg Anschütz , who was working in Hamburg with photisms in sighted people. On the basis of his research results, Voss gave lectures at the University of Hamburg and wrote several essays about his findings. Specialists were particularly interested in his broad-based studies, for which he had collected drawings from blind children and on the basis of which he developed his own method of drawing lessons for the blind.

Voss often gave lectures at advanced training events of the Kiel teachers' association and other associations on child psychology and education. He took up contemporary educational reform approaches, in which the child should freely develop his abilities. In March 1924 he was appointed first teacher and deputy director of the State Institute for the Blind and a year later he was promoted to head teacher.

Voss did not appear particularly politically. After the seizure of power in 1933 he became a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) and from the beginning of February 1935 worked as their block warden. In 1937 he submitted an application to become a director, stating that the NSV had applied for him to join the NSDAP , which took place in April 1938. In September 1933 he joined the National Socialist teachers' association , which was a prerequisite for continuing to work as a teacher. Beyond that, he obviously did not belong to any other National Socialist organizations and remained passive. The party entered the party apparently for opportunistic reasons. It is unknown what role he played in the area of ​​National Socialist eugenics , including whether the Kiel institution participated in the forced sterilization of blind people.

The number of pupils in Kiel fell significantly, perhaps also due to the forced sterilization. Around 1940 26 people were studying here. The school was first hit by bombs in 1941. This may have been why the school closed. From this point on, children had to attend the asylum for the blind in Hanover-Kirchrode . Voss was assigned a position in the welfare education service. From the beginning of April 1941 he worked in the state youth home in Selent , where he was supposed to learn how to run a youth home. In June of the same year he was appointed director of a new home in Sundacker . A few weeks later he went back to Selent at his own request and worked there as deputy director.

After the end of the war, Voss took over the provisional management of the state youth home in Heiligenstedten . The British military authorities visited all youth homes and released Voss in March 1946 without comment. At the beginning of April 1946 he was suspended from duty, but continued to receive his salary. He asked for information about the reason for the termination, which he did not receive. At the end of May 1946, he applied for retirement. In December, the authorities formally lifted the suspension and immediately retired. He and his family were allowed to continue to use the official apartment in Selent.

In 1950 Voss went to Timmdorf with his wife . In retirement he did research again on the drawing of blind people and spoke about this in 1915 at a congress of teachers for the blind in Hanover-Kirchrode. He wrote a manuscript for a book that he could no longer finish. His son and wife revised it and added materials he had collected. The book was published in 1955 as "The Image Creation of the Blind Child".

family

On April 11, 1912, Voss married Anna Marie Christine Kock in Medelby (born September 20, 1886 in Kappeln ; † March 2, 1978 in Lübeck ). She was a daughter of the deacon Johannes Kock (born September 30, 1860 in Norderstapel ; † March 13, 1936 in Kiel ) and his wife Mathilde, née Dau (1866-1934). Johannes Kock worked as a deacon in Kappeln, then as a pastor in Medelby and Quern .

Anna Kock worked as a teacher in Medelby and Lauenburg and from 1910 as a teacher for the blind in Kiel. She had a daughter and a son.

literature

• Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , pages 412-416.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 412.
2. ^ Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , pages 412-413.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 413.
4. ^ Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , pages 413-414.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 414.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 415.
7. ^ Hartwig Moltzow: Voss, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 12 - 2006. ISBN 3-529-02560-7 , page 416.