Willy Pieth

Wilhelm "Willy" Friedrich Konrad Pieth (born December 22, 1883 in Stettin , † December 15, 1934 in Lübeck ) was a German librarian and politician.

Life

City library, new building from 1927

Wilhelm "Willi" Friedrich Konrad Pieth's father August Friedrich Pieth, b. 1854, was a teacher and writer, his mother Ottilie, b. Lüpke, 1858, was the daughter of a teacher. Pieth's wife Margarete Schwarz, b. 1896, d. 1981, married. since December 24, 1919, was a high school teacher. Pieth attended school in Stettin and graduated from the König-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in 1904. He then studied Philosophy, German, Romance and Classical Philology and History. He attended the universities of Lausanne, Berlin and Greifswald. Willy Pieth his doctorate at the University of Greifswald with a dissertation on food and drink in the Middle High German epic of the twelfth and thirteenth century Dr. phil.

He wanted to become a librarian and began his library training as a library assistant in the Kaiser Wilhelm Library in Posen. He stayed there until 1911. During this time, the state examination for teaching at secondary schools was also taken. In October 1911, Pieth moved to the university library in Münster i. W. From 1909 he was a member of the Association of German Librarians , then also of the Association of People's Librarians . From September 1, 1912 to 1913, he worked as a volunteer at the Royal Library (Prussian State Library) in Berlin in the department for manuscripts and incunabula in order to gain further knowledge. In contrast to this subject, Pieth moved to the city library and book hall in Berlin-Charlottenburg on May 1, 1913, whose director Gottlieb Fritz had made a name for himself for this type of library. Initially active as an assistant librarian, he was soon taken on as a regular city librarian (1914–1919). He quickly intervened in the debates about communal standard libraries with articles. He leaned towards the popular educational direction of the Szczecin City Librarian Erwin Ackerknecht. But now he had to take part in the First World War as a field artilleryman. He survived unharmed and was then interested in a management position in Lübeck. The college elected him, and Pieth was able to start work in Lübeck on October 9, 1919. He was officially appointed director on January 1, 1920. He was 1919-1933, succeeding Carl Curtius , the second full-time director of the Municipal Library in Lübeck and reformed the Lübeck librarianship by the to 1923 of Bennata Otten led public library hall of the Society for the promotion of community service and the libraries of Lubeck land area with the city library united into a more economical unit.

During his time as director, the first new building of the city library in Hundestrasse was built in 1926 in cooperation with the city planning director Friedrich Wilhelm Virck . In 1926, on the occasion of the opening of the new Virck building (ie an extension to the existing historical structure), Pieth published the Festschrift Bücherei und Gemeinschaftinn . His library system, which has been adapted to the situation in Lübeck, is reflected here. It was not supposed to be a communal standardized library, but a library system dedicated to public education, in which the historical holdings were kept just as much as the current tasks of a public book and reading hall, which also supplied the rural regions of Lübeck with literature. There was a state hiking library and the library advice center for this purpose. All of these tasks were on an equal footing and were directed and coordinated by the library director. The fact that Pieth also kept an eye on the common people, the people who worked in practical professions or were commercially active, also resulted from his membership in the SPD. Since 1920 he had been a member of the Lübeck citizenship and in 1923, with the majority of the Social Democrats, was able to nationalize the bookhouses and convert them into a unified state library system. In addition, new usage regulations, participation in the Reich (long-distance) loan system, an increase in staff (from five to 24 positions) and the secured acquisition budget expanded the effect of the library on a broader scale. In addition, there were events, exhibitions, national collaboration in the library system and support from the Society of Friends of the City Library, which was founded in 1926 . All of this brought Pieth an appointment to Hamburg, which he was unable to accept, probably for health reasons. Although the adult education center , of which he was dual director, the Volksbühne or the library aimed at the population were so important to him, he came into conflict with the National Socialists, for whom the national community was of central importance. On March 13, 1933, he was given leave of absence, despite the law to restore the civil service. From April 7, 1933 was formally not yet issued. Therefore, his final dismissal did not take place until July 1, 1933. His resignation from the SPD had not helped him. As a SPD member, Pieth had belonged to the Lübeck citizenship and had been politically active within the Weimar democracy. Social Democrats have now been persecuted and removed from office. Pieth lived only a year and a half after that and died at the early age of 51.

He was initially temporarily replaced by the archivist Georg Fink and then by Gustav Struck , a corresponding Nazi follower. In the city library itself, the frescoes by the Jewish artist Ervin Bossányi were whitewashed by the National Socialists. Willy Pieth showed the way to a new future for Lübeck and its library system. It should be a modern library for all citizens, as the book-hall movement aimed for, while preserving the historical heritage. In little Lübeck it could only be a single library. In the much larger Hamburg, the Hamburg book halls and from the former city library the state and university library emerged as independent institutes.

Fonts

• Eating and drinking in the Middle High German epic of the 12th and 13th centuries. Diss. Phil. Greifswald 1908.
• Library and public spirit. The public library system of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Edited by Willy Pieth. Lübeck: Quitzow, 1926.
• Numerous other treatises can be found in: Stadt und Bibliothek. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. Here: contribution Fligge, pp. 61–177; P. 166f. (Willy Pieth's publications).

Awards

In the city library, the reading room (since May 12, 1995) was named Willy Pieth Reading Room in honor of Pieth .

literature

• Abram Enns: Art and the Bourgeoisie. The controversial twenties in Lübeck. Lübeck 1978. ISBN 3-7672-0571-8
• various state handbooks of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Based on: Sibylle Paulus, in: Lübecker Lebenslaufen aus nine centuries , ed. von Alken Bruns, Neumünster: Wachholtz, 1993, ISBN 3-529-02729-4 . Pp. 303-305, here p. 303.
2. ↑ On the work of Carl Curtius, cf. Jörg Fligge: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic: The library system of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck in the years 1870 until the beginning of National Socialism. In: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. pp. 61–177, on Curtius: pp. 79–105. ISBN 3-447-03885-3 .
3. ↑ See Gerhard Meyer in: Lübecker Lebenslaufen ... 1993, p. 278f. - Also: Fligge: City and Library , pp. 106–115. - Especially: Andrea Mielke: Bennata Otten. Head of the Lübeck library from 1906–1923. ... One of the first directors of a public library in Germany. Lübeck: Library of the Hanseatic City, 2000. (Publications of the Lübeck City Library. Third series, Vol. 7: Scientific publications). ISBN 3-933652-08-1 .
4. ^ Gerhard Meyer: 100 years of the public library in Lübeck. Main features of their development. Senate of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Office for Culture. Publication XI. Lübeck 1979. pp. 14-19.
5. ↑ Jörg Fligge and Klaus Mai: Reading room of the city library - built and furnished in 1926, renovated in 1992. In: Der Wagen. A yearbook from Lübeck. Lübeck: Hansisches Verlagkontor, 1993/94. Pp. 143–158, pp. 147–152 (on the fate of the Bossanyi frescoes in the reading room). ISSN  0933-484X .
6. ↑ On the ceremony on May 12, 1995: Jörg Fligge: The importance of Willy Pieth's work for Lübeck. In: Lübeckische Blätter 160, 1995., pp. 180-193, 186-188. The article closes: "Due to Willy Pieth's services to Lübeck's library system [...] the reading room of the Lübeck city library will in future be called" Willy Pieth Reading Room "." It should also remember the fate of Pieth and that of the artist Ervin Bossanyi over the years the Nazi rule are remembered. Cf. Fligge: The library is there for the sake of the public. On the importance of Willy Pieth for Lübeck. In: Buch und Bibliothek 48. 1996. pp. 32–42.

Web links

• Biography of Dr. phil. Wilhelm Pieth . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1876–1933 (BIOSOP)