The Katharineum zu Lübeck is a

humanistic Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

gymnasium founded 1531 in the

Hanseatic The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=German language, Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Norther ...

city

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. In 2006 the 475th anniversary of this

Latin school The Latin school was the grammar school of 14th- to 19th-century Europe, though the latter term was much more common in England. Emphasis was placed, as the name indicates, on learning to use Latin. The education given at Latin schools gave gre ...

was celebrated with several events. The school uses the buildings of a former

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

monastery next to Saint Catherine Church, which was extended in the 1880s. At the Katharineum it is possible to choose

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

as the first foreign language. In year nine it is also possible to choose

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

as the third foreign language.

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

, himself a student of the Katharineum, thought of this school when describing the school ''Hanno'' went to in the

Buddenbrooks ''Buddenbrooks'' () is a 1901 novel by Thomas Mann, chronicling the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseaten (class), Hanseatic ...

. Mann, who as a bad student had to resit two years, made it clear that he disliked the Katharineum by describing both the school and the teachers with strong sarcasm. His brother

Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; 27 March 1871 – 11 March 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German author known for his Social criticism, socio-political novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the ...

described the school and one infamous teacher in

Professor Unrat ''Professor Unrat, oder Das Ende eines Tyrannen'' (1905, trans. by Ernest Boyd as ''Small Town Tyrant''), which translates as "Professor Unclean", Herman G. Weinberg, 1967. p. 48 (footnote): "In German, the name "Rat" has the connotation of "couns ...

Notable students

Image:Stamp of Germany.Werner von Siemens,1992.jpg,

Werner von Siemens Ernst Werner Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; ; ; 13 December 1816 – 6 December 1892) was a German electrical engineer, inventor and industrialist. Siemens's name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He foun ...

* Blumenberg, Hans * Carlebach, Felix * Geibel, Emanuel * Graba, Carl Julian * Mann, Thomas * Mühsam, Erich * Overbeck, Friedrich * Radbruch, Gustav * Storm, Theodor

External links

Katharineum
{{Authority control Lübeck Schools in Schleswig-Holstein Buildings and structures in Lübeck Educational institutions established in the 1530s 1531 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire