![Kurt Hahn - Plaque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Kurt_Hahn_-_Plaque.jpg)
Kurt Matthias Robert Martin Hahn (5 June 1886,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
– 14 December 1974,
Hermannsberg) was a German educator. He was decisive in founding, among other organizations and initiatives,
Stiftung Louisenlund
Stiftung Louisenlund is a privately run boarding school for boys and girls in Güby, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
History
The school's main building is in Louisenlund Castle, which was built by Hermann von Motz between 1772 and 1776 for Prince C ...
,
Schule Schloss Salem
Schule Schloss Salem (Anglicisation: ''School of Salem Castle'', ''Salem Castle School'') is a boarding school with campuses in Salem and Überlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Southern Germany.
It offers the German Abitur, as well as the Inter ...
,
Gordonstoun
Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. It is named after the estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century; the school now uses this estate as its campus. It is locate ...
,
Outward Bound
Outward Bound (OB) is an international network of outdoor education organizations that was founded in the United Kingdom by Lawrence Holt and Kurt Hahn in 1941. Today there are organizations, called schools, in over 35 countries which are att ...
, the
Duke of Edinburgh's Award
The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (commonly abbreviated DofE) is a youth awards programme founded in the United Kingdom in 1956 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, that has since expanded to 144 nations. The awards recognise adolescents and young ...
, and the first of the
United World Colleges
United World Colleges (UWC) is an international network of schools and educational programmes with the shared aim of "making education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future." The organization was founde ...
,
Atlantic College
Atlantic College (formally the United World College of the Atlantic; alternatively styled UWC Atlantic College, UWCAC, or UWCA) is an independent boarding school in the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales. Founded in 1962, it was the first of ...
in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
.
Life
Early life
Born in Berlin to
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
parents, Hahn attended school in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, then universities at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
,
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
,
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
and
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Hahn worked in the
German Department for Foreign Affairs, analyzing British newspapers and advising the Foreign Office. He had been private secretary to Prince
Max von Baden
Maximilian, Margrave of Baden (''Maximilian Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm''; 10 July 1867 – 6 November 1929),Almanach de Gotha. ''Haus Baden (Maison de Bade)''. Justus Perthes, Gotha, 1944, p. 18, (French). also known as Max von Baden, was a Ger ...
, the last
Imperial Chancellor of Germany, and in 1919 was part of the German delegation to the
Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where he witnessed the creation of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, as secretary and speechwriter for the German minister of Foreign Affairs,
Graf Brockdorff-Rantzau.
In 1920, Hahn and Prince Max founded
Schule Schloss Salem
Schule Schloss Salem (Anglicisation: ''School of Salem Castle'', ''Salem Castle School'') is a boarding school with campuses in Salem and Überlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Southern Germany.
It offers the German Abitur, as well as the Inter ...
, a private boarding school where Hahn served as headmaster until 1933, and served as the Salem School's headmaster during
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's rise to power. Hahn was raised Jewish, and began his fierce criticism of the Nazi regime after the
Potempa murder of 1932
The Potempa Murder of 1932 was a cause célèbre during Germany's Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Committed by Nazi Party members, the brutal murder cast a dark shadow over the political advance of Hitler and the N ...
, when Hitler's
Stormtroopers attacked and killed a young communist in the presence of his mother. The Stormtroopers were originally sentenced to death, but when they were given amnesty and celebrated by the Nazis, Hahn spoke out against Hitler publicly. He asked the students, faculty, and alumni of the Salem school to choose between Salem and Hitler. As a result, he was imprisoned for five days (from 11 to 16 March 1933). After an appeal by British Prime Minister
Ramsay MacDonald, Hahn was released, and in July 1933 he was forced to leave Germany and moved to the United Kingdom.
United Kingdom
Hahn settled in Scotland, where he founded
Gordonstoun
Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. It is named after the estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century; the school now uses this estate as its campus. It is locate ...
with Sir Lawrence Holt on similar principles to the school in Salem. Later, Hahn converted to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and became a communicant member of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
in 1945 and preached in the
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland.
The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...
. He also started an international organisation of schools, now called
Round Square
Round Square is an international network of schools, based on the educational concepts of Kurt Hahn, and named after a distinctive building at Gordonstoun. Founded by a group of seven schools in the late 1960s, by 1996 it had grown to 20 member ...
. Hahn was also involved in the foundation of the
Outward Bound
Outward Bound (OB) is an international network of outdoor education organizations that was founded in the United Kingdom by Lawrence Holt and Kurt Hahn in 1941. Today there are organizations, called schools, in over 35 countries which are att ...
Organisation,
Atlantic College
Atlantic College (formally the United World College of the Atlantic; alternatively styled UWC Atlantic College, UWCAC, or UWCA) is an independent boarding school in the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales. Founded in 1962, it was the first of ...
in Wales and the wider
United World College
United World Colleges (UWC) is an international network of schools and educational programmes with the shared aim of "making education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future." The organization was founde ...
movement, and the
Duke of Edinburgh's Award
The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (commonly abbreviated DofE) is a youth awards programme founded in the United Kingdom in 1956 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, that has since expanded to 144 nations. The awards recognise adolescents and young ...
.
[Outward Bound International (2004). ]
Birth of Outward Bound
''. Retrieved 9 December 2007.
Return to Germany
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Hahn divided his time between Britain and Germany. He founded or inspired the founding of several new boarding schools based on the principles of
Salem and Gordonstoun:
Anavryta, Greece (1949);
Louisenlund
Stiftung Louisenlund is a privately run boarding school for boys and girls in Güby, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
History
The school's main building is in Louisenlund Castle, which was built by Hermann von Motz between 1772 and 1776 for Prince C ...
, Germany (1949); Battisborough, England (1955);
Rannoch School
Rannoch School was an independent boarding school, located on the south shore of Loch Rannoch in Perth and Kinross, Scotland on the Dall Estate, from Kinloch Rannoch. Dall House served as the main school building and a boarding house.
It was ...
, Scotland (1959);
Box Hill School
Box Hill School is an independent coeducational boarding and day school situated in the village of Mickleham near Dorking, Surrey, England. The school has approximately 425 pupils aged 11–18. 70 percent of students are day students whilst th ...
, England (1959);
International School Ibadan, Nigeria (1963); and
The Athenian School
The Athenian School is a selective college preparatory and boarding school located in Danville, California, United States. Athenian educates students in grades 6–12 on an approximately campus at the base of Mt. Diablo, located in the San Fr ...
, USA (1965). He resigned from the headship of Gordonstoun on health grounds and returned to Hermannsberg near Salem in 1953. He died there on 14 December 1974 and was buried in Salem.
Philosophy
Hahn's educational philosophy was based on respect for adolescents, whom he believed to possess an innate decency and moral sense, but who were, he believed, corrupted by society as they aged. He believed that education could prevent this corruption, if students were given opportunities for personal leadership and to see the results of their own actions. This is one reason for the focus on
outdoor adventure in his philosophy. Hahn relied here on Dr. Bernhard Zimmermann, the former Director of the
Göttingen University
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911.
General information
The o ...
Physical Education Department, who had to leave Germany in 1938 as he did not want to divorce his Jewish wife. Hahn's educational thinking was crystallised by World War I, which he viewed as proof of the corruption of society and a promise of later doom if people, Europeans particularly, could not be taught differently. At the
Schule Schloss Salem
Schule Schloss Salem (Anglicisation: ''School of Salem Castle'', ''Salem Castle School'') is a boarding school with campuses in Salem and Überlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Southern Germany.
It offers the German Abitur, as well as the Inter ...
, in addition to acting as headmaster, he taught history, politics, ancient Greek, Shakespeare, and
Schiller. He was deeply influenced by Plato's thought.
Gordonstoun is based less on Eton than on Salem. Hahn's prefects are called colour bearers, and traditionally they are promoted according to Hahn's values: concern and compassion for others, the willingness to accept responsibility, and concern and tenacity in pursuit of the truth. Punishment of any kind is viewed as a last resort. According to the German educational Michael Knoll, "education for democracy" was at the core of Hahn's educational philosophy.
Hahn also emphasised what he called "Samaritan service", having students give service to others. He formulated this as focusing on finding Christian purpose in life. His former pupil, Golo Mann, later described him as a "Christian gentleman." Hahn's ideas were also adopted — through the efforts of
Alec Peterson
Alexander Duncan Campbell Peterson Order of the British Empire, OBE (13 September 1908 – 17 October 1988) was a British teacher and headmaster, greatly responsible for the birth of the International Baccalaureate educational system. He was in ...
, who previously worked under Hahn at the newly founded
Atlantic College
Atlantic College (formally the United World College of the Atlantic; alternatively styled UWC Atlantic College, UWCAC, or UWCA) is an independent boarding school in the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales. Founded in 1962, it was the first of ...
in the 1960s — by the
International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...
program and thus secularised.
Personality
In 1934, through his lectures in London to the
New Education Fellowship
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, Hahn met the educationalist
T. C. Worsley
Thomas Cuthbert Worsley (1907–1977) was a British teacher, writer, editor, and theatre and television critic. He is best remembered for his autobiographical ''Flannelled Fool, Flannelled Fool: A Slice of a Life in the Thirties''.
Biography
Cut ...
and persuaded him to spend a summer term at the newly founded Gordonstoun in the capacity of
consultant
A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Consulting servic ...
. In his memoir ''
Flannelled Fool: A Slice of a Life in the Thirties'', Worsley records his impressions of Hahn's penetrating character analysis, and his energy and commitment in the cause of human development, but as time went on he became critical of Hahn's "despotic, overpowering personality":
He revealed himself as having a fierce temper, a strong hand with the cane, and a temperament which hated being crossed. Especially damaging to my very English view, was his dislike of being defeated at any game. Hahn was an avid tennis player. But was it an easily forgiveable weakness that his opponents had to be chosen for being his inferiors or else, if their form was unknown, instructed not to let themselves win?
Hahn's behaviour came to seem to Worsley "so ineffably, so Germanically silly"
that he was unable to share the clear adulation of the teaching staff:
We were going through the classrooms when, in one, he suddenly stopped, gripped my arm, raised his nostrils in the air, and then, in his marked German accent, he solemnly pronounced:
'Somevon has been talking dirt in this room. I can smell it.'
Hahn's views on
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
led to an open disagreement:
He had what I have since learned to be a common German belief that Shakespeare was better in German than in English. I refused to allow this. I argued that the German translation might indeed be very good, but that the English original must be ''better''. No, he assured me, the German was ''better''; and as I didn't know German and he did know English, he must be right. We grew absurdly heated.
Six Declines of Modern Youth
During his lifetime, Hahn summarised his beliefs about the younger generation at the time into six key points, describing them as the Six Declines of Modern Youth:
# Decline of Fitness due to modern methods of locomotion;
# Decline of Initiative and Enterprise due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis (i.e. "excessive indulgence in forms of amusement in which one is a passive spectator rather than an active participant");
# Decline of Memory and Imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life;
# Decline of Skill and Care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship;
# Decline of Self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of stimulants and tranquillisers;
# Decline of Compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted or, as
William Temple called it, "spiritual death".
Hahn also proposed four solutions to these problems, all of which manifested themselves in a variety of ways at Salem, Gordonstoun, Atlantic College, and with Outward Bound:
# Fitness Training (e.g., to compete with oneself in physical fitness; in so doing, train the discipline and determination of the mind through the body);
# Expeditions (e.g., via sea or land, to engage in long, challenging endurance tasks);
# Projects (e.g., involving crafts and manual skills);
# Rescue Service (e.g., surf lifesaving, fire fighting, first aid).
Ten Expeditionary Learning Principles
These 10 principles, which seek to describe a caring, adventurous school culture and approach to learning, were drawn from the ideas of Kurt Hahn and other education leaders for use in Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound (ELOB) schools.
The Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School
In the fall of 2007,
The Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School opened in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York. The school's mission is to prepare informed, skilled, courageous civic leaders, and it is named after Kurt Hahn because he embodied these values.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
* Knoll, Michael (2011)
School reform through experiential therapy: Kurt Hahn - an efficious educator.* Knoll, Michael, ed. (1998). ''Kurt Hahn: Reform mit Augenmaß. Ausgewählte Schriften eines Politikers und Pädagogen''. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
* Veevers, Nick; Pete, Allison (2011). ''Kurt Hahn: Inspirational, Visionary, Outdoor and Experiential Educator''. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
* Wilhelm Henze, ed. (1991): ''Bernhard Zimmermann - Hermann Nohl - Kurt Hahn. Ein Beitrag zur Reformpädagogik''. 1991.
* David Sutcliffe, Kurt Hahn and the United World Colleges with other Founding Figures. 2012.
External links
KurtHahn.orgKurt Hahn TrustOutward BoundOutward Bound International
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hahn, Kurt Matthias Robert Martin
1886 births
1974 deaths
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
Heidelberg University alumni
Converts to Protestantism from Judaism
Scottish Jews
Founders of Scottish schools and colleges
German educational theorists
20th-century educational theorists
Outdoor educators
Outward Bound
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom
Youth empowerment people
Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
20th-century British educators
Founders of educational institutions
Founders of British schools and colleges
Founders of schools in the United States
Founders of Nigerian schools and colleges
20th-century German educators
20th-century philanthropists