Ahrends bruno buehnenhalle schule am meer 1929

Schule am Meer, Engl. ''School by the Sea'',

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

בית ספר ליד הים, also known as ''S.a.M.'' or ''SaM'', was a private, holistically oriented

coed Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

progressive

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

on the East Frisian island of

Juist Juist () ( nds, Juist) is an island and municipality in the district of Aurich in Lower Saxony in Germany. The island is one of seven East Frisian Islands at the edge of the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea in the southern North Sea. It is located between B ...

in the

Free State of Prussia The Free State of Prussia (german: Freistaat Preußen, ) was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the domin ...

German Reich German ''Reich'' (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from german: Deutsches Reich, ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty ...

, located between

Wadden Sea The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern conti ...

and

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. The boarding school was operated by ''Stiftung Schule am Meer'', a

private foundation A private foundation is a tax-exempt organization not relying on broad public support and generally claiming to serve humanitarian purposes. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private foundation in the U.S. with over $38 billion ...

whose

board of trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

consisted of the Swiss educator (1884–1961), the Austrian painter

Fritz Hafner Fritz Hafner (10 December 1877, Vienna, Austria – 21 November 1964, Juist, East Frisia, Ostfriesland, West Germany) was an Austrian-German painter and visual arts educator. Life When he was a boy, Hafner had already developed a talent for ...

,Teacher's records of Schule am Meer, Juist, p. 6 (Fritz Hafner, Vienna). In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Kiel (= Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel), Legacy Luserke, Martin, call number Cb 37 the German industrialist, art collector and patron of the arts Alfred Hess from

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

, the progressive educator

Martin Luserke Martin Luserke (3 May 1880 in Schöneberg near Berlin, Prussia, German Reich – 1 June 1968 in Meldorf, Holstein, Germany) was a progressive pedagogue, a bard, writer and theatre maker. He was one of the leading figures of German progressive ...

from

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 ...

,Teacher's records of Schule am Meer, Juist, p. 1 (Martin Otto Rudolf Luserke, Berlin). In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Kiel (= Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel), Legacy Luserke, Martin, call number Cb 37 the social scientist Elisabeth Jaffé, née

Freiin (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , literally "free lord" or "free lady") and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire ...

von Richthofen originating from

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...

, and the chemist (1886–1932) from

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...

. Aeschlimann, Hafner, Luserke and Reiner were active teachers at ''S.a.M.'' and among the school's founders. The foundation got co-financed by the Prussian state. Still most funds had to be brought up by the board of trustees, by the student's parents via

tuition payments Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spending (by governments and other public bo ...

, by monetary

donation A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs such as blo ...

s or contributions in kind. Most musical instruments of the boarding school got donated by

Robert Wichard Pohl Robert Wichard Pohl (10 August 1884 – 5 June 1976) was a German physicist at the University of Göttingen. Nevill Francis Mott described him as the "father of solid state physics". See also: "Components of the solid state", Nevill Mott, New Sci ...

, a

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a ...

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

was donated by Paul Reiner's wife (1891–1972), née Hochschild, a qualified nurse helper who also acted as a substitute teacher for the elementary/primary and the intermediate/lower secondary level. ''Schule am Meer'' was the first

progressive school Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''pro ...

in Germany to be set up on an island in the sea. It is considered the first regular German

open air school Open air schools or schools of the woods were purpose-built educational institutions for children, that were designed to prevent and combat the widespread rise of tuberculosis that occurred in the period leading up to the Second World War. The s ...

, which from grade 5 to grade 13 led to

graduation Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is a ...

(Reifeprüfung,

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

). Due to its open air status, in some cases it was chosen by parents of children and youth with health issues like

bronchial asthma Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, coug ...

, which for instance affected the Austrian mountaineer and ''S.a.M.'' studen
Ulrich Sild
(1911–1937) from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

who graduated at ''Schule am Meer'' in March 1931. It was the only German school that built its own free-standing theatre hall in 1930/31, right during

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, which was also intended to train amateur play teachers throughout German Reich. This and the remaining other large building ''Arche'' (= Arch) of the former school today are due to demolition. In contrast to most state-run schools, it placed a special emphasis on training its students in the

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (the ...

and

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

, sports, crafts and gardening. It also considered scientific, artistic and sporting subjects as of equal value. The boarding school existed from the beginning of May 1925 to the end of March 1934 and quickly developed some national reputation, amongst others by its orchestra and choir, both founded and conducted by the most talented concert pianist, composer and music educator

Eduard Zuckmayer Eduard Zuckmayer (3 August 1890 – 2 July 1972) was a German music educator, composer, conductor and pianist. He was the older brother of the famous German writer Carl Zuckmayer (1896–1977). Family and Youth He was the first son of wealthy ...

, but most notably by its stage play. It got support by senior guest students and teachers from England, France and the United States, especially for language classes and stage plays, the latter performed in German, English and French. Despite being competitors there was also some support among the

s throughout German Reich, a temporary exchange of students and teachers as well as visits of senior classes for topical discussions like from , led by progressive educator (1885–1951), née as Fritz Krakauer. Among other visitors had been progressive

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

educator (1877–1955) with his students. ''Schule am Meer'' was practicing "

grassroots democracy Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes that shift as much decision-making authority as practical to the organization's lowest geographic or social level of organization. Grassroots organizations can have a var ...

" with a tendency to non-hierarchical structures. Students and teachers were considered as of equal rights and duties. Students actively helped shape the lessons. All individuals of the ''Schulgemeinde'' (= school community), which acted as the boarding school's "

legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as p ...

council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...

" participated in a shared decision-making process. Comradeships, the subdivisions of the community were formed out of about ten students of different age and sex, not related to classes in any way. As a leader of each comradeship, a teacher was characterized as "

primus inter pares ''Primus inter pares'' is a Latin phrase meaning first among equals. It is typically used as an honorary title for someone who is formally equal to other members of their group but is accorded unofficial respect, traditionally owing to their sen ...

" and got addressed either by first name or nickname, the latter sometimes an abbreviation or a

cacography Cacography is bad spelling or bad handwriting. The term in the sense of "poor spelling, accentuation, and punctuation" is a semantic antonym to orthography, and in the sense of "poor handwriting" it is an etymological antonym to the word calligrap ...

of the teacher's surname. Those comradeships were named as ''

Bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...

s'', ''

Bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, includin ...

s'', ''

Dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

s'', ''

Foal A foal is an equine up to one year old; this term is used mainly for horses, but can be used for donkeys. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal, and are used until the horse is three or four. When the foal i ...

s'', ''

Seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

s'', ''

Penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

s'', ''

Pinniped Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walru ...

s'', ''

Vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

s'' and ''

Wolve The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

s'', created their logos and raised their own pennants. The comradeships turned out similar to a family-like structure, out of which most life-lasting friendships between many of the students and teachers emerged. The boarding school was closed due to Nazi "

Gleichschaltung The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...

" and state-run

anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

, forcibly carried out by the islanders of Juist who already denounced the boarding school as Jewish since its foundation in 1925. Several of the students and their parents as well as some teachers had to emigrate from Nazi Germany due to political or anti-Semitic prosecution. They went to North and South America, South Africa,

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

, Spain, France, England, Switzerland and other places, where several of them were able to make an encyclopedically relevant career in the industry, in sciences, in the arts, in photography or in journalism. All of them spread the word and shared their memories about a unique boarding school on a remote island in the sea.

Related people (selection)

The following list is focussing on those related people who got a biography at the English Wikipedia, so it is no representative cross section, but already containing major names. *

Bruno Ahrends Bruno Ahrends (1878–1948), born as Bruno Arons, was an internationally known German architect, who worked in Berlin, Germany. He was a representative of Berlin Modernism Housing Estates before World War I and during Weimar Republic (1910s to 1 ...

(1878–1948), architect and ''S.a.M.'' parent * (1920–2008), ''S.a.M.'' student * (1892–1951), progressive educator, ''S.a.M.'' parent, founder of German, Swiss and US boarding schools, see ''

Windsor Mountain School The Windsor Mountain School was a private, co-ed boarding school for grades 9 through 12 located in Lenox, Massachusetts. History The school was established in Lenox in 1944 by German Jewish educational reformer Max Bondy and his wife Gertrud ...

'' * (1911–1996), ''S.a.M.'' graduate *

Eugen Diederichs Eugen Diederichs (June 22, 1867 – September 10, 1930) was a German publisher born in Löbitz, in the Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian Province of Saxony. Diederichs started his publishing company in Florence, Italy, in 1896. He moved on to Leipzi ...

(1867–1930), publisher, ''S.a.M.'' sponsor * Dr. Alfred Döblin, MD (1878–1957), psychologist, writer and ''S.a.M.'' parent *

Adolphe Ferrière Adolphe Ferrière (1879 in Geneva – 1960 in Geneva) was one of the founders of the progressive education movement. He worked for a brief time in a school in Glarisegg (TG, CH) and later founded an experimental school ('La Forge') in Lausanne, ...

(1879–1960), Swiss progressive educator *

Hans Freyer Hans Freyer (31 July 1887 – 18 January 1969) was a German conservative revolutionary sociologist and philosopher. Life Freyer began studying theology, national economics, history and philosophy at the University of Greifswald in 1907, with the ...

(1887–1969), sociologist, historian and philosopher *

Adolf Grimme Adolf Berthold Ludwig Grimme (31 December 1889 – 27 August 1963) was a German politician, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was Cultural Minister during the later years of the Weimar Republic and after World War II, during the ...

(1889–1963), politician, Prussian Minister of Science, Art and Education, ''S.a.M.'' sponsor *

(1877–1969), ''S.a.M.'' teacher * Heinz Friedrich Hartig (1907–1969), ''S.a.M.'' teacher * (1876–1946),

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

(

English studies English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which ...

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 ...

expert, held lectures at ''S.a.M.'' * Alfred Hess (1879–1931), industrialist, art collector, patron of the arts, ''S.a.M.'' parent, ''S.a.M.'' foundation board of trustees * Hans Hess (1907–1975), ''S.a.M.'' student * Dr. Elisabeth Jaffé (1874–1973), sociologist, ''S.a.M.'' foundation board of trustees * Adolf Köster (1883–1930), German minister of the Exterior, German minister of the Interior, ambassador and ''S.a.M.'' parent *

Hedda Korsch Hedda Korsch (née Hedwig Franceska Luisa Gagliardi; August 20, 1890 – July 11, 1982) was a German educationalist and university professor who emigrated to the United States. Hedda was born into a bourgeois family who provided her with an intel ...

(1890–1982), co-founder of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

(KPD), educationalist, who temporarily taught at ''S.a.M.'' * Beate Köstlin (1919–2001), ''S.a.M.'' student *

Walter Georg Kühne Walter Georg Kühne (February 26, 1911 in Berlin – March 16, 1991 ibid.) was a German paleontologist, known as a "legendary explorer of Mesozoic mammals". He graduated in March 1930 from reform boarding school ''Schule am Meer'' on the island of ...

(1911–1991), ''S.a.M.'' graduate * Felicitas Kestner (1914–2001), ''S.a.M.'' student *

Ernst Kurth Ernst Kurth (1 June 1886, in Vienna – 2 August 1946, in Bern) was a Swiss music theorist of Austrian origin. Career Kurth studied musicology with Guido Adler (a student of Bruckner and Hanslick) in Vienna, and earned his Ph.D. (1908) with a ...

(1886–1946), Swiss music theorist * Paula Ludwig, Austrian-German poet and ''S.a.M.'' parent *

(1880–1968), ''S.a.M.'' headmaster, theatermaker, writer, bard *

Heinrich Meyer Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer (10 January 1800 – 21 June 1873) was a German Protestant divine. He wrote commentaries on the ''New Testament'' and published an edition of that book. Biography Meyer was born in Gotha. He studied theology at Jena, ...

(1904–1977), ''S.a.M.'' teacher * Rolf Pappiér (1914–1998), ''S.a.M.'' graduate *

(1884–1976), physicist, ''S.a.M.'' sponsor *

Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen (30 July 1878 – 12 August 1964) was a Danish engineer and industrialist. Life The son of a shipmaster who died when Rasmussen was still a young child, he attended middle school in Nakskov and in 1894 began an app ...

(1878–1964), Danish engineer, industrialist and ''S.a.M.'' parent * (1910–1998), ''S.a.M.'' graduate *

Christian Rohlfs Christian Rohlfs (November 22, 1849 – January 8, 1938) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the important representatives of German expressionism. Early life and education He was born in Groß Niendorf, Kreis Segeberg in Prussia. ...

(1849–1938),

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painter and printmaker, ''S.a.M.'' sponsor *

Ludwig Roselius Ludwig Roselius (2 June 1874 – 15 May 1943) was a German coffee merchant and founder of the company Kaffee HAG. He was born in Bremen and is credited with the development of commercial decaffeination of coffee. As a patron, he supported arti ...

(1874–1943), coffee merchant, art collector and patron of the arts, ''S.a.M.'' sponsor * Prof. Dr. Alfred Weber (1868–1958), economist, geographer, sociologist and theoretician of culture *

Carl Zuckmayer Carl Zuckmayer (27 December 1896 – 18 January 1977) was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer. Life and career Born in Nackenheim in Rhenish Hesse, he was t ...

(1896–1977), writer and playwright, visited and cooperated temporarily with his older brother Eduard and Luserke at ''S.a.M.'' *

(1890–1972), ''S.a.M.'' musicianTeacher's records of ''Schule am Meer'', Juist, p. 9 (Eduard Zuckmayer, Nackenheim). In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Kiel (= Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel), Legacy Luserke, Martin, call number Cb 37

References

{{Authority control Progressive education Co-educational boarding schools Weimar Republic Boarding schools in Germany Private schools in Germany Schools in Lower Saxony Juist Educational institutions established in the 1920s Educational institutions disestablished in the 1930s