Stuttgart revisited

 

March to July 1973 I spent part of my year abroad in Stuttgart. The UK had just joined Europe commercially. I was in the third year of my four year BA Dual Hons French and German at the University of Sheffield. My future mother-in-law had suggested Stuttgart as a good place to go for the German part of my time abroad.

“It’s a really special place,” she said.  “The people there are extraordinary.”

This lady is the Renate from our stories.

She then went on to tell us about the school that the Nazis wanted to destroy.  First the home guard was ordered to do it and they refused.  So the task was given to the Hitler Youth.  They also refused. The BDM had to do it.  There was no way that they could refuse. But they got the children out first.  As soon as the war ended the school opened again. Renate was never specific about which school she meant but my researches have made me conclude that it was the one that operated in the cellar of the house on Schellberg Street.

I loved my time in Stuttgart. I was invited back last year to talk about the Schellberg Cylce.  Unfortunately the pandemic hit so this was no longer possible.  

My father-in-law died recently and a couple of weeks ago we cleared out his house. My husband is currently digitising all of his slides. These include ones from a visit he and his parents made to Stuttgart in 1957. I immediately recognised the places and the people in them.

In 1973 I lived in Degerloch, very close to the television tour. My mother-in-law put me in touch with the Behnisch family. Hannah Behnisch was her very best friend.  This is NOT  Hani in the cycle.  She is completely made up. However, just like her mother, Frau Gödde, Hannah’s mother visited Clara Lehrs in the ghetto.

My husband found pictures of him,  his parents and the Behnisch family in Degerloch. I got to know that family quite well during my stay. They lived in the neighbouring village of Sillenbuch. The two girls are roughly the same age as me and the younger brother was often dispatched on his motor cycle to come and inform me that I was invited over to some event or other at the weekend. These included joining the family for Sunday lunch, going on excursions to the cinema, improvised concerts amongst neighbours on rainy Sunday afternoons and several visits to the Waldorf School to help with English lessons or to attend special events.

When I told the two elderly sisters from whom I rented a room of my connection with the town, their eyes grew round. “Oh, yes, Haus Lehrs is on the Schellbergstrasse.” Back then I didn’t realise just how significant it was.

A great joy this week has been that my husband has found in this collection a photo of Clara’s house. It is exactly as I always imagined it.  Have I perhaps seen a photo of it before?  I’m not going to post it on here – the house is blocked out on Google street view and I want to respect the current owner’s desire for privacy.

But I am going to commission an artist’s impression of it.            

 Image by Harald Matern from Pixabay      

A Waldorf School Education

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The First Waldorf School in Stuttgart      

T      This opened 1919

·         By 1924 it had twelve year groups

·         The children of workers at the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Company came in response to the initiative of founders Emil and Berta Molt.

·         When Hani joined the school in 1931 it had several classes in each year group.   

·         Steiner wanted the school to be in the direction of independence of the economic, governmental and cultural realms.

Discuss with other in your groups why such a school needed to exist in those days in Germany and why Hani’s parents wanted her to join it. Report your conclusion to the rest of your class.

Educational principles in the Waldorf School

Steiner insisted on the following for his schools:  

1.      The school should be open to all children;

2.      It should be coeducational;

3.      It should that it be a unified twelve-year school;

4.      The teachers, those individuals actually in contact with the children, should have primary control over the pedagogy of the school, with a minimum of interference from the state or from economic sources.

Discuss in your groups how this compares with your school. Are the differences important? You may need some help with number 4.  Talk to your teachers.  

The Waldorf School Day

The Waldorf school day is divided up into three main parts: head, heart, and hands. The Head lesson is also referred to as the Main Lesson and is done first thing in the morning. After a break, the Heart subjects follow. Heart subjects include drawing and painting, drama, foreign languages, music, and so on. The afternoon is reserved for Hands. This is PE, dance, handwork (knitting, woodworking, etc.), gardening, and other physical activities.   

Were your primary school days like this? Can you rearrange your present school timetable according to this? Does it fit?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

Hani - A German Childhood 1925-1938

(Picture by  Hans Braxmeier via Pixabay)

Hani is a completely made up character.  Below are some of the ideas that helped to shape her.  

Can you imagine what it must have been like for money to keep changing value? How much shopping you would have to do in one go?

Can you produce a spread sheet to show money changing in value rapidly? And how would that affect the way you spent it?

What would be the most sensible things to buy?

Stuttgart, a town surrounded by woods and countryside  

Stuttgart is one of the towns built on seven hills. There are areas of woodland. In Bad Canstatt there was an open air swimming pool which got its water from the Mombach spring nearby. Stuttgart can be very warm in summer and gets plenty of snow in the winter. Hani and her friends would live though all four seasons.   

 How does this compare with where you lived when you were a young child?  

 

The school in Stuttgart

In the stories, Hani is not getting on well in her school. Her mother meets Clara Lehrs and decides to send Hani to the original Waldorf School in Stuttgart.  

Steiner education:

• Works for all children irrespective of academic ability, class, ethnicity or religion;
• Takes account of the needs of the whole child – academic, physical, emotional and spiritual;
• Is based on an understanding of the relevance of the different phases of child development;
• Develops a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school;
• Sees artistic activity and the development of the imagination as integral to learning;

Does your school do this?  How well does it do this? Give examples.

Places that Clara Lehrs knew

 Mecklenburg

Flat country side: ponds and marshes 

Jews living there: bankers, lawyers, doctors, rabbis 

Germans: poor

Clara lived in the Schwerin part of Mecklenburg.

There is a beautiful castle in Schwerin  

Berlin

Clara enjoyed café society.

She took the children riding on the trams.

She lived there at the time of the ‘belle époque.”

Lots of green space was created in Berlin.

It changed a lot in the 30 years she lived there. 

Lauenstein

This was a residential centre for children with severe learning difficulties.

Clara was house-keeper.

It was in Jena.

Her daughter and son-in-law also lived in Jena.

It was based on Rudolf Steiner’s ideas. 

Stuttgart

Clara sold her pearls to help finance the house on Schellberg Street.

It was used to board students and teachers of the first Waldorf School.

It was called the “little Goethenaum”.

She allowed a class of disabled children to meet in her cellar.

There is a”Stolperstein” outside the house now.