Otto Felix Kanitz

Otto Felix Kanitz ( born February 5, 1894 in Vienna, † March 29 1940 in the Buchenwald concentration camp ) was an Austrian socialist, educationalist, writer, politician and representative of individual psychology.

Childhood and family

Otto Felix Kanitz was the son of a Jewish Viennese court and court lawyer Alfred Kanitz ( son of manufacturer Mayer Kanitz and Katharina Mandel) and his wife and cousin Sidonie born Kanitz ( daughter of Bernhard Kanitz and the Pink Rooster ) in Vienna 7th, Mariahilferstraße 76, was born.

His parents divorced in 1902; the three sons Meinard (born 1891, fled Nazi persecution to Argentina ), George ( b. 1892) and Otto were awarded to the father, the only daughter, Frances, came to the mother. When his father a year later married a Catholic, he slew the sons of baptize and educate Catholic, but in a kk Orphanage in order not to burden the relationship with the young woman. Otto graduated five classes of elementary school, three years public school and then began an apprenticeship.

His mother Sidonie Kanitz died on 14 October 1927 in Vienna as a lawyer widow ( Otto's father had died before her so ) and was buried in the New Jewish section of the Central Cemetery, Gate 4. Your obituary in the " Neue Freie Presse" of 19 October 1927, drawn only from the remaining with her ​​daughter Franzi, the three sons were subsumed under other relatives.

Political commitment

In 1911 dedicated Kanitz as a campaigner for the Social Democrats Max Winter, in 1912 he spoke to youth groups. 1916 called up for militia service with the weapon, he was next to it even when the kids friends worked, to which he came through Hermione Weinreb well. In addition, he was preparing for the Matura ago, wrote poems, plays and wrote reviews for the magazine founded in 1916 Kinderland. Journal of the Austrian workers 'and peasants' children.

After graduating in 1918, he was hired as an educational speaker at the Children friends and began studying philosophy and pedagogy. When his mentor Anton Afritsch is next to Hermione Weinreb who called him her spiritual son, especially noteworthy.

The encounter with his professor Wilhelm Jerusalem helped the Catholic -educated Jews to tolerance and to clearly differentiate the religion of ecclesiastical power claims which have been vehemently opposed by the Social Democrats. Mockery of religion and "cheap" free-thinking he refused.

Children's Friends

The 1919 -25s was the line of the first major holiday camp of Austrian children and friends, an organization of social democracy, entrusted: In an abandoned refugee camp in Gmünd were in two turnusses each 700 children attend to.

Kanitz led these two camps was the first Austrian children republics, where by democratically elected representatives and the general assembly problems of living together were discussed and participation was possible. The children 's Republic of pedagogy, however, developed in Austria less pronounced than later in the German hawks movement.

The young man in Gmünd success prompted the leaders to confer on him the management of the Schönbrunn educator school. Under enormous pressure of time needed according to official communication from the children's friends at Schönbrunn Palace is related areas provided within three days. Kanitz therefore traveled in a lightning operation with 100 children from the summer camp Gmünd (the children's group was, however, directed by Anton Tesarek ).

1922 closed Kanitz the study of pedagogy with the dissertation on family education, state education and society from education. From 1921 to 1934 he designed the journal The Socialist Education and made also an author of scientific works a name. Fighter of the future was of course on the Nazi combustion lists of 1933.

SAJ

From the 1920s on, he was particularly involved in the Socialist Workers Youth, was in January 1926 Chairman of the Vienna SAJ, 1930 Federal umpire. That he, chummy role model and advisor was the young people who joined at that time, noted in particular Bruno Kreisky in his memoirs.

From 1932 to 1934, he was appointed by the federal state of Vienna, Member of the Bundesrat, the second chamber of Parliament, which remained functional even after the elimination of the National Council by Dollfuss in March 1933.

The February fights in 1934 and the ban of the Social Democracy by the corporate state dictatorship led him to flee to Brno, where he but, plagued by homesickness and depression, soon returned to Vienna.

Death

In November 1938 he was arrested as a Jew and a member of the Revolutionary Socialists of the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald, where he died on 29 March 1940.

Afterlife

1966 Kanitzgasse the 23rd district of Vienna was named after him.

The nationals by the Nazi regime notified by mail urn with the supposedly originating from Otto Felix Kanitz ash is since the reburial on 9 April 2002 at the Heiligenstadt cemetery in Part N, group 10, grave No. 76

When the anti-authoritarian education in the 1960s and 1970s was currently playing, Kanitz was one of the reissued and much discussed socialist authors of the interwar period. He is considered an important precursor of modern pedagogy.