Otto Glöckel

Otto Gloeckel (* February 8, 1874 Pott village (Lower Austria ); † July 23, 1935 in Vienna ) was a social-democratic politicians and school reformers of the First Republic in Austria.

As the initiator of progressive education in the interwar period - the Viennese school reform - Gloeckel was an advocate of comprehensive school and opponents of educational privileges as well as fighters against the ecclesiastical supremacy in the public schools.

Life

After attending the College of Education Wiener Neustadt Gloeckel was from 1892 primary school teachers on the enamel. He was in 1894 a member of the Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria and joined the Social Democratic Teachers' Union, which had formed around Karl Seitz and Paul Speiser. Since 1897, he was with Leopoldine Gloeckel, nee Pfaff Inger, married, who was also politically active and his reform policies supported. In the same year he was dismissed because of his social democratic ethos of Mayor Karl Lueger from the education service.

From 1907 was Gloeckel imperial parliaments and from April 1919 to October 1920 the first Minister of Education ( Under Secretary of State for Education ) of the First Austrian Republic. From 1918 to 1920 he was a member of the Provisional or Constituent National Assembly, 1920-1934 Member of Parliament.

After the end of the red - black coalition (1918-1920) Gloeckel had to resign as minister of education. He moved in 1920 to Vienna to study conducting as vice chairman of the district school board and from 1922 to 1934 as president of the Vienna Board of Education reforms in a limited space. Under his leadership, the Viennese school reform was carried out.

In 1934, he was under the Austro -fascist corporate state regime as a result of the February revolt on February 12, 1934 at the Gloeckel was not involved, was arrested in his office at the Palais Epstein and taken to the detention camp Wollersdorf. Gloeckel survived the imprisonment only a short time. He died at his home in Gaudenzdorf district.

Work

Gloeckel demanded in 1911 a strict separation of church and school. He was against the compulsion to religious exercises, which strengthened the influence of the clergy on the school system. For this he blamed the Minister and later Prime Minister Count Stürgkh. In 1917 he held the Imperial Parliament his keynote speech on the importance of education in the future, this speech was published only censored in the Habsburg monarchy.

Initiated by his Viennese school reform aimed at a comprehensive school: inside instead of external differentiation of the school system, common school of 10-14 years. An influential opponent was Richard Meister. He also introduced the option to unsubscribe from religious instruction, which class president and head boy, laid down the academic freedom of teachers and ran a democratization of the school area.

Particularly significant is his so-called secular embossed Gloeckel - order, which sets the mandatory student participation in religious instruction and daily school prayer were abolished. His aim was, among others, the democratization of schools through organizational and substantive participation of teachers, parents and students, and a departure from the pure learning school ( " school drill "). He founded the German educational institutions. In his decree of 22 April 1919, he allowed women the freedom of access to universities. He promoted the Schönbrunn school educators and appointed the educational reformer Wilhelm Jerusalem in 1919 as an associate and in 1923 a full professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna.

Honors

• Otto Gloeckel received an honorary dedicated grave in the cemetery Meidlinger (Dept. B, Group 1, number G 54)
• Plaque at the former city council building with the bronze relief by Erich Pieler. During the renovation of the Palais Epstein 2005, the plaque was removed and mounted only after public protests again. In the period from 1954-1958, the panel illustrated was temporarily at the house Türkenstraße 3 in Vienna Alsergrund.
• Plaque on his home facility in Vienna, Gaudenzdorfergürtel 47
• Award of the Otto Gloeckel medal by the city of Vienna, which was donated on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 1974.

• Schools: In the 13th district of Vienna Hietzing and in Linz ( Otto - Gloeckel School ), St. Pölten, Wiener Neustadt.
• Public traffic areas: In his native village of Pott and in the 22nd district of Vienna Danube city as well as in Grödig, Luftenberg, Mattersburg, Neunkirchen, Traiskirchen.

Works

• School and clericalism. Publisher of the Viennese popular bookstore, Vienna 1911.
• The goal of the future. Publisher of the Association Free School, Vienna, 1919.
• November 12 - education reform and public education in the republic. Publisher of the Viennese popular bookstore, Vienna 1919.
• The Austrian school reform. Some findings in the struggle against the school spoiler. Publisher Viennese popular bookstore, Vienna 1923.
• The development of the Viennese school system since 1919. German Verlag, Wien 1927.
• Drill school, learning school, work, school. Publisher of the Social Democratic Party, Vienna 1928.
• Autobiography. Cooperative Printing, Zurich 1938.