As of: February 22, 2024, 7:15 a.m
By: Andrea Kästle
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When it came out that Otfried-Preußler had written a Hitler Youth novel, the school took a critical look at its namesake.
© düren/dpa
Because of a controversial HJ novel by the well-known author Otfried Preußler, the high school named after him in Pullach is to be renamed.
The local council has now decided this with a large majority.
Pullach
- The Pullach local council is by a clear majority in favor of the local high school reversing the name after Otfried Preußler.
This came out at the committee meeting; only two representatives of the CSU, Christine Eisenmann and Sebastian Westenthanner, voted for the school to keep its name.
After a clear majority of teachers, parents and students from the “school family” also campaigned for a renaming to “Staatliches Gymnasium Pullach”, the decision now rests with the special purpose association.
It meets again in March, and the local politicians who belong to it are now required to vote in accordance with the local council resolution.
CSU skeptical about research results
The discussion in the community center was extensive, but not heated.
All factions spoke up except for the two representatives from Pullach Plus.
The exchange of opinions was opened by Christine Eisenmann, who said that not everything could be clearly proven in the report in which the school summarized its Preußler research.
One cannot know, for example, whether an editor had not intervened in the manuscript of “Erntelager Geyer”, the Hitler Youth novel by Preußler, whose existence the school only recently found out about;
whereupon she began to research Preußler further.
Eisenmann: “How much of Preußler comes from this book, there are different opinions about that.” She quoted Bernd Posselt, spokesman for the Sudeten German ethnic group, who had spoken of a “witch hunt for the author of The Little Witch” and referred to the Preußler biographer Carsten Gansel, whose book is considered outdated in research.
Eisenmann said Preußler has been honored many times and his 38 books have been translated into 55 languages.
She said, “I don’t like what’s happening here.”
School should no longer have a name
As I said, my colleagues on the committee saw things differently.
Fabian Müller-Klug (Greens) said that one must respect the fact that the “vast majority” at the school can no longer identify with the namesake Preußler.
Preußler never distanced himself sufficiently from his first novel.
On behalf of the WiP, Reinhard Vennekold explained that the local council had already been against naming the school after Preußler eleven years ago, and that this is exactly the opinion they should now stick to: “A school without a name is quite good.” Michael Reich (FDP) again quoted the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf and found that the point was that freedom had to be defended under all circumstances, especially in times of lack of freedom, "Preußler didn't do that."
The naming after Preußler was “pushed through” by the school management at the time.
In his assessment of the writer, Holger Ptacek (SPD) was more concerned with the fact that he had never acknowledged his youthful literary sin.
However, one cannot blame him for having committed this youthful sin.
“His father was an enthusiastic Nazi,” and he grew up during the Nazi era.
Ptacek also said that naming the school after Preußler was “pushed through” by the school management at the time and was never desired.
The decision was then made with a vote of 16:2.
Eleven years ago, when the name was first discussed, the vote was 15:2 - also against the name Preußler.