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The founder of the first independent and non-state-funded research institute for prehistory and early history in Germany in 1921, the UFI in Tübingen, Robert Rudolf Schmidt, deserves to be looked at again for a key phase of his life after his dismissal from university service in the spring of 1934 that has received little attention to date. And this despite the fact that his person has already been assessed several times from an academic perspective. New documents from private archives supplement his researcher CV and are suitable for re-examining narratives about his person that have already been presented from a different perspective. This applies in particular to the excavation he carried out in the Palaeolithic caves of Mauern near Rennertshofen in Bavaria, which had previously eluded closer scrutiny. During his scientific work in the 20th century, he was active in five political systems. In the German Empire (until 1918), in the Weimar Republic (until 1933), in National Socialism (until 1945), in the Allied period (until 1949) and in the last months of his life in the Federal Republic of Germany (from 1949), whose demands he faced and whose leeway he tried to utilise for his prehistoric research, but which he failed at several times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the German Emperor Period—aside of the few state-financed foreign "propaganda" schools—German private schools in external countries were put under the influence of German foreign cultural policy. The focusing on political consideration increased afterWWIas result of the treaty ofVersailles.As part of the heavily discussed foreign policy the mobilization of these schools in foreign countries for the use for propaganda seems restricted until the National Socialists within their aggressive policy changed and made use of these schools in foreign countries for their foreign cultural policy. For a short time, this was realized by the National Socialist Teachers League creating inside a Foreign School District. To study the result of their activity in the archives only few documents have survived for research explaining the work and its ideology, stressing the teachers engaged with their role of a cultural ambassador of the Nazi movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On September 12, 1949, the liberal politician Theodor Heuss, party leader of the „Freie Demokratische Partei" (FDP), was elected by the Bundesversammlung (Federal Convention) as the first Bundespräsident, i. e. head of state, of the newly founded Bundesrepublik Deutschland. As a young man Heuss had been a close friend and political ally of Friedrich Naumann, the protestant pastor and left wing liberal politician, supported by Ernst Troeltsch. Heuss then working as a political journalist for liberal newspapers and Naumann's weekly journal Die Hilfe, was an admirer of Troeltsch, and since 1910 they often met in Heidelberg, at Villa Fallenstein, Ziegelhäuser Landstraße 17, where Max and Marianne Weber as well als the Troeltschs lived; Heuss frequently visited Max Weber's Sunday jour fixe. When in 1915 Troeltsch became a professor at the Philosophical Faculty of Berlin University Heuss regularly kept in contact with him especially through Hans Delbrück's „Mittwochabend", a weekly gathering of liberal intellectuals, professors, politicians and journalists discussing political reforms and the ongoing war. Both Troeltsch and Heuss, 19 years younger, demanded the democratization of the Deutsches Reich, and after the end of the war and the revolution of 1918/19 they became members of the newly founded left wing liberal party „Deutsche Demokratische Partei" (DDP). After Troeltsch's sudden death on February 1st, 1923, Heuss wrote an obituary, and, together with his wife Elly Heuss-Knapp, attended the funeral service conducted by Adolf von Harnack. Heuss was a member of the „Demokratischer Klub Berlin", founded in 1919 by liberal politicians, bankers and academics to regularly discuss the political situation of the new democratic state, the Weimar Republic. Unknown until now, seven weeks after Troeltsch's death the „Demokratische Klub" invited its members (the club only had male mebers!) to a memorial act for Troeltsch. On this occasion Heuss delivered a speech „Zu Ernst Troeltschs Gedächtnis" („To the Memory of Ernst Troeltsch") which is published here for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions of adult and further education as such are signs of modernity -- irrespective of the given political systems. The Volkshochschule in Germany is no exception to this functional relationship; it is, however, singularly characterized by a genuine affinity to the system of democracy. The basic democratic values of freedom, equality, law, and solidarity are as well fundamental to Volkshochschule, this unique house of free education and learning in the public sphere. The repeated change of political regimes on German soil has not been irrelevant to the Volkshochschule: When democracy was strong in Germany, the Volkshochschule thrived. In furthering critical thinking and keeping democracy alive, the role of the Volkshochschule must not be underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]