(HP Baer: Dieser Artikel war fuer meine Kinder gedacht - daher auf englisch...)
The "ABITUR" is the ticket to higher education in Germany.
It is the final highschool examination and diploma (high school used to be
called "Gymnasium" - an old term not relating to physical education
but mental gymnastics...). The Abitur diploma was the minimal requirement for
entry into university. This exam, involving both oral and written performances,
is the culmination of 9 years of advanced schooling. Or the final revelation of
9 years of anxiety and doomsday nightmares which, in fact, never are erased form your brain: Even today I
sometimes have dreams where I imagine myself facing yet another
"Abitur" exam, realizing that I have forgotten all of my skills and
knowledge in Latin, math, or what have you. One thought which sustained me
throughout those 9 years of gymnasium schooling was the gut feeling that in the
end I should be able to pass - considering the many previous graduates walking
the streets of town who, I felt, could not possibly be any better than me. Still,
how could I be sure?
One way to be sure is to know, or at least have a general idea about, the questions and tasks you would
have to face in the exam. Who has not cheated once or twice in the course of
his/her education? Trouble was, if you were caught cheating in the Abitur exam
you were finished. No recourse. (A good friend of mine, Alfred L., with whom I did
much climbing in the Alps, met this fate: he did night school and was caught
cheating during the finals, barring his access to university and other
educational opportunities for life!). I was not prepared to take this risk. But, as the following revelations will show you, there are other ways in which
higher intelligence can be applied to the problem at hand. Now you will be the
judge whether the 1957 Abitur Caper at the Gymnasium Michelstadt represents a
case of fraud or of higher intelligence and whether your dad should be stripped
of all his titles, diplomas and professional honors....
To begin with, a few introductory comments. When entering
"Gymnasium" in 1948 or 49, i.e. after passing the entrance
examination (myself being the only candidate from the village of
Weiten-Gesaess), enough students were admitted to fill three parallel classes.
Some came directly from the town of Michelstadt, others came on foot (like
myself) or by bike from the surrounding villages, and a large number of
students came by train from as far away as Sandbach in one direction and
Hetzbach in the other. The Michelstadt students were largely kept in one class,
and I ended up in a class with commuter students. Halfway through those 9 years
of Gymnasium, some students had dropped out and two parallel classes were
formed. I ended up in the "Michelstadt" class. This class had a bad
reputation: Michelstadt was the economic center of the Odenwald, thus a good
number of the students came from well-to-do if not wealthy families whose lifestyles
differed from those of the working class and farmer people who sent their
children from the villages. Some of these habits conflicted with the necessary
commitment to hard work in class and during homework. A few of the teachers may
have had a hard time accepting this, realizing that some of their students were
economically better of then they themselves (a few students even managed or
were allowed to use their parent's cars - and in those days this was something
special - most teachers did not own a car or even a house or what have you),
and some may have tried to take sweet revenge in playing their own power game -
such as during examinations. One teacher who had problems with this was the
Principal himself: He was a "foreigner", i.e. not a Hessian, speaking
with a northern accent, and he was overweight and lazy according to the still
vivid memory of our home room teacher Jakob Dingeldey at his tender age of 86
(in 1994). He came from somewhere up north, uprooted by the war, and he did not
integrate well with the community. A rumor had it that he served as a circus
director in the early post war years. Of course, sometimes he was under
pressure from local parents to overlook some of the troublemakers in class, and
he resented this. Our class came to be known as the "Magnatenklasse"
- a class with (kids of) managers. He was not our friend, despite the fact that
he taught religion and thus could have been a bit more
"compassionate" and forgiving. And it was to be expected that he
would take his ultimate revenge at the Abitur, making sure we received the
marks we deserved in his mind and perhaps preventing some of us from
graduating.
The pressure clearly mounted in the last few weeks before the big
exam. I always thought that we would have to march into this exam cold - first
the written part in main subjects like German, English, Math and Latin, then
the oral examinations - each student in about two subjects, in front of the
whole collegiate of teacher's, the big, fat Principal conducting his final circus!
It was the oral exams where we expected the Principal to do his best to do us
in.
Then something interesting happened which I did not expect:
Apparently the teachers also were under pressure, because they would have to
parade their students in front of all other teachers! Clearly, if we performed
badly, they were going to be seen as performing badly, too. They as much as we,
the candidates, were interested in us doing well in the exam! This became
evident to me when, a few weeks before the exam, individual teachers began to
talk to students in class or in the hallways, asking us to submit preferred
topics in their respective subjects or handing the one or the other of us a
special assignment.
I remember my English teacher (Kratz): He requested that each of us
submit a topic (a Shakespeare
play, some other area of English culture, a book title etc.) of our choice. I
had just read an interesting book with short stories (in German) from American
black authors. I was fascinated with the book and studied the introductory
comments on these authors and, for the first time, really took an interest in
something to do with literature. I listed this topic ("Contemporary Black
US Authors"). Katz cornered me in the hallways a few days later and wanted
to know how in hell I had come up with such an unusual topic. I told him, and
he then asked me to drop this idea and give him something else. This was an interesting lesson: you never can
study something your teacher does not understand - he did not know the book,
knew nothing of contemporary US authors and was not going to make a joke of
himself examining a student on a subject he did not know anything about. I felt
a bit duped because I thought that I really had come up
with something that interested me - I do not remember whether I ever came up
with another topic. Certainly I was not going to submit something on
Shakespeare whose writings have left me left me cold until this very day.
The next thing was that Katz
as well as other teachers began talking to a few select students more often -
encouraging them to work on their topic, asking them questions in class, having
them make little presentations etc. The case was clear: those student were
likely to be examined in those subjects! The teachers never said so - but it
became very clear that this was the way it was going to be. And slowly some of
us came up with an idea: What we needed to do was to draw up a list, with input
from everybody in class, making best guesses and estimates on who was going to
be examined by whom and in which subjects. We were going to beat the system and
give the Principal the run for his money!
We formed a committee
devoted to collect and collate the necessary intelligence on the examination
plans. I do not remember all details - but the members included myself, HP
Muehlhauser, Volker Bluehm, Fred Rosenberg, Adolf Weimar, Hildegard Feigk...
and Almuth Roeder as well as Hubert Rodemich (and I apologize if there was
someone else who I forgot...). Our headquarter was at V. Bluehm's place.
Our intelligence was
collected as follows: First we asked everyone about which teacher was giving
him or her hints of various sorts (special assignments, a few comments in the
hallways, anything of the unusual), allowing a preliminary conclusion on
whether the student was on in a certain subject. Next, we knew that everyone
could only be tested in 2 subjects at the most and that a likely subject was
the one where his or her mark was not so certain or critical: For example,
someone on the brink of a fail in a subject was going to be given a chance to
salvage himself in the exam - or was going to be pushed over the brink by our
dedicated Principal! If two or three indicators pointed in the same direction,
the probability was high that we could consider the respective subject to
become the student's exam subject.
Some students had made
outright efforts to ask teachers at opportune moments on whether they would be
examined or not. Of course, the teacher was not allowed to release
any information - but sometimes clear conclusions were possible: While teachers
might not want to confirm outright that a student was going to be examined in a
certain subject, they often were inclined to assure a student that he need not
worry - clearly, such negative information was just as valuable as any positive
answer or guess.
Our list was growing - already a few students knew the subjects they were most likely to
examined in. Of course, it also was clear that a given teacher would not be
able or allowed to examine an unusually large number of students in his
subject, and this was used in narrowing down the list.
Now we proceeded to the next
level of intelligence gathering: We targeted those teachers likely to be most
vulnerable. Favored students were put hot on their trail, particularly some of
the girls of course were able to "wrap around their fingers" certain
teachers and "interview" them as best they could. Would they be
examined, more importantly would someone else be examined - here teachers were
likely to divulge a bit more information, perhaps. A lot of detail could be
collected in this way, false ideas eliminated, new information added: Our list
kept growing beautifully.
As exam time drew close, we
redoubled our efforts. Teams of two girls beleaguered some teachers even more, pleading despair. Bit
by bit we were able to come up with a near-complete list for our oral
examination - and students began cramming in those subjects the committee had
concluded were the critical ones for everyone. I myself knew one subject of
mine for sure: Teacher Rehberg had assigned to me a history subject - the
Russian Revolution around the turn of the century, even giving me a special
publication of some 5-6 pages detailing many events of this time period.
History was one of my weak subjects - my standing was a “4",
worse than a C, and the question was, would my Abitur record show a C or a D (3
or 4 according to the German system, where “1" is the top mark and “6' a
full fail). Split grades were not allowed. So, it was logical to expect a
decision on the basis of my exam oral performance - and being given those
special notes and encouraging remarks by the teacher made it clear to me
that
History was on! (I forgot whether I was examined in a second subject or not -
but during my history exam I gave answers before they were asked. My PE teacher
(Busch - see below) told me afterwards that I went through it like a 110 m
hurdle race, not dropping a single one. Apparently, I cited one incorrect year
once - but the Principal seemed to not notice and the teachers all kept their
mouth shut (they as much as we knew that the Mr. Principal was out for the kill
and they did not necessarily support him in this!). I remember that during the
10-15 min exam preparation (after being handed the final assignment on the day
of the exam) I did not even deal with my own preparation but translated a
passage of Latin for one of my friends who was being examined in this subject.
But just two or three days
before the exam date we ran into a problem with our committee: Every student
knew pretty well his or her two exam subjects except one: Klaus Messer! We just
could not figure out what his second subject was going to be, drawing a blank
on account of all our approaches. And he certainly was of no help; instead, he
became obnoxious: He demanded that he, too, should be told where he stood and
demanded action or information, otherwise he would give us trouble!
There was one last
possibility. The father of one of our classmates, Dietrich Busch, was our PE
teacher. Actually, the final decisions regarding the exam schedule were made in
a teacher's meeting just two or three days prior to the exam date. Our list of
examinations was nothing but a high probability listing, and in some cases not
even the teachers themselves could be sure - but following the teacher's
meeting, all would be clear and decided. Dietrich already had filled in some of
our voids by negative elimination, after pressuring his father to help us a
bit. We needed to pressure him just a little more!
So Heinz-Peter Muehlhauser
and myself decided to take some action - there was only one day left, we had to
hurry. At night we went to Busch's house
in the Goethestrasse in Michelstadt, around 11 o'clock at night - all was dark
and asleep at their place. We could not call out to Dietrich's room because his
parents would have heard us. He lived upstairs, and throwing little rocks was
risky and also too noisy. So we went into the neighboring building which
was under construction and managed to
find a ladder inside. We dragged it across to the Busch's garden, stood it up
under Dietrich's window and climbed up, managing to then wake him up and tell
him our problem: He had to do his utmost during breakfast to try and find out
from his father in which subject Messer was going to be examined! He promised
to try. Heinz-Peter and I managed to retreat without dropping the ladder or
being noticed. The next morning in class Dietrich came up with the needed
intelligence: We now knew Messer’s second exam subject for sure and he was
satisfied. I have no idea whether this information was any good to him just one
day before the exam - but at least we could be sure now that he was not going
to cause any trouble.
Had anyone known of the
existence of our committee, outside of our class, this would have had most
severe repercussions. At the least, the Principal would have changed the entire
exam schedule from on day to the other, or maybe we would have been subject to
some other punitive action. We all pledged absolute silence, and even at subsequent
class meetings or getogethers, this incidence and the committee's action as
never discussed. (I sent this write-up to one of my old friends, never to hear
a comment or receive some editorial input...).
It may well be that other
classes had done similar things, but I am sure their organization was not on
the high level of organization as that of the Magnaten-Klasse and did not
include last minute burglary tactics like HP's and mine at the Busch's house.
Overall the exam went well. Our class was academically behind the parallel
class, but so what. Everyone passed, even the most troubled case of “Moppel”
who almost had a nervous breakdown during the last weeks before the exam. He
was the son of a reputable Erbach family, he was overweight and a high blood pressure
case and academically had had his problems. But we all stood by him, being
exhilarated about his ultimate success of passing just as if it had happened to
ourselves. Unfortunately he gave us cause for our first post-exam getogether -
namely, at his funeral. It was touching
how much his parents actually showed their gratitude to all of us classmates -
at the time of the exam and beyond - for having accepted and supported him. And it was a nice feelings
for many of us to show compassion and support to a less privileged classmate.
As I said above, the
Abitur is an important and potentially traumatic experience in the life of a German
highschool student. The pressure is on, even for the best in class - and if
anyone is telling you that many years afterwards he or she does not have the
occasional nightmare years after the event, then than that's a lie!
THE END
