Das Neundlinger-Phenomen - wie war das nochmal?

Nach dem ersten Waldenburger Schullandheim-Aufenthalt war die Klasse verwandelt, und die Bindung an den Neundlinger war spürbar intensiviert, gegenseitig, so schien es. Ich selber war da nicht so ganz mit verwickelt, denn ich war in Waldenburg nicht dabei – hoerte aber in etwa, was gelaufen war - beziehungsweise, was geflossen war: jede Menge Rotwein! Ich zitiere von einer kürzlichen Magnaten-eMail: “In Waldheim war ich auch, mit Neundlinger. Der Fürst war sein Freund, und der hat uns eines abends freigehalten. Wir haben kräftig einen zur Brust genommen. Ich schlief im oberen Bett in der DJH und habe in der Nacht über die Zunge geschissen (wie man das in Tirol so nennt). Es plätscherte laut,und der Neundlinger schlief im gleichen Raum und fragte: Regnet's?"

Also, jetzt stelle man sich das mal vor! Ein Lehrer geht mit seiner Klasse auf einen Landheimurlaub mit erzieherischen Zielen. Unter seiner Aufsicht erlaubt er seinem Freund, dem Fürsten (!), die gesamte Klasse mit Alkohol zu versorgen, und das wohl nicht nur an dem einen Abend. Nicht nur das, er schläft auch noch im gleichen Raum mit seinen Zöglingen!

Ich frage mich, was wäre mit so einem Lehrer heutzutage passiert? Die Presse hätte einen “heyday”, Radio-Diskussionprogramme hätten Material für mehrere Tage. Experten würden eingesetzt, um die Klassenmitglieder psychisch zu behandeln und vielleicht zu detoxifizieren. Der Lehrer würde natürlich sofort suspendiert und müsste sich, nach seiner Entlassung vom Gefängnis, nach einer neuen Erwerbsquelle umsehen und sich täglich bei der Polizei melden. Er dürfte sich nicht in der Gegend von Schulen oder Spielplätzen aufhalten. Natürlich bestuenden auch Probleme in der Gemeinde, und wo immer er sich eine neue Wohnung mieten wollte, würden die Nachbarn eine Kampagne gegen seine Gegenwart starten und Ihre Kinder nicht unbeaufsichtigt aus dem Haus lassen.

Ihr glaubt ich spinne? Das wäre nicht weit vom Baum – denn ich tue das oft. Aber denkt doch mal – was waere Eure Reaktion heute, wenn ihr rausfinden würdet, dass ein Lehrer eines Eurer Enkel dabei erwischt worden wäre, mit seinen Schülern ab und zu Haschisch zu rauchen. oder gar Kokain zu schniefen...Kapiert? Siehe auch ein spaeteres Blog "Damals und heute"....

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Hans-Peter Baer: Canada: 604-317-7736; manchmal St. Vincent: 784-497-6910


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Ein Matratzen-Streich

Im Schullandheim in Waldheim war ich beim zweiten Mal mit auf so einem Ausflug – und in Waldheim war es der zweite für die Klasse, denn mit unserm Musiklehrer Neundlinger zu reisen und seinen adligen Freund dort zu besuchen, das war etwas besonderes.

Wir waren in einem Heim (Jugendherberge oder was?) untergebracht, und die Betten waren zweistöckig. Ich lag unten, und über mir residierte der ...na, lassen wir den Namen mal weg oder nennen ihn einfach „Magnat X“ . Jedenfalls hatte der Magnat X die Fähigkeit entwickelt, in sein Bett mit einem Schwung zu landen: jedes Mal ein kurzer Anlauf, und da landete er schon oben stolz auf seiner Matratze.

Die Matratze lag auf Latten, und ich beobachtete, dass man die eigentlich nicht brauchte und dass die Matratze firm genug war, um einfach auf den Rändern des Gestells liegen zu können – aber natürlich durfte da keine Belastung sein. Also: ich nahm die Latten raus und legte die Matatze vorsichtig auf das Gestell: perfekter Job.

Einige Kommilitonen waren eingeweiht, und wir alle warteten gespannt auf Magnat X. Alles ging wie geplant: Er nahm seinen Anlauf und schwupps landete er auf seiner Matratze – allerdings einen Stock tiefer als geplant. Zum Glück blieb er unverletzt aber war leicht schockiert. Er erntete natürlich grossen Beifall!

Ja, so ist es: Gewohnheit wird manchmal zum Problem und kann von Terroristen ausgenutzt werden!

Wie man Professor wird!

Ich schlage vor, das in unserm Blog auch Geschichten aus unserer Studenten- bzw. Berufszeit mit eingeschlossen werden duerfen, solange sie einen Bezug zu Akademia oder den Karrieren und Familien von uns "Magnaten" haben - zum Beispiel wie die folgende:

A professorial career in Germany is a matter of significant distinction, and in principle it is or was reserved only for the very best performers in a given class of students. The first step usually would be for a professor to select from among the students one or two as his personal assistant. These would assist in the teaching program, conducting of labs as well as in the personal research program of the professor. Eventually they would have to go through the process of “habilitation” which involved documentation of excellence in teaching and research. The final step of this process usually was a public, scientific lecture where the entire professorial membership attended, in addition to anyone else in the faculty, and where the candidate was mercilessly grilled and questioned in the end.

There is no such equivalent process in Canada: I was astonished to find that basically every graduate student in Canada expected to not only obtain his PhD degree but also find a position as an Assistant Professor in an academic department and from the beginning start his very own research program: no habilitation process, no special tests of teaching ability or related qualities. In Canada, of course there was or is no strong pharmaceutical industry where chemists, pharmacists and pharmacologists would find employment – while in Germany the majority of such graduates would happily end up in these types of industrial positions. And the professors mostly would have some lucrative consultant appointments with industry, thus assuring a healthy and productive interaction between academic teaching and research and the needs of the country's industry.

Now, it became evident to most of us students in Germany that individual ability and excellence were not the only factors that determined whether or not a given student would be picked by a professor and channelled into the process of “habilitation”. It appeared that many of those privileged to end up in such a distinguished career had a familial link: their father or other close relative already was a professor! During one of our lab parties, amply fuelled by lab alcohol, we mulled over this apparent fact, and then one of us asked the question “how did our own professor then become one of that elite” - and it was revealed that actually his wife was the daughter of a well known Heidelberg professor!

Bingo: something clicked in my mind! Quite honestly, I always thought that it would be the height of professionally development for me to enter a professorial career – but I neither felt that I was a top student in among my class peers, and of course I had zero familial linkage to anyone in this line of work. It was also not thinkable to actually tell anyone that one wanted to become a professor: that would sound like saying “I want to become an important person”, an act of immodesty. My realistic expectations were clearly to end up in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry in Germany, and preferably actually in Switzerland in closer proximity to my beloved mountains. My eventual choices and opportunities developed through my postdoctoral time in Canada, and my previous one-year stint, while still a student, at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. It kind of all fell into place.

But at or after the above mentioned lab party I had this idea of playing a little joke: I discussed it with my friend Juergen: I would place an ad in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the largest German newspaper. The ad read something like

“Seeking marriage with a professor's daughter for the purpose of habilitation”.

(Suche Heirat mit Professorentochter zwecks Habiliation)

That summed up our feelings perfectly! It took about a week and I got the first of three responses:

Response 1:

A blond, athletic, good looking professor's daughter from Wuerzburg answered and voiced interest in meeting. She loved tennis, skiing etc.etc. She did not mention rock climbing – but you can't really expect everything, right?  I got excited – how much better could it get! I answered and openly stated my reservations: everything sounding just too good and exciting so that I suspected treason. Sure enough, she sent another letter (remember: no email or cheap telephone in those days) and admitted that it was a fingered reply, initiated by a friend of Juergen's. However she was supposed to visit in the area and come to a party, and it would be nice to meet anyway etc etc – but the party was on a weekend where I had to go to a competition with the university gymnastics team – and I had my priorities. Juergen told me later that she was blond but chubby and certainly not an athlete. So, that was the end of it.

Response 2:

A medical student from Marburg, while on night duty in the hospital, had run across my ad and responded to it. She said that she had a good laugh because this ad summed up the general feelings about the issue and she appreciated the courage of someone putting it so bluntly. She was not a professor's daughter but was very curious whether this ad was a joke or serious: We met and spent a carnival night at the University of Marbug student club and she later visited me once in Goettingen – that was about it. I mean, if she had been a professor’s daughter – who knows!

Response 3:

That one arrived within a week of the ad appearing in the paper: I came home very late from evening work in the lab on a Thursday night and found a letter in my mailbox. A lady stated bluntly that she felt that this ad was either extremely poignant or cunning. She had no interest in looking for a relationship, but she was extremely curious who would write such an ad, AND she actually happened to be the daughter of a professor right here in Darmstadt – although, as she pointed out, that was beside the point. So, if the author of the ad was in any way serious about this she would want to find out what type of a person would do this and she was interested in meeting – but requested that as a confirmation she would be looking for an ad under musical instruments saying “Steinway for sale” in the Friday edition of the paper. Then she would write back and “reveal” herself!

Man, I started trembling all over and then realized that it probably was too late to place that ad: I ran to a telephone booth outside and called the newspaper – and indeed it was too late (at 11 pm at night) for placing ads in next day's paper. I did place an ad for Saturday – but nothing happened and I never was able, of course, to establish any contact with that woman. And I was so close! Eventually I stopped trembling.

Postscript: At the end of each year  “Angewandte Chemie”, Germany's most important chemical journal, always published a number of bloopers, funny stories and the like in a special column. This of course always made for good reading – and one of my student colleagues mentioned during a coffee break that my ad was quoted there: I was both stunned and pleased – and we all had a good laugh when I then revealed to my colleagues who the author of that ad was.

To this date I regret not having met the professor's daughter from Darmstadt! Let's assume she was ugly, vicious and had stained teeth and a big piple smack on her nose!

HPB

Wo ist der Bär?

Als der Jakob zu unserem Klassenlehrer ernannt wurde, hatte ich einige Befürchtungen. Und die wurden quasi bestätigt, als er zur ersten Klasse vorne am Katheder stand, suchend rumblickte und sagte: "Wo ist der Bär?"

Kann mir jemand erklären, warum er wissen wollte wo ich war?? Hatte er mich vielleicht als Starschüler identifiziert, wollte er mich irgendwie befördern oder mir die Hand schütteln? Hatte er Angst vor mir (viz Stecknadeln)? War ich berühmt - und falls ja, wofür? Brauchte er mich als Assistent in der Physik?

Bis heute habe ich keine Antwort auf diese Fragen. Kann mir jemand helfen? 

Vielleicht hatte er sich nur versprochen und wollte eigentlich fargen :"Wo ist der Bauer?".

Wer praegte den Begriff "Magnatenklasse"?

“Magnatenklasse” – wo kommt der Ausdruck eigentlich her. Erinnert sich jemand?

Der Begriff kommt natuerlich daher, dass in der Klasse die Soehne und Toechter einiger bekannter Michelstaedter/Erbacher Geschaeftsleute waren. Als naemlich die drei Parallelklassen zur Zeit der Mittleren Reife zusammengelegt wurden, kamen alle vom Michelstaedter Raum in die A-Klasse und die Zugfahrer vom Muemlingtal in die B-Klasse. Aus Versehen kam auch einer der Radfahrer aus der Umgebung in die A, sozusagen als Untermagnat.

Ich habe so das Gefuehl, dass es der Jakob war, der die A benannt hatte – er war ja zu der Zeit mit den wahren Magnaten sehr im Kontakt - im Zusammenhang mit der Gruendung des Schulvereins.

Also: wenn jemand sich erinnert – gebt unten ein paar Kommentare ab!

HPB

Wie steigende Testosteron-Spiegel fast meine Schulkarriere beendeten

Consilium Abeundi:

The decision to throw you out (of school).

We often had to change classrooms in our school, depending on what we did and who the teacher was for a subject. So, one day the class was moved to the room otherwise used by girls for home working classes such as sewing and what have you. There were lots of needles and pins in the cracks of the wooden flooring, and when I came into the room some others were trying to stick some of these pins into the teacher's chair – except they had trouble doing this. As a quasi Weiten-Gesaess farm boy I showed them how to do it: I broke off the glass heads and then tapped the pins into the chair with the pointed end, suggesting that the dull end was sharp enough for giving the teacher a good pricking. I strategically placed three needles just to show them. They decided to leave them in.

So after Herr Kellner came in, for an English lesson, we worked on some assignments or writings and i focussed on my booklet not even thinking about those needles – when suddenly I noticed that the class had gone absolutely silent. I carefully lifted my head: Mr. Kellner was standing by his desk with a pale face, and he said “Baer, did you do this?” And I said “Yes” for want of a better answer. He said nothing, and the class continued, with him standing all the time. When the bell rang he grabbed the chair and left the room – I right behind him pleading with him to forget it – in vain. He headed straight to the Principal's office. 

Although nothing happened that afternoon, I went through Michelstadt kind of dazed, not daring to go home (I am not sure – but i think we lived already in Michelstadt at that time). Eventually I drifted into the arms of my mother who had been searching for me for an hour and had tears in her face. We both knew that this might be the end of my high school career. 

Eventually I had to step before the assembled collegiate of teachers where I explained what had happened and what I did. Probably it was seen as a mitigating factor that I had not started this business but only acted as a technical “adviser” in the affair – but I was still the one who had placed the needles into the chair. 

The decision was that I would be punished with being put under a “consilium abeundi”, meaning that I would be given a last chance and that just one additional disciplinary incident would be the signal for my irrevocable dismissal. Of course, I apologized to Mr. Kellner and the assembled collegiate – and later he and  I actually became very good friendly – he was an enthusiastic teacher with a few weaknesses that students, like, exploited from time to time – but he was my English teacher and did basically quite well with being that. I also had learned my first English song from him: he used to bring his violin to class and have us sing along “Humpty, Dumpty fell of the wall...”. 

Now of course I started behaving, staying away from mischief, never stepping out of line – and guess what: it was not at all difficult being that way! BUT – at one time I almost blew it, and that had something to do with rising testosterone levels, I suppose (so it is not my fault, get it?). Here is what happened: 

Probably I was about 14 or 15 years old when I was able to join the class on the yearly 1-week Schullandheim Aufenthalt – an educational leave for a week, usually all staying at a youth hostel away from home. There we engaged in educational activities such as looking at castles and churches, hiking each day and having of course lots of fun on the side - such as battling with cushions in the dormitories – although that was a bit below us at that age. I never had been able to join in these trips because of lack of money. But this time I did, and we travelled by train to Bad Duerkheim and invaded the youth hostel there. 

We had one guy in class, Lothar Lewerenz, who was two years older than the rest of us – so he became our main adviser on sexual matters because he already had a girlfriend named Lina in Steinbach and he liked telling us in detail of what that meant nd what it involved. It must have been him who, in Bad Duerkheim, got this great idea – namely, to visit the girl's room at night. The girls were in two rooms, 4 in one and some 10 or so in another. We decided the four would do, and four of us were going to give it a try. (To hell with the Consilium Abeundi!) So, around 11 at night we got up and stole down the stairs and into the 4-girls room. Of course they knew to expect us. It was harmless, of course. Lewerenz snuck into bed with two of the girls, the rest of us “abstained” and practised getting in and out of the closets – in case we needed to hide. 

Eventually we headed back up – and we made a report to the others who of course were eagerly waiting for screams by the hostel administrator. Since all had gone so smoothly, immediate plans were made for all of us to visit the 10-girl dormitory the next night! 

At about 11 pm the following night all ten of us traipsed bare-footed and clad in our pyjamas to the lower floor and entered the dorm room where squeaking womenfolk probably were eagerly awaiting us. One of them, the shyest one, was jumping up and down in her bed with excitement, and we distributed ourselves across the room. Lewerenz of course right back into bed with two girls, I lying down beside Marie because her bed was closest (still remembering even now how her short hair cut caused my arm to be stung by the stubbles on her neck), Funk into bed with Ursula, his official girl friend. Again, all was kosher, no sex or anything like that – just a bit of excitement. Funk seemed to ignore Ursula because he focused on practising quick getaways, rolling out of and under her bed. Each time he tried he made enough noise to wake up a dozen “Herbergsmuetter” - hostel managers - or teachers. Our lady teacher and trip leader, Mrs. Dr. Seybold, of course had a room in the same hostel. 

It all became a slightly noisy affair – because there was some chatter and giggling in addition to Funks plunges. Eventually I experienced an urge to have to go the bathroom. What to do: I considered climbing out of, or peeing out of, the window in the back of the room but was not sure how this would be received by the ladies. Eventually I had no choice and decided to just use the girl's bathroom across the hall – hoping that none of the ladies (Mrs. Seybold??) from other rooms would have a similar need. So I went to the door and opened it – and guess what I stared at: right into the face of a terribly pained and flustered Herbergsmutter – the hostel manager lady! Holy smokes, I almost passed out. A big thump in the back of the dorm could be heard – Funk obviously had made his immediate getaway, it seemed. Otherwise there was silence, and even the youngest of the girls had stopped squeaking. 

I guess it was time to leave – and we all goose-stepped back up to our room, the excitement of the evening having changed to a sense of doom, including of course for myself in view of my Consilium Abeundi status: for me it felt like “Good Bye High School”! 

The next morning we showed up in the breakfast room, a bit dazed still. And then we asked to talk to Dr. Seybold – who pointed out to us that we all were in a double mess because the Youth Hostel was run by the archdiocese for the area and that the Herbergsmutter was absolutely devastated that she had to report to the bishop this incredible immoral incident that was going to be stain on her career and the entire institution. 

But now reason prevailed: The girls in particular, under the lead of the class rep Ursula, talked to Dr. Seybold and assured her that actually this was just a harmless prank and that no impropriety had materialized. She herself of course also wished the entire affair away because it was a stain on her management as well – what was she going to tell the Principal back home? We suggested to her that the entire matter was just a harmless prank or affair, that of course there were no consequences and repetitions and that in the interest of all the entire matter better be forgotten. 

And that's how it ended: The Herbergsmutter, Dr. Seybold and all the perpetrators forgot about the incident, and no reports ever needed to be made. Including none on the misbehaviour of a certain Hans Peter Baer, the Consilium Abeundi student who eventually got his first ever grade of  “A” in the annual report under “Behaviour” and eventually graduated from High School without difficulty (the only final and unobserved violation being that he helped 2 or 3 class mates during their preparations for the oral exams in Latin).

(PS: Diese Klasse war die alte "B" vor der Mittleren Reife - nicht die spaetere Magnatenklasse. We erinnert sich noch an diese Eskapade in Bad Duerkheim: Wer kam von der "B" - ausser Angelica??)