Martin Luserke (3 May 1880 – 1 June 1968) was a German progressive pedagogue, bard, writer and theatre maker.Luserke, Martin. Deutsche Biografie (in German)Martin Luserke, in: Munzinger Archive (in German)Joan Campbell: Joy in Work, German Work: The National Debate, 1800–1945. Princeton University Press 2014. , pp. 126–127 (citation: It seemed essential to remind people, that the post-revolutionary society must also meet the needs of the nation's intellectuals. This is what Martin Luserke, a popular novelist and educator, tried to do in an essay on work motivation published in 1919 as part of a series Praktischer Sozialismus („Practical Socialism“) edited by the philosopher Karl Korsch. Like Ruckhaber, Luserke thought it wrong to make a distinction between mental and physical labour. This led him to call for a „socialist“ ethic of work to replace the bourgeois-idealist one based on this distinction, which only helped to perpetuate the hierarchy of classes. Under socialism people of all walks of life would be taught to work for one another and to accept discipline in order to achieve common goals. Where Luserke chiefly differed from Ruckhaber is in his belief that intellectual work is hardly „work“ at all, but rather intrinsically pleasurable activity and therefore in some sense its own reward. As a result, he was not particularly concerned with improving the remuneration of intellectuals or cutting back on their hours of work. But he did think that workers of the mind needed special conditions if they were to serve society effectively. To make their different treatment acceptable to the majority of workers whose days were spent in hard, routine, labour, it was necessary to adopt the principle of meritocracy: in Luserke's utopia, examinations would be used to select the few needed for intellectual tasks, and these individuals would then be given non-monetary privileges and rewards, including the opportunity to experience joy in work.) He was one of the leading figures of German progressive education and a precursor of outdoor education.Herbert Giffei: Martin Luserke – Ein Wegbereiter der modernen Erlebnispädagogik, in: Wegbereiter der modernen Erlebnispädagogik, Vol. 6, Klaus Neubauer Verlag, Lüneburg 1987. As his distinguished achievement counts the integration of community theatre into school and youth work.Mirona Stanescu: Vom Laientheater zur Theaterpädagogik. Ein historischer Werdegang der Theaterpädagogik in Deutschland. In: Neue Didaktik (2011) 1, pp. 11–29. It was also integrated in German Youth Movement.Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 15. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Historische Kommission. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, , p. 533.Ulrich Schwerdt: Martin Luserke (1880–1968). Reformpädagogik im Spannungsfeld von pädagogischer Innovation und kulturkritischer Ideologie. Eine biographische Rekonstruktion. Lang, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 1993, , pp. 209–210, 232–233.
Family and Youth He was one of three sons of the construction expert Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Luserke (1851–1931) and his wife Amalie Elisabeth Luserke (1855–1942), née Lindhorst. She originated from Westphalia, whereas the Luserke family originated from Breslau, Silesia.Luserke, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm, Deutsche Biografie. Both were Pietists. His siblings were his older brother, Johannes Fridrich Wilhelm (* 6. April 1877 in Berlin; † 4. April 1949 in Dresden), and his younger brother, Otto Karl Gottfried Luserke (* 19. November 1887 in Berlin). From his father's side the men had been carpenters for generations.Karl Körner: Martin Luserke. In: Meldorfer Hausfreund – Amtliche Zeitung für die Bekanntmachungen der Behörden der Stadt Meldorf und des Meldorfer Wirtschaftsraumes. Vol. 7, No. 35, 3. Mai 1955, p. 1. His father worked his way up from a builder to a construction supervisor and became an architect who worked as an examination administrator at public works service of Berlin.Anneliese Peters: Meldorfer Charakterköpfe – Lebenswege im 20. Jahrhundert. Edition Dithmarscher Landeskunde. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2015, , p. 65–88.
During his childhood, Martin Luserke got the chance to become acquainted with the port of Hamburg, the river Elbe and the German coast along the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Via sailboat and steamboat he got to know the East Frisian island Spiekeroog and Heligoland in the German Bight. According to his mother's memoirs he very early felt attracted to the Sea.Die Lebensfahrt des Martin Luserke, lecture by Prof. Kurt Sydow on the occasion of Martin Luserke's 100st birthday, 3 May 1980 (in German). His parents refused to let him go to the Sea.Karsten Kröger: Der Beitrag Martin Luserkes zur reformpädagogischen Bewegung. Erziehungswissenschaftliche Hausarbeit im Rahmen der Lehramtsstaatsprüfung. University of Hamburg, 1984, p. 8.
Starting at the age of ten, he read works by Friedrich Schiller, at the age of thirteen those written by William Shakespeare, Goethe and Ibsen, all comprehensively and passionately.D. H. Schortinghuis: Begegnung mit Martin Luserke, Ostfriesland Magazin, Vol. 9 (1993).Karsten Kröger: Der Beitrag Martin Luserkes zur reformpädagogischen Bewegung. Erziehungswissenschaftliche Hausarbeit im Rahmen der Lehramtsstaatsprüfung. University of Hamburg, 1984, p. 11. Reportedly he had his first contact with a stage at Schauspielhaus Berlin where he watched the drama William Tell by Schiller. The play fell short of his high expectations so he was badly disappointed.Martin Kiessig: Martin Luserke. Gestalt und Werk. Versuch einer Wesensdeutung. Philosophical Dissertation (doctor's thesis), University of Leipzig, J. Särchen Verlag, Berlin 1936, p. 13. Later this experience might have been an influence on his own conceptions of theatre works.
In the age of fifteen, he broke with his family. The catalyst was a moment when his mother burnt his Shakespeare books which he had read secretly.Prof. Dr. Dr. Jörg W. Ziegenspeck: Martin Luserke – Reformpädagoge – Schriftsteller auf dem Meer und an den Meeresküsten, lecture on the occasion of an Exhibition Launch at Morgenstern-Museum, Bremerhaven, 9 October 1988.
In 1908, he married Marie Anna "Annemarie" Elisabeth Gerwien (1878–1926). He met her through his work for Wickersdorf Free School Community, where she worked as a matron. She was the daughter of Prussian Oberstleutnant (= Lieutenant Colonel) Paul Vincenz Gerwien (* 7 December 1843 in Neisse; † 12 September 1923 in Dresden). The couple got four children, one girl and three boys: Ursula (* 20 January 1910 in Wickersdorf; † 1987), Klaus (* 6 October 1912 in Wickersdorf), Heiner (* 4 August 1914 in Wickersdorf) und Dieter (* 15 September 1918; † 17. February 2005).Prof. Kurt Sydow: Die Lebensfahrt des Martin Luserke, lecture on the occasion of Martin Luserke's 100st birthday, 3 May 1980. Between 1938 and 1968 Auguste Schwarting became Luserke's housekeeper.Jan Herchenröder: Der Geschichtenerzähler von Meldorf – Ein Besuch beim alten Luserke. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nr. 1 (1962), 2. Januar 1962.
Education He became a pupil of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine in Berlin. When he was fifteen, his parents sent him to Herrnhuter Lehrerseminar in Niesky, Lusatia, to become a teacher.Martin Luserke, Munzinger Archive. Between 1900 and 1904 he worked as an elementary teacher at Pädagogium Niesky. There he got estranged from Pietism which he found cold-hearted. He moved to Thuringia and studied Mathematics and Philosophy at Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
In 1905 he made a field excursion to Brittany, where he hiked for several months through the remains of Celtic culture of Stone Age.Prof. Dr. Dr. Jörg W. Ziegenspeck: Martin Luserke – Reformpädagoge – Schriftsteller auf dem Meer und an den Meeresküsten, lecture on the occasion of an Exhibition Launch at Morgenstern-Museum, Bremerhaven, 9 October 1988, University of Marburg. Via the lecture of a bard on the island of Molène he got inspired to use oral and written tradition like myths, sagas and legends for his own work. He also travelled to Italy and Egypt.Dieter Luserke: Mit meinem Vater Martin Luserke an Bord des guten Schiffes KRAKE-ZK 14, 1988.
He got influenced by his academic teachers, the Nobel Prize winner Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Ernst Haeckel, Wilhelm Rein and later by Hermann Lietz. Luserke's ideas about an idealized lifelike education to develop an attitude can be traced back to them.Martin Luserke, Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 15. Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Historic Committee. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, , p. 533. Disappointed from academic teaching programme and classical pedagogy he dropped out of university in 1906.
In 1931 Luserke completed a mate's certificate in Leer, East Frisia.
Career 1906: D.L.E.H. Haubinda At Easter 1906 he joined Hermann Lietz and started to work as a teacher at Deutsches Landerziehungsheim (D.L.E.H.) in Haubinda, Thuringia. Three years before there had been a controversy about the admittance of Jewish pupils.Hermann Lietz: Vom Leben und Arbeit eines deutschen Erziehers. Veckenstedt am Harz, 1920, p. 187.Erich Meisner: Asketische Erziehung. Hermann Lietz und seine Pädagogik. Beltz, Weinheim 1965, p. 66.Elisabeth Kutzer: Lietz und die Jungen. In: Leben und Arbeit, April 1968, pp. 7–28. According to Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) only Luserke and Gustav Wyneken (1875–1964) formed an opposition against the daily military drill at this school.Florian Telsnig: Das Aufbegehren der Jugend gegen die Kriegsbegeisterung ihrer Lehrer: Benjamin – Wyneken, Scholem – Buber, Kraft – Borchardt, Yearbook for European Jewish Literature Studies. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2014, . Its resulting conflict with the administration ended with a secession of both teachers.
1906–1925: Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf
Together with so-called pedagogic rebels like Gustav Wyneken, Paul Geheeb (1870–1961) and August Halm (1869–1929) in autumn 1906 Luserke founded the Freie Schulgemeinde in the small town Wickersdorf near Saalfeld in Thuringian Forest.Ralf Koerrenz: Hermann Lietz. Grenzgänger zwischen Theologie und Pädagogik. Peter Lang Verlag der Wissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main 1989. p. 72.Matthias Fechner: Es handelt sich darum, das Gute überall zu finden. Eine Studie zur Genese der Waldorfpädagogik , info3-magazin.de. Whereas Wyneken is described more as a theoretician the practitioner Luserke is considered to be the one who added substantial stimulus.Ulrich Herrmann: „Obwohl seine Rolle als pädagogischer Erneuerer in engem Zusammenhang mit lebensreformerischen Ansätzen der Jahre 1880 bis 1930 und nicht zuletzt mit der Jugendbewegung zu sehen ist, sind Etikettierungen Wynekens als Erzieher und Lehrer beispielsweise kaum zutreffend“. In: „Zurück zur Natur“ und „Vorwärts zum Geist“. 100 Jahre Wickersdorf. Eine kritische Vergegenwärtigung von Werk und Wirkung Gustav Wynekens (2006), hsozkult.de. His conception of a didactics which offered immediate hands-on-experience influenced several other pedagogues like Hans Alfken (1899–1994).Gerd Radde (Hrsg.): Schulreform – Kontinuitäten und Brüche. Das Versuchsfeld Berlin-Neukölln. Vol. II: 1945–1972. Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2013, , p. 176.Wilhelm Pieper: Niedersächsische Schulreformen im Luftflottenkommando: von der Niedersächsischen Erziehungsstätte zur IGS Franzsches Feld. Julius Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2009, , p. 66. In Wickersdorf Luserke worked with Hans-Windekilde Jannasch (1883–1981), Peter Suhrkamp (1891–1959) and Bernhard Uffrecht (1885–1959). Right from the school's foundation he started to perform community theatre. His stage work was based on William Shakespeare. His first play Blut und Liebe (= Blood and Love) which is performed in many schools until today, is a Grotesque based on Hamlet.Martin Luserke: Blut und Liebe, Deutscher Theaterverlag.