Musisches Gymnasium

The Musisches Gymnasium Frankfurt was an educational institution leading to a university entrance qualification within the framework of the National Socialist Education System. It was founded in 1939 as the first Musisches Gymnasium of the then Greater German Reich at Adolf Hitler's request and closed after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The school was under the direct supervision of the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Culture, and the city of Frankfurt was the school authority. It became known under its director Kurt Thomas. In its internal constitution, the Musisches Gymnasium retained a special position within the National Socialist elite schools, for example through the performance of otherwise suppressed church musical works or the inclusion of confessional religious instruction in the timetable. Plans and aims As early as 1921, Leo Kestenberg, a pianist, music teacher and cultural politician of Jewish descent, had developed the plan for a music college. It was to have six grades, i.e. cover only the 8th to 13th school year, and be established for an initial transitional period as a branch of a normal secondary school. Kestenberg was not thinking of creating a separate type of school with a boarding school. However, the implementation of his plans was not yet possible at the time, because Kestenberg was only active in a leading position, as a ministerial councillor, in the from 1929. He did implement the first fundamental reform of the German school music system, but shortly afterwards, in January 1933, the National Socialists came to power and put an abrupt end to his work. Kestenberg left Germany and went into emigration. Another idea developed after the Nazi seizure of power, the SS-Sturmbannführer Martin Miederer, who in 1937 was appointed senior government councillor and head of the music department in the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Culture (REM). Miederer succeeded in winning Hitler over to his idea of establishing a Musisches Gymnasium. According to Miederer's ideas, the Musisches Gymnasium should give music priority over other artistic subjects, because music requires extensive training and, above all, training that begins at an early age. The basis of musical instruction was to be communal music-making in choir and orchestra, accompanied by intensive individual training. This corresponded to the Nazi maxim of a comprehensive education of body, soul and spirit.