Maaß, Johannes

Educator, publicist, local politician

Born: 27.02.1882 in Dorndorf (Limburg district)

died: 24.04.1953 in Giengen a. d. Brenz

After training as an elementary school teacher at the Royal School Teachers' Seminary in Montabaur, the son of a farmer and innkeeper studied German, history, sociology, philosophy, art history and ethnology in Berlin from 1907 thanks to a special permit. In 1909, Maaß left the university without a degree, as he did not have an Abitur. In the same year, he married the teacher Anna Keutgen, with whom he had three children - Hanne, Hermann and Hedwig(Hedwig Schmitt-Maaß), and was employed as a primary school teacher in Biebrich.

In 1911, he moved to Wiesbaden, where he founded the local branch of the German Association of Elementary School Teachers the following year. After a short period of military service in Mainz in 1914/15 and temporary membership of the German People's Party, he joined the SPD in 1919 and from then on served his new home town as an honorary city councillor, among other things.

A founding member of the Volkshochschulbund Wiesbaden und Umgebung in 1920, Maaß was elected its chairman the following year. He also took over the chairmanship of the local union of German teachers. At that time, he had already published several brochures and essays on pedagogical topics. In 1924, the temporary editor of "Der Volkslehrer" became managing director and director of studies at the adult education center. Maaß, who became the full-time director of the Volkshochschule in 1930 and also a teacher at the Blücherschule from 1931, was initially able to master the increasingly difficult years from 1929 onwards due to the global economic crisis and the increasingly threatening Nazi movement.

However, he was unable to prevent the Volkshochschule from being destroyed by the National Socialists in 1933, although he had even resigned from the chairmanship of the Volkshochschulbund and declared his resignation from the SPD before being dismissed as managing director. The years of the Nazi dictatorship were characterized by professional bans, house searches, police surveillance, interrogations and arrests. Despite this, he maintained inconspicuous contacts with political friends, even peripherally with the local SPD resistance. Moreover, he bravely defied surveillance, writing bans and censorship to write extensive reformist educational papers from 1942 at the latest, which were important for the post-Hitler era. Following the failed attempt to overthrow the regime on July 20, 1944, he was caught up in the Reich-wide "Gewitter" (thunderstorm) dragnet and was harassed for several months in Dachau concentration camp.

In 1945, Maaß worked with all his might for democratic reconstruction, for example as chairman of the grassroots democratic reconstruction committee in Wiesbaden and then of the citizens' council that developed from it, as well as chairman of the local SPD and in the provisional regional leadership of this party for Hesse and Hesse-Nassau and then on the executive committee of the Greater Hesse SPD.

Also in 1945, he was initially appointed head of the school and culture department by the US military government and Lord Mayor Georg Krücke, and from 1946 to 1953 he served as a full-time city councillor for schools, public education and sport. In this role, he was determined to promote the general education system in particular, as well as the Wiesbaden Adult Education Center, for example, which he refounded in 1946 together with the director of the Nassau State Library, Franz Götting, and then temporarily managed again. According to the testimony of his political student and friend Georg Buch, the philanthropist, who was highly esteemed in his environment for his social commitment and political straightforwardness, died "as a result of suffering that had its roots in the concentration camp". The funeral service took place on June 7, 1953 in the Hessian State Theater. His urn was buried in the North Cemetery. The estate of Johannes Maaß, after whom an elementary school and a street in Wiesbaden are named, can be found in the city archives there, and a partial estate in the Hessian Main State Archives.