Martin Luserke (3 May 1880 in Schöneberg near Berlin, Prussia, German Reich – 1 June 1968 in Meldorf, Holstein, Germany) was a progressive pedagogue, a bard, writer and theatre maker.

She was the daughter of Prussian Oberstleutnant (= Lieutenant Colonel) Paul Vincenz Gerwien (* 7 December 1843 in Neisse; † 12 September 1923 in Dresden).

In 1905 he made a field excursion to Brittany, where he hiked for several months through the remains of Celtic culture of Stone Age.

[20] 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.

[21] He got influenced by his academic teachers, the Nobel Prize winner Rudolf Christoph Eucken, Ernst Haeckel, Wilhelm Rein and later by Hermann Lietz.

[24][25][26] According to Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) only Luserke and Gustav Wyneken (1875–1964) formed an opposition against the daily military drill at this school.

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.

His first play Blut und Liebe (= Blood and Love) which is performed in many schools until today, is a Grotesque based on Hamlet.

Influenced by German Revolution of 1918–19 he was one of the authors (along with George Bernard Shaw) of a book series by Marxist Karl Korsch (1886–1961).

Luserke, Rudolf Aeschlimann (1884–1961) and Dr. Paul Reiner (1886–1932) first formed a so-called triumvirate in opposition to Wyneken and his followers.

[37] Aeschlimann, Fritz Hafner (1877–1964), Luserke and Reiner together with their families including eleven children plus employees and sixteen of their pupils moved to the North Sea and settled on Juist Island in East Frisia.

[39][40][41] The unique project primarily spanned a group of five school buildings which were planned in 1929 by Berlin-based architect Bruno Ahrends.

[42][43][44] With their pupils Luserke and Zuckmayer went on tour through major German cities like Berlin, Cologne or Stuttgart to perform on stages where they got very positive critics in the newspapers.

[45][46][47] Heinrich Meyer started his career at Schule am Meer, Hans Hess, Walter Georg Kühne, Felicitas Kukuck, and Beate Uhse belonged to its pupils.

In the school's workshops detailed ship models were built as well as seakeeping sailboats (dinghy cruisers) but also parts to build up wooden shacks.

Its sports programme included gymnastics and cold baths in the sea, athletics, boxing, fistball, association football, handball, field hockey, ice skate, prisonball and sailing.

When Luserke's renowned school was closed in spring 1934 due to Nazi Gleichschaltung (= Nazification) and Antisemitism he decided to work as a free writer.

[58] There he named his fully developed play as Meldorfer Spielweise which he characterized as a special style of community theatre.

Actors, musicians, handcrafter and technicians are part of a team which composes, writes poetry and thinks about elements like dance, singing, period costumes, signs and symbolism, technical effects.

[60] Luserke also held advanced training courses for youth group leaders at Jugendgruppenleiterschule in Bad Harzburg-Bündheim.