Odenwaldschule
Edith and Paul Geheeb established it using their concept of progressive education, which integrated the work of the head and hand.
The Odenwaldschule was founded by Paul and Edith Geheeb on 14 April 1910, emerging as part of the reformed education movement at the beginning of the 20th century.
Edith Geheeb's father, Max Cassirer, was the town councilmember for Berlin, and supported the founding of the school, financing the land purchase and the buildings.
The founders' concept was originally based on the fundamentals of the work schools, for example in the introduction of a course system and the dispensation with year groups, and the idea that all students should be able to co-create, participate, and be equally responsible.
The school rules underpinned this philosophy, reading "The Odenwaldschule is a free community, in which the different generations treat each other impartially and can learn from each other".
[2] Andreas Huckele, a former student, who attended Odenwaldschule from 1981 to 1988 and was later protected by the Frankfurter Rundschau with the pseudonym Jürgen Dehmers, had sent two letters to headmaster Wolfgang Harder in June 1998.
The school explained in 1998 that the former headmaster had never contradicted "the victim's statements when he had to meet with the board of directors and vacated his functions and duties".
[5] In the late 1990s, and again in 2010, the school became the center of national attention when an investigation revealed the sexual abuse of more than 130 pupils by at least 8 teachers in the 1970s and 1980s.
When Jörg Schindler reported the accusations in the Frankfurter Rundschau in November 1999, Florian Lindermann, the spokesman for the former students, criticized the coverage as over the top.
Füller calls the school, when it was under Becker's management, a "reformed education paradise with a torture chamber in the basement" based on the model of an "aristocratic patriarchy".
[16] Two months later Tilman Jens, a former student and until the summer of 2014 a member of the Odenwaldschule's sponsoring organisation, published the book Freiwild.
Jens demanded more balanced coverage: contrary to the customs of the constitutional state also innocent people were denounced as assailants or co-assailants.
[18] In September 2010 several victims formed a group called Glasbrechen (literally - breaking of glass), with the goal of helping people who had experienced sexual, physical and psychological attacks.
[22][23] According to its charter the foundation carries out and supports measures to aid victims of sexual violence, physical, psychological abuse at the Odenwaldschule.
[24] A fierce critic of the legal review process is Andreas Huckele, who published his book Wie laut soll ich denn noch schreien?, under a pseudonym.
In his acceptance speech for winning the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis in 2012 he criticized the lack of action taken by the school since the first article was published in the Frankfurter Runschau in 1999.
The sponsoring organisation publicly announced on 25 April 2015 that it had not succeeded in securing the finances for continued operation, after a large part of the trust funded by former students had been spent.
"The school is where it is now through its own mistakes, its own structures, by turning a blind eye and ducking away, through its own non-action", the head of the management team, Marcus Halfen-Kieper, explained.
The school, parents, and former students hoped to attract financing for the next two academic years by setting up a trust, but were not successful.
Also in 2016, a group consisting of parents and donors who wanted to reopen the school under a new name ("Schuldorf Lindenstein") declared the end of their efforts.
