X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Gustav Wyneken


Gustav Wyneken

The young Walter Benjamin's political aesthetics were greatly influenced by a stay (1905-1907) at a Wyneken boarding school (Haubinda in Thüringen) where he became close to Wyneken.

Wyneken had himself been influenced by the thinking of Martin Buber and Hermann Lietz, and also the Hebrew educational tradition, in which a good education is founded on a teacher's love for his students.

The theme has continued to be explored in literature and film; most recently in novels by David Cook (Happy Endings, 1989); Stephen Fry; and Alan Hollinghurst; in poetry and song lyrics by Pauline Stainer ("The Flute Lesson"), Momus ("The Guitar Lesson"), Rufus Wainwright ("The Art Teacher"), and Sting ("Don't Stand So Close to Me").

Siegfried Bernfeld

He regarded educational reformer Gustav Wyneken (1875-1964) an early influence in his career, and was a member of several liberal and "youth culture" organizations.


Dorothy Bussy

Bussy anonymously published one novel, Olivia, in 1949, printed by the Hogarth Press, the publishing house founded by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, in which lesbian loves get entangled in the emotional and sexually charged atmosphere of erotic pedagogy in a girls' school.


see also