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Report on 1998

The main labor in this Archive Year was "sightseeing" on about 100 kgs of books and other papers brought by Prof Buck from Heidelberg and Prof. Berg from Marburg. 10 years ago - as the house had to be cleared as fast as possible they just had taken the boxes from Trautheim to store them by themselves. These boxes were mainly in the same state as they had been filled - dust included.
These 100 kgs consisted of books, periodicals, notes (mainly pre-sorted by Wagenschein - what a luck!) and uncorrected examination works (the copy) from the years 1957 - 1965

Special finds among these:
1st "Konrads Weg zu den Zahlen" [W191], a title not yet proven for the bibliography.
2nd Parts of the manuscript to "Erinnerungen für orgen".
3rd A test printout with manual corrections to "Kinder auf dem Wege zur Physik".
4th Books he used with comments, books by him with corrections, some of them foreseen for a new edition. For example: "Natur physikalisch gesehen - Das Fallgesetz im Brunnenstrahl". In the last edition by Hirschgraben there is a note, if the boys in the picture might not have longer hair as usual now. By the next edition in 1975 at Westermann not only the hair became longer but additionally the pants.
The titles of the books mentioned are not yet in the computer. They were provisionally noted into paper forms, special attention was paid to underlinings and notes by Wagenschein.
Another big work was the copy of an exercise book in physics. It belonged to a young student of Wagenschein in 1934 and deals with acoustics and optics. Impressive drawings and texts show that "Zeitgeist" could not settle in the speech of Wagenschein and his students. The exercise book has 54 pages A4. It is colored by hand according to the original and can be delivered by refund of the costs. (In 1997 another exercise book had been copied (20 pages A5) and colored: "Zahlsysteme").
A second edition of the Exhibition is under construction. That shows up to be very large-scale as we plan to edit an especially informative catalog containing the pictures and the texts of the whole exhibition. On the other hand, as this edition is especially planned to be shown in Switzerland, it should mainly show documents addressed to Swiss visitors. (In Germany main topics after war had been Jugenheim, Traisa Aufbauschule and Darmstadt Technical University)
This part of the work is covered solo by Klaus Kohl, an enterprise swallowing time and energy.
Assisted by Ecole students and an archive helper the bibliography is on the spot once more. As there probably no more appearances will occur, all titles were newly enumerated by a final [Wxxx] number, replacing the former Koehnlein [Kxxx] numbers. By now the numbers reach [W223]. Different from the Koehnlein Bibliography the enumeration is meant to be strictly chronological, including the works of "Gerd Kauter".
The main work now is to secure a proof to every title by original or by copy. Copies especially are to be made from singular, often damaged objects. By the books several editions have to be compared, also the editions in different periodicals. About half the work of this kind is done, as it needs very much concentration and some knowledge of the matter it is not so suitable for pupils coming for two hours a week.
Much time is taken by correspondence mainly executed by Hannelore Eisenhauer. 120 letters were sent, (last year 121), mainly responses to inquiries about material helping to write an exam, or to prepare a lecture about Wagenschein. E.g. an university asked for a protocol of a seminar session about air pressure. By the work of Ueli Aeschlimann they got a hint that somewhat of this kind should exist. And they were planning a teachers' training on this theme after a fortnight... Of course we answer those questions as fast as possible, leaving long-planned tasks (e.g. the exhibition) behind.



Die GDCP-Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Chemie und Physik im September in Essen stand unter dem Thema: "Sprache und Kommunikation- Grundlage für das Lernen von Chemie und Physik". Klar, dass Wagenscheins Examensarbeit (Über die Förderung der sprachlichen Ausdrucksfähigkeit durch den mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht) gefragt war, klar, dass sowohl Klaus Kohl als auch Hannelore Eisenhauer einen kurzen Vortrag hielten, aber nicht so klar war, dass sie dafür eine erstklassige Zeit bekamen -die 1. Schiene nach dem Hauptvortrag- und immer wieder auf Wagenschein und die Ecole angesprochen wurden. Wir hätten viel mehr Prospekte mitnehmen können.
Zur Weiterbildung ging Hannelore Eisenhauer für eine Woche nach Marburg. Die Archivschule Marburg macht Ausbildungskurse für Leute, die in Archiven arbeiten, aber keine spezielle Archivausbildung besitzen. Diese staatlich anerkannte Ausbildung besteht aus 2 Kursen von je einer Woche. Die "Mitschüler" kamen aus Firmenarchiven, aus dem Bundeswehrarchiv, aus Stadtarchiven, aus England, Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Mit dem Nachlass von einem einzigen Menschen hatte sonst niemand zu tun, wenn man die Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung nicht dazu nimmt. Der zweite Kurs findet in einem Jahr statt.
Bei den Archivbesuchern (11 an der Zahl) war nach langer Zeit auch mal wieder Prof. Köhnlein, der sich für eine Woche frei nehmen konnte. Seine Anregungen zur Archivarbeit waren eine echte Hilfe. Es ist schön, wenn jemand, der solch ein Fachmann von Wagenscheins Arbeit und Leben ist, mit im Archiv arbeitet.