Gertrud Schiller
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Gertrud Schiller (7 January 1905 – 4 December 1994) was a German art historian, nurse, social pedagogue and Lutheran teacher of religion. Despite not having a doctorate in art history, she wrote what remains a standard work on Christian iconography. Schiller received an honorary doctorate from the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin in 1979.[1][2]
Schiller was born on 7 January 1905 in Beerbach (now part of Lauf an der Pegnitz), the daughter of the pastor and later dean Wilhelm Heinrich Schiller and his wife Elise Anna Margaretha Schiller, née Kübel. She grew up in Beerbach and Augsburg.
From 1915 she attended the Anna Barbara von Stettensches Institut, a Höhere Mädchenschule in Augsburg, which did not allow its students to take the Abitur. This meant that she could not study art history at university. During First World War, she suffered the death of cousins and uncles. In 1923, she attended a household school (Haushaltsschule) in Munich and then learned nursing care at the municipal hospital in Augsburg.
In 1927, Schiller decided to pursue the then new profession of social pedagogue and therefore went to Frankfurt. She chose the topic "Adult Education and Elementary Schools" for her exam to enter. During her training she held a six-month internship at the welfare office (Wohlfahrtsamt) in Marburg, which was also responsible for the youth welfare office (Jugendbehörde) in Hamburg at the time. After her training, she accepted a job at the Protestant Church in Hamburg and moved there in 1928.
In 1930 she became director of the Clemens-Schulz-Heim, a church conference centre in Kuddewörde. Under the Nazi regime, churches rather than schools had to deliver religious instruction. Schiller took a course to qualify as an instructor at the Johannesstift in Spandau. At this time, she became interested in the medieval art on display at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum.
In 1944, Schiller gave religious instruction in Franconian Switzerland, but lived in Bamberg. After the war ended, she suggested establishing an office for advising congregations on artistic matters.[3] From 1946 to 1969, Schiller was head of the church art service, an office of the Lutheran Church in Hamburg.[3] She encouraged young theologians and artists at the Kirchliche Hochschule Hamburg. In 1979, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin.[4]
In 1994 she died in Grafrath, and was buried in Augsburg.
