Tami Oelfken

Life & Legacy

Tami Oelfken (25 June 1888 – 7 April 1957) was a German teacher who became an author and controversial (especially at that time) education reformer.
The "Tami Oelfken Community School" which she set up in Berlin-Lichterfelde in 1928 was closed down by the Nazi authorities in 1934 on account of its "pacifist, communist and pro-Jewish tendencies". Attempts to re-open it in Paris and, later, to promote her education reform ideas in France and then in England came to nothing, and in 1939 she returned to Berlin where her uncompromising approach led to professional marginalisation. The focus of her activity was increasingly on her writing, though both the novels she produced for publication during the war years were banned, in one case before and in the other case shortly after publication. After 1945 there was a modest revival of interest in her work, but the ideas on education reform that she continued to promote with characteristic fixity failed to become part of the mainstream pedagogical agenda during her lifetime.