Following a decision by the City Council of Wiesbaden and the Hessian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, the middle school on Boseplatz was named in 1957 after the writer and playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. Due to a general shortage of space, which particularly affected middle schools in Wiesbaden, some classes from the Gerhart-Hauptmann School moved into facilities at the Friedrich-List School—which was still located on Manteuffelstraße—in 1961. After the Friedrich-List-Schule moved into its new building on Welfenstraße, the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule was completely relocated to the Manteuffelstraße site, where it remains to this day.

Gerhart Hauptmann was born on November 15, 1862, in Bad Salzbrunn, Silesia, the son of a hotel owner. After attending the village school, he transferred to the Realschule in Breslau and subsequently completed an agricultural apprenticeship. Between 1880 and 1882, Hauptmann attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Breslau to train as a sculptor.

However, he dropped out of this program, just as he did from his subsequent studies in Jena, Dresden, and Berlin, where Hauptmann studied philosophy, literary history, history, and drawing. Between 1883 and 1884, he settled in Rome as a sculptor. His work, however, met with no commercial success.

Beginning in 1889, the future Nobel Prize laureate in Literature began writing plays. In 1892, the play *Die Weber* was published. The play, which deals with the Silesian weavers’ revolt of 1844, made Hauptmann world-famous in the decades that followed. He wrote further socially critical plays. By the beginning of the 20th century, Hauptmann had already received numerous honors: He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Oxford (1905), Leipzig (1909), Prague (1921), and later from Columbia University in New York (1932). In 1912, Hauptmann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Hauptmann was skeptical of the German Empire and Wilhelm II; he was always keen to be regarded as an apolitical artist. Politically, Hauptmann was shaped by a form of cultural nationalism in which the “German nation” played a central role. In 1905, Hauptmann joined the Society for Racial Hygiene, founded by Alfred Poetz. This society sought to establish “racial hygiene” as a science. Hauptmann and Poetz had been friends since their youth. Through an analysis of Hauptmann’s diaries and correspondence, historical research has revealed that his relationship with Poetz had cooled by the early 1930s and that the playwright had ideologically distanced himself from his childhood friend.

Hauptmann welcomed World War I and published war poems such as “Come, Let Us Go and Die.” He also supported Germany’s expansionist policies and did not acknowledge Germany’s responsibility for the war.

After the end of World War I and with the beginning of the Weimar Republic, Hauptmann quickly adapted to the new political circumstances. In 1918, he declared his support for the republic but declined a request made to him to run for the office of Reich President.

After the National Socialists “seized power” in 1933, Hauptmann was once again ready to adapt quickly to the new political realities. In March, he signed a pledge along with the members of the Poetry Section of the Prussian Academy of Arts, in which they declared their loyalty to the new government. On May 1, 1933—which the National Socialists had declared a holiday—Hauptmann had the swastika flag hoisted at his estate on Hiddensee. In October 1933, he endorsed Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations.

Hauptmann subsequently expressed enthusiasm for Hitler, whom he described as a “world genius” at the height of the Wehrmacht’s military successes.
The writer was also convinced by Hitler’s manifesto *Mein Kampf*, though he did annotate the book with critical remarks. Hauptmann regarded the book burnings carried out by the National Socialists as a farce. His presence at the opening of the Reich Chamber of Culture in November 1933 was also interpreted as an open declaration of loyalty to the regime. However, he did not sign the “Oath of Allegiance of German Writers to Hitler.” Hauptmann’s public declarations of loyalty and his admiration for Hitler were countered by his critical stance toward Nazi cultural and racial policies. The Nazi regime, too, maintained an ambivalent attitude toward the playwright. In 1933, streets and schools bearing his name were renamed. Hauptmann’s play *Die Goldene Harfe* was performed on “German Art Day” at Hitler’s request and integrated into the regime’s production. Meanwhile, other plays by Hauptmann were banned from performance.

In 1944, Hauptmann was added to the special “List of the Divinely Gifted” compiled by the Reich Ministry of Propaganda. This list contained the names of German artists who were of great importance to the Nazi regime and placed them under its protection. For example, they were exempt from military service.
Hauptmann expressed ambivalent views on Judaism. On the one hand, he had numerous Jewish acquaintances and friends who urged him in vain to emigrate. Some of his friends also broke ties with Hauptmann because of his closeness to the Nazis.

In private, Hauptmann rejected the Racial Laws passed in the summer of 1935. Hauptmann also rejected the Nazi concept of “life unworthy of life” and the regime’s “euthanasia campaigns” based on it. However, this rejection was not enough to prompt him to speak out publicly. Instead, Hauptmann tried to ignore the living conditions of the persecuted, especially the Jewish population. The introduction of the “Jewish star” in September 1941 provoked outrage in Hauptmann.

The question of whether Hauptmann provided financial support to Jewish acquaintances and friends is a subject of controversy among scholars. The plays Hauptmann wrote between 1933 and 1945 are characterized by a largely detached political stance. The play *Die Finsternisse* is an exception. While it addressed Jewish fates with compassion on the one hand, Hauptmann employed anti-Jewish stereotypes on the other. The play was never published, and the original manuscript was destroyed in 1942 for fear of discovery. Hauptmann publicly supported the Nazis’ expansionist policies in various speeches and radio addresses between 1936 and 1942.

Thus, Hauptmann remained ambivalent toward National Socialism overall; however, he neither publicly broke with the regime nor used his international fame and reputation as a Nobel laureate to clearly distance himself from it.

After the collapse of the “Third Reich,” Hauptmann had one last opportunity to welcome the new political circumstances. In October 1945, at his home in Agnetendorf, Silesia, he received a visit from Johannes R. Becher, the president of the Cultural Association for the Democratic Renewal of Germany. Becher wanted to ask Hauptmann for help in rebuilding the cultural sector in the Soviet occupation zone. Hauptmann agreed to accept the honorary chairmanship of the Cultural Association. Shortly before leaving Silesia, Hauptmann died on June 6, 1946.

The Historical Expert Commission—appointed by a resolution of the City Council in 2020 to review public spaces, buildings, and facilities in the state capital of Wiesbaden named after specific individuals—recommended renaming the Gerhart-Hauptmann School be renamed because Hauptmann signed the pledge of the members of the Poetry Section of the Prussian Academy of Arts, thereby effectively supporting the Nazi regime and making a clear commitment to National Socialism as a political movement and to the Nazi state. Through public declarations of loyalty, Hauptmann articulated National Socialist ideology. Furthermore, by virtue of his profession, he was a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture and, even before 1933, was active in a völkisch-nationalist group through his membership in the Society for Racial Hygiene.

The Historical Expert Commission made this recommendation for action given that the institution in question is a school. It is also recommended that the school be included in any potential renaming process.

On April 24, 2025, the responsible local council for the Wiesbaden-Rheingauviertel/Hollerborn district, contrary to the recommendation of the Historical Expert Commission, decided to contextualize the school’s history. This was confirmed by a resolution of the municipal council on March 24, 2026.