Viktor Holtz (3 May 1846 – 3 September 1919) was a German educator and a pioneer of German-Japanese academic and cultural relations.

Early life

Holtz was born in Stolberg,

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, and studied, from 1865 to 1867, at the Royal Catholic Teacher's Academy in Kempen.

Professional career

He subsequently became a teacher in

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

and on November 1, 1869 he was in charge of teacher training at the teacher's academy at

Boppard Boppard (), formerly also spelled Boppart, is a town and municipality (since the 1976 inclusion of 9 neighbouring villages, ''Ortsbezirken'') in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, lying in the Rhine Gorge, a UN ...

. On December 20, 1870, at the request of the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, the

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

nn Minister of Education dispatched him because of his knowledge of foreign languages and his other qualifications as a

foreign advisor Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

on a 3-year contract to

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. Together with the more famous military surgeons Theodor Eduard Hoffmann and Leopold Benjamin Müller, he belonged to the first group of Germans whom Prussia dispatched to modernize and westernize schools of higher education in Japan. At first, Holtz was attached to the Southern College (''Daigaku Nankō''; a predecessor to

Tokyo Imperial University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public university, public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several Edo peri ...

); from 1872, Holtz' School was at least nominally independent. The name was changed from "First School of Foreign Learning" and "2nd Middle School" into "German School". Holtz remained the sole teacher for all eleven subjects. Due to a change of the Japanese educational policy, this school was merged into the Kaisei School in August 1873. At the same time, Holtz was transferred to the Tokyo Medical School (''Tokyo Igakkō'') for the remainder of his contract, which had been extended by 8 months twice. Therefore, inconsistent educational planning terminated the pioneer experiment of a German school in Japan without direct lasting effects. On October 1, 1874, he returned to Boppard and took over after the appointment of J. Hoffmann to the district school inspector teaching in mathematics, German and piano and was transferred in 1877 to

Prüm Prüm () is a town in the Westeifel (Rhineland-Palatinate), Germany. Formerly a district capital, today it is the administrative seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") Prüm (Verbandsgemeinde), Prüm. Geography Prüm lies o ...

(near

Koblenz Koblenz ( , , ; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz'') is a German city on the banks of the Rhine (Middle Rhine) and the Moselle, a multinational tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman military p ...

), in 1889 to Schrimm and in 1902 to

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

where he died in 1919.

References

::* ''This article also derives significantly from the content and style of the "Viktor Holtz" article on the

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia () is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on 16 March 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia edition (after the English Wikipedia). It has articles, ma ...

.''

External links

Ein Bericht von Viktor Holtz (gefunden beim Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz)
1846 births 1919 deaths 19th-century German educators People from Stolberg (Rhineland) German expatriates in Japan Foreign advisors to the government in Meiji-era Japan Foreign educators in Japan {{Edu-bio-stub