The Gutenberg-Gymnasium Erfurt is a gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 (secondary school) located in Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It opened in 1991 and has approximately 750 students between the ages of 10 and 19.

History

• The Gutenberg-Gymnasium was formed from the earlier "Gutenberg School" which was built in 1908. Before the German reunification
  German reunification
  German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
  
   the Art Nouveau
  Art Nouveau
  Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
  
   building housed a Polytechnic Secondary School
  Polytechnic Secondary School
  The polytechnic secondary school, officially ten-class general educational polytechnic secondary school, abbreviation POS, pronounced P-O-S, was the standard type of school in the school system of East Germany. The POS was established in 1959 to replace the hitherto existing Grundschule...
  
  .
• In 2001 the school celebrated its tenth anniversary with a series of events such as dances.
• It shares a twin-school relationship with two other schools, one in Mainz
  Mainz
  Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
  
   and the other in Kentucky
  Kentucky
  The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
  
  , United States
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
  .

Massacre

On April 26, 2002, 19 year old Robert Steinhäuser, a recently expelled student, brought two firearms to school and moved from classroom to classroom shooting teachers, and altogether killed 13 teachers and 2 students. When police arrived on the scene, he shot an officer in the head, killing him instantly. He was then locked in a room by a teacher, where he committed suicide. Subsequent to these events, the school was closed for renovations and officially re-opened more than three years later on August 29, 2005. German chancellor Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor...

spoke at the ceremony.

External links

Official school website