HISTORY
On the 30th of May 1951, under
the direction of Mayor Joseph KLEIN, a very motivated group
of people met to “study the feasibility of founding a Society
of the Friends of the Humanist Library of which the goal would
be to increase the visibility of the said Library, as well as
that of the history of Sélestat and its locality”.
The constituting General Assembly
took place on the 4th of June 1951. The mayor expressed his
pleasure to welcome an audience of some 200 people.
The statutes were approved and
the decision to publish an Annual every year was ratified by
the assembly.
It then proceeded to elect
the first Governing Board. The following notables were included:
– Joseph Klein, mayor of Sélestat, president
of the Society
– Charles-Louis Marchal, mayor of Châtenois, vice president
– Abbot Paul Adam, librarian, secretary
– Paul Brand, bank director, treasurer
– Bernard Grettner, under-prefect
– Canon Joseph Walter
– Canon Jacques Muller, elder, parish priest
– Ernest Rebert, minister
– Jules Dreyfus, merchant
– Arthur Graff, artist
– Dr Charles Houllion, doctor
– Paul Kieffer, architect
– Ernest Lenhart, professor
– Georges Martin
– Marcel Pons
– René Seltemann
Registered at the Magistrate’s
Court on the 13th of November 1951, the Society has revised its
statutes on several occasions.
In 1987, it was able to obtain
by prefectoral decree the status of public interest organization,
giving its benefactory members and donors the right to a tax deduction.
Among the most prominent events
in the history of the Society, the year 1985 must be mentioned:
it was the 500th anniversary of the birth of Beatus Rhenanus,
the famous Selestadian humanist. Twenty-five university professors,
scholars and historians met on the 19th and 20th of September
for an international colloquium of which the goal was to make
the most complete inventory possible of what was known of the
Alsatian humanist-scholar, of his links with the other scholars
of his time and of the history of that period.
On the occasion of its 40th
anniversary (1991), the Society published an index of its Annuals,
containing in addition a table of the lectures and outings which
it had organized. At that time, the Board was comprised of 14
people, of which 2 were ex-officio members :
– Gilbert Estève, mayor, ex-officio
member
– Dr Maurice Kubler, president
– Jean Pons, vice-president
– Hubert Meyer, secretary, ex-officio member
– Raymond Sprauel, trésorier
– Alexandra Hild, assistant treasurer
– Robert Guidat, Tharsice Niedhammer, assessors
– Gérard Seltemann, Norbert Reppel, Claude Schirlen,
Jean-Marie Montavon, Marie-Thérèse
Sauter, Père René Bornert
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