Bernhard Heinrich Overberg

Bernhard Heinrich Overberg (1 May 1754 – November 8, 1826) was a German Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, educator and author. As an instructor of the teachers he shaped the educational level in Münster and Westphalia.

Youth Overberg was born of peasant parents in the village of Höckel, near Osnabrück, and became a pedlar like his father. At fifteen a priest prepared him for college, and he studied with the Franciscans in Rheine. From 1774 he studied in Münster, and was ordained priest in 1779. By Overberg's day, schools in Prussia were often taught by discharged non-commissioned officers, while in Westphalia the teachers-cum-sacristans often worked a third job as day-labourers.

At first, Overberg himself instructed the teachers; later, as the school grew from twenty pupils to more than a hundred, he employed an assistant. Overberg gave five lessons daily between 21 August to November, and taught method as well as the various school subjects. He accepted women into his school, making it Germany's first training course for female teachers. Overberg became part of her circle of close friends, alongside Furstenberg, philosophers Johann Georg Hamann and François Hemsterhuis, and poet Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg.

Overberg remained director of the school until his death in 1826, despite holding other positions in the meantime.

Other work

Besides teaching in his school, Overberg gave instruction in the catechism for twenty-seven years in the Ursuline convent without remuneration. Every Sunday he recapitulated all that he had lectured upon during the week in a public lecture which was attended by people of all classes, especially by students of theology.

Overberg became regent of the ecclesiastical seminary in 1809, before which he had been for some time synodal examiner and member of the Landschulkommission.

In 1818 he was awarded 1818 the Prussian Red Eagle, and in 1823, honorary member of the cathedral chapter.

Overberg died 8 November 1826. His grave is located in the choir of the Überwasserkirche in Münster, where he was dean and pastor. In 2004, Voltlage commemorated the 250th anniversary of his birth with a number of events. Bishop Franz-Josef Bode from Osnabrück celebrated the closing mass of the festival year. Numerous educational institutions and streets are named after Overberg.

Works Anweisung zum zweckmässigen Schulunterricht (1797) (Instructions for practical school lessons for the school teachers in the Hochstifte Münster) Biblische Geschichte (1799) Christkatholisches Religionsbuch (1804) Katechismus der christlichen Lehre (1804) Sechs Bücher vom Priesterstande (1858)