Albert Gollwitzer

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Albert Gollwitzer (born April 21, 1876 in Ullersricht ; † August 11, 1964 in Wollmetshofen ) was a German mechanical engineer and railroad worker .

Life and work

After graduating from high school in Nuremberg in 1894 , Gollwitzer, who came from a Protestant family, initially did his military service as a one-year volunteer in the Bavarian Army's 14th Infantry Regiment "Hartmann" . He then studied mechanical engineering at the TH Munich from 1895 to 1900 , interrupted by a one-year internship at MAN . On November 1, 1901, he joined the Royal Bavarian State Railways as a mechanical engineering intern . Until 1903 he was employed as an intern at various locations in quick succession, including the Centralwerkstätte in Munich , the company workshop in Weiden in the Upper Palatinate and the General Management in Munich. On December 22, 1903, he successfully passed the state examination for the higher mechanical engineering service.

Gollwitzer initially performed station duty at various train stations until he was entrusted with the management of the Weiden workshop on August 1, 1905. Two years later he moved to the Regensburg workshop and in 1909 became a member of the board of the Kirchseeon sleeper inspection . When the First World War broke out , he was the director of Werkstätteninspektion IV in Nuremberg . During the war he served as a reserve officer in the 21st Bavarian Infantry Regiment "Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin" , most recently as captain of the reserve.

After the transfer of the Bavarian State Railways to the Deutsche Reichsbahn , founded in 1920 , Gollwitzer remained in the railroad service. In 1923 he took over the management of the repair shop in Nuremberg , at the end of 1924 he changed to the same function at the repair shop in Neuaubing , in 1930 he took over the repair shop in Munich-Freimann .

With the " seizure of power " by the NSDAP , Gollwitzer, who had already supported the NSDAP before 1933, rose quickly. He benefited from the fact that the management level of the Reichsbahn - in order to secure the internal autonomy of the Reichsbahn - was prepared to go far to meet the new rulers in filling posts and implementing National Socialist policy in the Reichsbahn. General director Julius Dorpmüller willingly promoted " old fighters " and NSDAP sympathizers to secure his position. Gollwitzer, who joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 (membership number 1.925.933), initially took over a mechanical engineering department at the Reich Railway Directorate in Nuremberg on July 1, 1933, and on August 12 of the same year became acting head of the directorate. Dorpmüller also gave him the role of Bavarian representative on the Reichsbahn executive board as the successor to retired Anton Löhr . From October 1, 1933, Gollwitzer took over the Reichsbahndirektion Munich as President, while maintaining his position as a member of the Reichsbahn executive board. With the re-transfer of the Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft to direct Reich administration through the law regulating the relations between the Reichsbank and the Deutsche Reichsbahn in February 1937, Gollwitzer lost his position on the board of directors, but remained President of the Munich management.

In Munich, under Gollwitzer, the expansion of the railway systems began in 1937 according to the ideas of Adolf Hitler for the capital of the movement . Until the outbreak of war, however, little of the S-Bahn plans had been implemented. Another of Gollwitzer's activities was supporting director Willy Zielke during the shooting of the film “ Das Stahltier ”.

In 1940 he became an honorary citizen of the Technical University of Munich .

The transport crisis in the Russian campaign in 1942 led to an extensive renovation at the Reichsbahn and the Reich Ministry of Transport . At the instigation of Albert Speer in particular , Reich Transport Minister Dorpmüller not only replaced his State Secretary Wilhelm Kleinmann with the much younger Albert Ganzenmüller , several board members and directors were also retired and replaced by younger men. Albert Gollwitzer was replaced on October 1, 1942 by Otto Gümbel , the bearer of the Blood Order , and retired, which he formally took on January 1, 1943. After the war, Gollwitzer first lived in his home village of Ullersricht. In 1947 he was classified in group IV (“fellow travelers”) by the chamber of justice in Neustadt an der Waldnaab as part of the denazification process , which the main chamber of Munich-City confirmed in 1949. From 1960, he spent the last years of his life in the old people's home set up in Schloss Elmischwang near Wollmetshofen .

The Bahn-Sozialwerk (BSW) operates the Albert Gollwitzer Hütte leisure center, named after Albert Gollwitzer, near Georgenberg in the Upper Palatinate Forest .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b End station destruction: eagerness to serve and fulfillment of duty at the Reichsbahn in Munich 1933 - 1945. Reichsbahnpräsident Albert Gollwitzer - documents ( memento of the original from January 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.endstation-vernichtung.de
  2. ↑ Rediscovered: A series of events by CineGraph Babelsberg, Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Film Research and the Zeughauskino, in cooperation with the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and the Deutsche Kinemathek. No. 202 September 6, 2013, introduction: Stefan Eickhoff: DAS STAHLTIER, D 1934/35, director: Willy Zielke
  3. ^ Wolfgang A. Herrmann (Ed.): Technical University of Munich. The history of a science company . Volume 2, Metropol, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-938690-34-5 , p. 989.
  4. ^ Alfred C. Mierzejewski: The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich. A History of the German National Railway, Volume 2, 1933-1945 , The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 2000, ISBN 0-8078-2574-3 , p. 106
  5. ↑ BSW page on Albert Gollwitzer Hütte , accessed on January 19, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Gollwitzer, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mechanical engineer and railway worker
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Ullersricht
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1964
Place of death Wollmetshofen