Bernhard Poll

Bernhard Poll (born July 26, 1901 in Bielefeld , † September 17, 1981 in Aachen ) was a German historian and long-time archivist of the Aachen City Archives .

Live and act

After finishing school, Bernhard Poll first began studying theology, but in the summer semester of 1923 he switched to the University of Freiburg , where he began studying history. Here he also joined the KDSt.V. Hohenstaufen Freiburg im Breisgau . A year later, Poll moved to the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in 1925. He then completed his studies with the state examination for higher teaching qualifications at the University of Kiel .

In 1927, Poll took up a position in the Reichsarchiv Potsdam as a consultant in the war history department, which was transferred to the newly founded Army Archives Potsdam in 1936 and rebuilt under Friedrich von Rabenau . Poll, who was considered unreliable due to his negative attitude towards the NSDAP , was only taken over as an army archivist with the status of an official one year later. During this time he also published his first two publications on the history of the First World War . During the Second World War , from 1940, Poll was transferred to the newly established staff of the Army High Command for Norway, and in 1943 he was reassigned to the Army Archives as head of department. After the invasion of the Red Army he was given the management of the central archive of the Soviet zone of occupation , but at the end of 1946 he left Potsdam and temporarily moved to his family in Bielefeld.

In 1948, Poll followed a call from the city of Aachen, which appointed him as the successor to Albert Huyskens , who was sick and retired and was burdened with a denazification process, as director of the city archive and entrusted him with the reconstruction of the archive, which was badly damaged during the war. In addition, Poll joined the Aachen History Association and headed it from 1962 to 1972 as the successor to Felix Kuetgens . Poll's main work was created as early as 1960: "The history of Aachen in numbers", which he reissued in 1965 in two volumes. Until his death in 1981 he also worked on a third revised and expanded edition, which was completed by Thomas R. Kraus and Hans Siemons and published in 2003.

Since taking up his post in Aachen, Poll had also campaigned for the preservation of the International Newspaper Museum, which he took over from 1952 to 1972. After extensive repair work, he was able to reopen the museum to the public on October 19, 1962 with new exhibition rooms. Five years later he presented his exhibition “The Jewish Press in the 19th Century”, which was also shown in the USA, Argentina, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Poll dedicated this exhibition to the doctor Professor Walter Hirsch, who fled Germany, on the occasion of the opening of the new library in Tel Aviv, in which Hirsch made his private collection available to a broad public.

In addition, Poll joined the Cartell Association of Catholic German Student Associations in Aachen, of which he headed the Aachen Phlister Circle from 1954 to 1968 as chairman. He was also a member of the Görres Society and the Society for Rhenish History , for which he edited the second to eighth volumes of the "Rheinische Lebensbilder".

Fonts (selection)

• The right to revert to the manors of Austria ; RM Rohrer, Brno 1923
• Turn of fate 1914 , C. Heymann, Berlin 1935
• German fate 1914–1918 ': Prehistory and Story d. World War , Weidmann, Berlin 1937
• England and the Second Reich , Mittler, Berlin 1940
• Fifty years Stadtsparkasse Aachen 1901 - 1951 , Willmars, Aachen 1951
• The fate of Aachen in autumn 1944 , part I in: Journal of the Aachener Geschichtsverein (ZAachenerGV) 66/67, 1954/55, pp. 193-268
• The fate of Aachen in the autumn of 1944. Authentic reports , in: Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsverein (ZAachenerGV) 73, 1961, pp. 33-254
• History of Aachen in data , City Archives Aachen, 1st edition 1960; 2nd edition Part I. to 1964 Mayer, Aachen 1965, reprint and Part II 1965–2000, continued by Thomas R. Kraus and Hans Simons 2003
• Ceremony for the opening of exhibition rooms in the International Newspaper Museum of the City of Aachen on October 19, 1962, the day of the unveiling of a plaque in memory of Julius Reuter, the founder of Reuter's telegraph office in Aachen in 1850 , city administration of Aachen 1962
• The International Newspaper Museum , In: The Archivist , Bulletin for German Archives No. 16/1968
• David Hansemann  : 1790, 1864, 1964. In memory of e. Politician u. Entrepreneur , Metz, Aachen 1964
• Rhenish images of life , Society for Rhenish History, Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1. u. 2nd volume 1966, 3rd volume 1968, 4th volume 1970, 5th volume 1973, 6th volume 1982
• Jewish press in the 19th century: From d. Boarding school Newspaper museum d. City Aachen. Exhibition z. Opening d. New building d. Professor Walter Hirsch library in Tel Aviv 1967 . [Exhibition catalog], Internationales Zeitungsmuseum Aachen 1967
• On the history of the Peace of Aachen in 1748 , in: Journal of the Aachen History Association (ZAachenerGV) 81, 1971, pp. 5–142

Literature and Sources

• Literature by and about Bernhard Poll in the catalog of the German National Library
• Herbert Lepper : Archive Director Dr. phil. Bernhard Poll. Ein Lebensbild , ZAGV 84/85, 1977/78, pp. 5-10; Obituary for Bernhard Poll, ZAGV 88/89, 1981/82, pp. 269–270

Web links

• Bernhard Poll (PDF; 12.0 MB), commemorative publication 125 Years of the Aachen CV Circle, 2008, page 16