Erich Mindner

Erich Mindner (born March 9, 1895 in Breslau ; † April 12, 1939 in Darmstadt ) was a German architect and university professor .

Life

Erich Mindner was born in March 1895 in Breslau as the son of the businessman Heinrich Mindner and his wife Gertrude Büscher. After graduating from high school, he studied architecture at the Technical University of Wroclaw and at the Technical University of Darmstadt . He completed his studies with the academic degree of a graduate engineer. He then started his legal traineeship and after passing the second state examination was appointed government architect ( assessor in public construction). Mindner was a partner in the Heidelberg architects' office of the Holzmann company.

Erich Mindner joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 and received a full professor of architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt on October 16, 1933. The choice finally fell on Mindner, as neither the first place winner in the appeal procedure, Joseph Schlippe , nor the second place winner at the end of the procedure were willing to come to Darmstadt. He thus succeeded Heinrich Walbe , who had been forced out of the university after the Lieser affair in the spring of 1933. On the same date Mindner took on part-time management of the Adolf Hitler Building School in Mainz (today: Mainz University of Applied Sciences ).

In 1935, Mindner became Paul Meissner's successor , monument curator of the Starkenburg Province and a member of the Hessian Monument Council. From 1935 until his death in April 1939 he held the post of dean of the architecture department at the university. As a party member of Karl Lieser and vicarious agent of Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger , Mindner played a key role in appointing Lieser as a personal professor and giving him a teaching position for urban and regional planning.

Erich Mindner was a member of the artistic advisory board of the Darmstadt artist community. This was a unitary organization founded by Mayor Otto Wamboldt in 1936, which wanted to bring together all local artists under National Socialist leadership. In addition to Mindner, this advisory board included Adolf Beyer , Jakob Krug and Hermann Geibel .

In contrast to his predecessor, Mindner has hardly created any noteworthy structures of supraregional importance. His most famous work is composed of basalt built, 50-meter high water tower in Hanau-Steinheim that has emerged from 1936 to 1938 and as a "unique testimony of Nazi propaganda architecture in Hanau" under monument protection was provided. With the building, the National Socialists wanted not only to create a water reservoir for the Steinheim population, but also a place to display their glorification of war and dictatorial party ideology.

Erich Mindner died in Darmstadt at the age of 44. He had been married to Antonie von Braun since 1918.

Fonts

• Walls and Ceilings, Volume 1. Verlag Walter de Gruyter , Berlin 1936.
• Franz Kuhn and his work. (Nekrolog) In: Heidelberger Latest News from November 8, 1938, p. 4.

literature

• Melanie Hanel: Normality under exceptional conditions. The TH Darmstadt under National Socialism. Darmstadt 2014.
• Christa Wolf, Marianne Viefhaus: Directory of professors at TH Darmstadt. Darmstadt 1977, p. 141.