Ernst Soellinger

Ernst Söllinger (born June 5, 1896 in Munich ; † January 6, 1985 in Darmstadt ) was a German athlete , sports teacher and official.

Life

Ernst Söllinger was the son of the Munich lithographer Johann Söllinger. From 1902 to 1910 Ernst Söllinger attended the weekday school in Munich. He then began a four-year apprenticeship as a lithographer and after graduation worked at the Land Surveying Office in Munich. In October 1915 he became a soldier in the Bavarian Infantry Body Regiment in Munich. On October 1, 1917, he was seriously injured in a mine on the Italian front in the Dolomites and lost his left eye. Several hospital stays in Trient , Innsbruck and Munich followed.

In addition to competitive sports , he was particularly interested in art. In 1918/19 he took painting lessons in Munich with Fritz Muth and Professor Mollier, among others . It was also popular as a model for sports plastic labels and graphics.

He had sporting success in long jump and shot put, among other things. In 1919 he achieved the German long jump record . In 1921 Söllinger became German champion in the long jump in Hamburg .

In 1921/22 he completed an apprenticeship at the German University for Physical Education in Berlin . He was granted a special permit to study. The formal graduation of the course took place in March 1923 with a thesis on the importance of university sports . On April 1, 1922, he was hired by Waldemar Petersen as the first full-time sports teacher at the Technical University of Darmstadt .

Söllinger campaigned in Darmstadt for the expansion of the gymnastics and sports offer at the university. The background was the stipulations in the Göttingen (1920) and Erlangen (1921) resolutions of the organized German student body , according to which sport was made a compulsory subject for all students.

Söllinger first ran a ski course for TH students in Hirschegg in Kleinwalsertal in 1923. At his suggestion, the university built a ski resort on a hilltop near Hirschegg under the care of Otto Berndt in 1928/29. When it was inaugurated in December 1929, it was named Waldemar-Petersen-Haus , as Petersen supported the construction with financial donations alongside Otto Berndt.

In Darmstadt, Söllinger campaigned for the gradual expansion of the university stadium of the TH Darmstadt. From 1927 onwards, the university pool in the international style was built according to plans by the architect Karl Roth , the main field was expanded and a grandstand was built. The inauguration of the university pool took place on June 16, 1928. The expanded stadium, supplemented by a marathon gate, was inaugurated at the 4th International Student Championships in August 1930. Over 1000 students from 33 countries took part in this sporting event. Due to the very good organization of these championships, the Hessian President Bernhard Adelung awarded him the official title of "Director" in a letter dated August 10, 1930.

In 1931 Söllinger was appointed director of the newly established institute for physical exercise at the TH. As director of the institute, he welcomed the compulsory participation of university members in university sports and repeatedly stated in various publications his approval of the Nazi views on physical and military training. As early as 1932, the university stadium was supplemented with facilities for military sports (e.g. shooting range). Söllinger wrote: "The soldier spirit of discipline, subordination and the comradely friendship should and must over time become a natural habit of all students."

During the Nazi era, Söllinger was entrusted with important functions and offices. In 1933 Söllinger joined the SA and was also its sports officer. Between 1934 and 1936 he trained as a Reich trainer for the German national ski team in the Waldemar-Petersen-Haus in the Kleiner Walsertal . In 1936 he became a consultant for physical exercises at the Hessian state government. On May 1, 1937, he also became a member of the NSDAP . From April 1941 to 1943 he was also director of the Institute for Physical Exercise at the University of Frankfurt .

In the Second World War Söllinger was classified as indispensable . He achieved that in July 1941 the Reich competitions of the female students during the war took place in the Darmstadt university stadium. These imperial competitions were carried out by the imperial student leader Gustav Adolf Scheel in cooperation with the Institute for Physical Education of the TH. Gauleiter Sprenger greeted the participants with the words: “The National Socialist Greater Germany needs tough, tempered youth. Only this offers a guarantee for the eternal existence of the kingdom. The imperial competitions of the female students serve this high goal. "

On the initiative of Söllinger and with the support of various Darmstadt companies, the pillars of the former lion gate were used for the exhibition on Mathildenhöhe in 1914 for the entrance gate of the university stadium. On the south side the writing “The will to perform leads to performance” was affixed.

Söllinger recorded the extensive destruction of Darmstadt on September 11, 1944 with numerous photographs. Most of the motifs are the destroyed buildings of the TH. On behalf of Rector Kurt Klöppel , Söllinger monitored the use of prisoners of war during the clean-up work at the TH.

As a battalion leader, Söllinger is said to have prevented the Volkssturm from being used against the invading US soldiers at the end of the Second World War, thus preventing further bloodshed.

Due to his activities in the Third Reich, Ernst Söllinger was temporarily dismissed from civil service by the American military government on May 8, 1945, and finally on April 24, 1946. In contrast to many other cases, he was no longer reinstated at a later date. His house, located in the immediate vicinity of the university stadium, was confiscated by the military government and only returned in 1955. In the denazification process in 1947, Söllinger was largely acquitted.

From 1951 to 1960 Söllinger worked as a ski instructor for the Hessian Ski Association. In 1952 he received from the rector of the TH Darmstadt, Hans Wolfgang Kohlschütter , an honor card for the use of the university stadium.

In old age, painting became an important occupation. He participated primarily as a landscape painter in numerous exhibitions on the Darmstadt art scene.

Honors

• 1930: Prize coin in silver from the city of Darmstadt
• 1936: German Olympic medal of honor, second class
• 1961: Silver sports plaque from the city of Darmstadt

literature

• Festschrift Reich competitions of female students in the war from July 24th - 27th 1941 in Darmstadt .
• Melanie Hanel: The Technical University of Darmstadt in the "Third Reich", dissertation, Darmstadt 2013.
• Raimund and Ilse Lore Kluber: Ernst Söllinger - a Munich resident in Darmstadt , Darmstadt, self-published.
• Ernst Soellinger. Article in: Stadtlexikon Darmstadt, Stuttgart 2006, p. 828 f.
• Technical University of Darmstadt: 100 Years of University Sports , Darmstadt, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Raimund and Lore Kluber: Ernst Söllinger - a Munich resident in Darmstadt. Darmstadt, self-published, p. 147.