Eugene Bolz

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Eugen Bolz on a German postage stamp from 2006 from the series Upright Democrats (Michel-no. 2571)

Eugen Anton Bolz (born December 15, 1881 in Rottenburg am Neckar , † January 23, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German politician of the Center Party . From 1928 to 1933 he was President of the People's State of Württemberg . Later he participated in the resistance against National Socialism .

Life

family

Eugen Bolz was born as the twelfth child of the grocer Josef Bolz and his wife Maria Theresia, née Huber, in Rottenburg am Neckar and was baptized three days later on December 27, 1881 in the former collegiate church of St. Moriz .

He was since 1920 with the Ulmerin married Maria Hoeness, with whom he had a daughter. Eugen Bolz was the uncle of the Curia Cardinal Paul Augustin Mayer (1911-2010) through his wife's family .

education and profession

Bolz passed his matriculation examination at the Karls-Gymnasium in Stuttgart in 1900 . He was involved in the " Windthorstbund ", the youth organization of the Center Party . From 1900 he studied law at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen and in Bonn (1901) and Berlin (1901/02). He became a member of the Catholic student associations AV Guestfalia Tübingen , the KDStV Bavaria Bonn and the KAV Suevia Berlin , all in the Cartell Association of Catholic German Student Associations ( CV ). At KAV Suevia Berlin, he met the center politician Felix Porsch , who made him become a politician after graduating. In 1902 he continued his studies in Tübingen and graduated in 1905 with the first state examination in law. He then completed his legal clerkship in Rottenburg, Ravensburg and Stuttgart. After Bolz had passed the second state examination in law in 1909, he initially worked as a laborer at the Ulm Public Prosecutor's Office, then from 1911 to 1914 as an assessor at the Stuttgart Public Prosecutor's Office. During the First World War he served as a lieutenant on the Western Front in Alsace.

Political career

He joined the Center Party , for which he was a member of the Reichstag from 1912 to 1918 . He represented the constituency of Württemberg 13 ( Aalen , Gaildorf , Neresheim , Ellwangen ). At the same time he was a member of the Second Chamber of the Württemberg Land estates from 1912 to 1918 .

After the November Revolution, he participated in the Weimar National Assembly from 1919 to 1920 . In 1919 he was elected to the Landtag of the Free People's State of Württemberg for the constituency of Rottenburg , to which he belonged until 1933. From 1920 to 1933 he was also a member of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic .

In 1919 he was appointed Minister of Justice in Württemberg and Minister of the Interior in 1923 . After the failed Hitler-Ludendorff putsch in November 1923, he cracked down on the NSDAP , had their top officials arrested and the police occupied their offices. In 1928 he succeeded Wilhelm Bazille and became the first Catholic in the predominantly Protestant Württemberg State President (i.e. head of government), while at the same time he remained Minister of the Interior. He ruled in a coalition with the German National People's Party (DNVP), while the SPD , which won the election, remained excluded from the government. In 1932, after meeting Adolf Hitler , he wrote that his impression of Adolf Hitler was better than previously thought: “His views generally largely coincide with ours.” Bolz initially saw Hitler's appointment as Chancellor by Reich President Hindenburg on January 30, 1933 as a "Political necessity", but he envisioned a Christian and nationally motivated "temporary dictator" based on an "emergency community of the parties."

On March 15, 1933, the Württemberg state parliament “elected” the National Socialist Wilhelm Murr as the new state president. Following the parliamentary requirements, Bolz approved the Enabling Act in the Reichstag on March 23, 1933, despite his conflict of conscience. Nevertheless, the National Socialists saw Bolz as an opponent. On June 19, 1933, he was taken into “ protective custody ” in front of a staged “excited crowd” and interned for several weeks in the Hohenasperg Fortress prison.

Resistance to National Socialism

Eugen Bolz before the People's Court, 1944

After his release, he retired to Beuron Abbey and then into private life. During this time he worked as legal advisor to Caritas , tax advisor to the Beuron monastery and partner in the CH Bauer ceiling stone factory in Stuttgart. The self-employment ensured the family's livelihood on the one hand and enabled inconspicuous contacts with opponents of the Nazi state through business trips on the other .

His work Katholische Aktion und Politik ( Catholic Action and Politics) was written as early as 1934 , in which he took up ideas of resistance for the first time: “In the case of obvious and permanent abuse of state power, the people have a right of self-defense.” The work was only published after Bolz's death by Joachim Köhler ( Christianity and Politics . Documents of the Resistance ).

At the turn of the year 1941/42, Eugen Bolz came into contact with the resistance group around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler through Christian trade unionists and leading employees of the Bosch company . However, for religious and political reasons, he expressed reservations about the planned murder of Adolf Hitler by tyrant ; he considered an arrest of Hitler sufficient. Nevertheless, Bolz declared himself ready to take over a ministerial office in a new government after a coup. In Goerdeler's list of ministers, he was listed first as Minister of the Interior, then as Minister of Education; Above all, it was supposed to prepare a democratic new beginning for Germany and to anchor democratic ideas in the German people. After the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , he was denounced, arrested on August 12, 1944, sentenced to death by the People's Court on December 21, and beheaded on January 23, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee .

Honors

Memorial plaques on the Reichstag
Facade of the former house
Memorial in Stuttgart
  • Since 1992, one of the 96 memorial plaques for members of the Reichstag murdered by the National Socialists has been commemorating Bolz in the Tiergarten district of Berlin at the corner of Scheidemannstrasse and Platz der Republik .
  • A bronze plaque on the house where he was born at Königstrasse 53 in Rottenburg am Neckar, of which he is an honorary citizen, commemorates Bolz.
  • In the parliament of Baden-Wuerttemberg one of the meeting rooms is named after him; there is a copy of the Bolz bust by the sculptor Fritz von Graevenitz . (A second copy is in the Baden-Württemberg State Ministry, which named its extension Eugen-Bolz-Haus in 2016. )
  • In the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior there is a Bolz bust of the artist Olga Waldschmidt .
  • In Stuttgart-Mitte there is a memorial by the Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka for Eugen Bolz on Bolzstrasse at the Königsbau .
  • In 2004 a new bell in his baptistery, St. Moriz in Rottenburg am Neckar, was named after him.
  • On the facade of Eugen Bolz's former home, Am Kriegsbergturm 44, Stuttgart, there was a 6-meter-high portrait in memory of him; the building was demolished in 2017.
  • The furniture in Eugen Bolz's study from his former home in Stuttgart is now together with an exhibition on his life in a memorial room at the Eugen Bolz Realschule in Ellwangen that opened in 2018 .

There are numerous other institutions, streets and squares associated with the name Eugen Bolz . The Latin school in Rottenburg that Bolz attended is now called Eugen-Bolz-Gymnasium ; other schools were also named after Bolz.

On November 9, 2006, the German Post issued a 45-cent special stamp as part of the “ Upright Democrats ” series .

The Catholic Church accepted Eugen Bolz in 1999 as a martyr in the German martyrology of the 20th century ; a beatification process is currently in progress.

Studienstiftung Eugen Bolz

In 1970 the Eugen Bolz e. V. (Bonn), which is close to the CV . The purpose of the foundation is to "support young people at scientific universities, organize study conferences and publish publications on civic education."

Eugen Bolz Foundation

In 2007 the Eugen Bolz Foundation (Rottenburg) was founded; it emerged from the Eugen Bolz Association. The purpose of the foundation is the "general promotion of the democratic state and international understanding."

The foundation awards the Eugen Bolz Prize at irregular intervals to “personalities who are particularly outstanding in the life, work and thinking of Dr. Make Eugen Bolz visible and tangible. ”Prize winners include a. Paul Kirchhof (2001), Joachim Fest (2004), Erwin Teufel (2008), Charlotte Knobloch (2010) and Angela Merkel (2017).

See also

Monument in Rottenburg
Monument in Oberkochen

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Albinus, Andreas Maier: Eugen Bolz 1881–1945 in memoriam. Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2016.
  • Alois Dangelmaier: President Dr. Eugen Bolz as a man and statesman. Schwabenverlag, Stuttgart 1948.
  • Eugene Bolz. A man of resistance. Studienstiftung Eugen Bolz Bonn, 1983; Reprint of the Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2016.
  • Joachim Köhler : (Ed.): Christianity and politics. Documents of the Resistance. On the 40th anniversary of the execution of the center politician and President Eugen Bolz on January 23, 1945. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1985, ISBN 3-7995-4083-0 .
  • Joachim Köhler: Eugen Bolz. Württemberg Minister and President. In: Michael Bosch, Wolfgang Niess (ed.): The resistance in the German southwest 1933–1945. State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-17-008365-1 .
  • Wilhelm Kohler : Life and Martyrdom of our President Dr. Eugene Bolz. Ackermann, Schramberg 1947.
  • Max Miller : Eugen Bolz. Statesman and confessor. Schwabenverlag, Stuttgart 1951.
  • Max Miller:  Bolz, Eugen Anton. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 437 ( digitized version ).
  • Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, 659–663.
  • Rudolf Morsey : Eugen Bolz (1881-1945). In: Jürgen Aretz , Anton Rauscher (ed.): Contemporary history in life pictures. Volume 5, Grünwald, Mainz 1982, ISBN 3-7867-0408-2 .
  • Frank Raberg: Eugen Bolz. Between duty and resistance. Formative heads from the southwest, Volume 3, DRW Weinbrenner, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2009, ISBN 3-87181-716-3 .
  • Frank Raberg : Biographical handbook of the Württemberg state parliament members 1815-1933 . On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016604-2 , p. 91 .
  • Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures . First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4
  • Joachim Sailer: Eugen Bolz and the crisis of political Catholicism in the Weimar Republic. Bibliotheca Academica, Tübingen 1994, ISBN 3-928471-09-0 .
  • Ekkart Sauser:  Bolz, Eugen. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 19, Bautz, Nordhausen 2001, ISBN 3-88309-089-1 , Sp. 76-78.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches. Volume 102, A. Pustet, 1991.
  2. ^ Karls-Gymnasium Stuttgart (Ed.): 125 Years of Karls-Gymnasium Stuttgart, Stuttgart 2006
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Peter Henkel: "The slave state must disappear". In: Context , issue 195, December 24, 2014.
  4. ^ Carl-Wilhelm Reibel: Handbook of the Reichstag elections 1890-1918. Alliances, results, candidates (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Volume 15). Half volume 2, Droste, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-7700-5284-4 , pp. 1245-1248.
  5. ↑ Memorial plaque on the house where he was born in Rottenburg
  6. ↑ Eva Funcke: Resistance in the Third Reich - Defying the Nazis. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten. January 23, 2014, accessed January 9, 2017 .
  7. ^ Jan Sellner: Villa Bolz - commemoration in large format. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten. November 1, 2015, accessed April 22, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Flyer of the memorial room at the Eugen-Bolz-Realschule in Ellwangen , accessed on July 22, 2020
  9. ↑ Studienstiftung Eugen Bolz e. V. . mv.cartellverband.de. Accessed September 8, 2016
  10. ↑ Eugen Bolz Foundation . eugen-bolz-stiftung.de. accessed on January 4, 2017

Web links

Commons : Eugen Bolz  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bolz, Eugene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bolz, Eugen Anton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (center), MdR, state president and interior minister of Württemberg, resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Rottenburg am Neckar
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee