Heinrich Ottenjann

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Heinrich Ottenjann (born February 19, 1886 in Greven ; † May 16, 1961 in Cloppenburg ) was a high school teacher and, as the founder of the Cloppenburg Museum Village (opened in 1936), its first director. His successor in this office was his son Helmut Ottenjann (1931-2010).

Life

Ottenjann was the son of the master carpenter Johann Ottenjann (1847–1925) and Katharina geb. Blacks (1850-1937). He attended the Catholic elementary and rectorate school in Greven and then the grammar school in Rheine , where he passed the Abitur in 1906. Ottenjann studied classical philology , history and sport in Münster and Berlin . As early as 1908 he passed the gymnastics teacher exam in Münster. In 1910 he did his doctorate at the University of Münster under Wilhelm Kroll with the dissertation De vocum encliticarum apud Plautum collocatione . In the following year Heinrich Ottenjann acquired the qualification to teach Latin , Greek and history . Initially, Ottenjann taught in Warendorf and Ahlen before he was transferred to the newly founded secondary school in Cloppenburg in 1914 .

During the First World War Ottenjann fought in Belgium , France , Poland , Russia and Serbia . In 1917 he was seriously wounded, but was able to continue teaching in Cloppenburg that same year.

In 1922 Heinrich Ottenjann began building a local history museum from the extensive furniture and equipment collections of the museum association founded in 1921 in the rooms of the Cloppenburg high school.

In the same year the museum association merged with the Heimatbund for the Oldenburger Münsterland and the foundation of a local museum for the Oldenburger Münsterland was formally confirmed by the Oldenburg Ministry of the Interior. By integrating the prehistoric private collection of the Löningen pharmacist Bernhard König , the holdings could be expanded and thematically expanded.

During the construction period he developed the plan to build an open-air museum, the “Museumsdorf Cloppenburg”, in Cloppenburg. Ottenjann was guided by the holistic concept of Scandinavian open-air museums, which tried to depict the history of the rural population with the help of objects in their functional context. In doing so, he was thoroughly scientifically oriented and defined the various museum collections of material folk culture as evidence of history, the interpretation of which should enable conclusions to be drawn about more general cultural, economic and social-historical relationships.

In order to implement his museum idea, he was first given leave of absence from school service in the 1933/34 school year. The leave of absence was extended several times until the Second World War .

Ottenjann protested against the intention of the National Socialist rulers to use the museum to present historical rural culture within the framework of the blood-and-soil ideology and insisted on the principle of scientifically accurate documentation.

Heinrich Ottenjann was socially engaged in a variety of ways: he took on leading positions in the “ People's Association for Catholic Germany ”, in the “ Cartell Association of Catholic German Student Associations ”, in the gymnastics and sports movement (from 1923 to 1926 he headed the Cloppenburg gymnastics club ), in the southern Oldenburg region Homeland Movement and in various national folk and local history commissions.

From 1937 Ottenjann was chairman of the “Heimatbund for the Oldenburger Münsterland ”.

Honors

  • Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1954
  • Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, September 22, 1959
  • Honorary citizen of the city of Cloppenburg, 1956

For a long time there was a bust of Ottenjann on the hall of the Quatmannshof in the museum village of Cloppenburg, which was created by the Artland sculptor Karl Allöder .

family

On September 29, 1919, Ottenjann married Maria Hiltemann (1891–1971), the youngest daughter of the Cloppenburg white tanner and businessman Antonius Hiltemann (1839–1910) and his wife Ida nee. Wewer (1852-1938). The couple had three sons and two daughters.

literature

Works by Heinrich Ottenjann

  • De vocum encliticarum apud Plautum collocatione. Dissertation. Monasterii Guestfalorum. Aschendorff, 1910.
  • Festival book: 500 years of the city of Cloppenburg, 1435–1935. Cloppenburg, 1936. (Editor)
  • The Münsterland. Schulzesche publishing bookstore. Oldenburg, 1937.
  • The museum village in Cloppenburg. Oldenburg, 1944.
  • Old German country furniture. A contribution to the cultural history of the Oldenburger Münsterland. Uelzen and Hanover, 1954.

Secondary literature

  • Hermann Lübbing : Heinrich Ottenjann. The man and his work. In: Oldenburg Yearbook. 60, 1961, Part 1, pp. 155-156.
  • Bernd Thonemann: Dr. Heinrich Ottenjann on his 100th birthday. Life and work. In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 1987 , pp. 5–24.
  • Uwe Meiners: Ottenjann, Heinrich. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 545-547 ( online ).
  • Heinrich Havermann: Heinrich Ottenjann - his work for the Heimatbund. In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 2012 , pp. 358–370.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hubert Gelhaus : The political-social milieu in Südoldenburg from 1803 to 1936 . Dissertation 2000, p. 110

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