Helmut Goebel
Helmut Joseph Goebel (born January 23, 1925 in Niederschwedeldorf , County Glatz , Province Lower Silesia ) is a German honorary monument conservator from the former County of Glatz . Over the course of several decades he saved many cultural monuments in his home village of Niederschwedeldorf, which fell to Poland in 1945 and was renamed Szalejów Dolny , through his own work. With his support, the Polish association "Towarzystwo Archanioł Michał" (German: Association of Archangel Michael ) was founded, which organizes and co-finances the restoration of the monuments. On July 25, 2014, then Prime Minister Bronisław Komorowski awarded him the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland .
Life
Helmut Goebel was born as the second son of a farmer. After graduating from elementary school in Niederschwedeldorf, he began an agricultural apprenticeship on his father's farm, which he continued and completed in a company in Niedersteine . After attending winter school in 1941/42, he was drafted into the Reich Labor Service in January 1943 and then as an infantryman in the Wehrmacht. Because of a war injury to his legs, he had to learn to walk again after the war ended in 1945. At that time, Lower Sweden, like almost all of Silesia, fell to Poland. On March 5 and 7, 1946, the German population was largely expelled from Niederschwedeldorf and the surrounding area . Thanks to the initiative of the teacher and principal of the Niederschwedeldorfer Schule, the village was saved from being completely torn apart. The destination was reached on March 13, 1946: Oesede (Georgsmarienhütte) . Individuals found accommodation in Hilter , Oesede, Herford and Stolzenau . Since most of the Niederschwedeldorfer lived in Oesede, they founded a homeland association there. As a result, it was possible to promote the preoccupation with the old homeland and to organize joint trips there.
In the Münsterland , Helmut Goebel worked as a freelance specialist in dairy cattle diseases. He married in 1953, founded a company and settled in Münster . He advised the farmers, examined their cows and recommended everything the cows needed to give good milk. During perestroika , he was sent to Russia as an expert to analyze and combat cow diseases there.
Voluntary preservationist
Since 1959 Helmut Goebel has been returning regularly to his now Polish homeland and mainly visited his home village of Niederschwedeldorf and the Germans who stayed there. As early as the 1970s, he began to look after the existing small and architectural monuments. After the political change in the 1990s, he began to restore one monument after another, first alone, then with Polish help. Some of the monuments had to be moved because they did not have a solid foundation or trees impaired their stability. Using his own financial means and with a great deal of work, he managed to renovate 36 existing architectural monuments by 2009, which enabled the "Street of Monuments in Szalejów Dolny / Niederschwedeldorf" to be created.
For his services, Helmut Goebel received the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon on January 20, 1986 and the Order of Merit Class V of the Republic of Poland in 2014 . In September 2019, he was the Cultural Prize Silesia of Lower Saxony awarded
Polish association takes care of the monuments
Helmut Goebel had traveled 111 times to Szalejów Dolny / Niederschwedeldorf by 2017. In addition to the restoration of numerous culturally and historically valuable monuments from seven centuries, he also succeeded in inspiring the Polish population and conveying their appreciation for the monuments threatened with decay. On his initiative in 2012 the association "Towarzystwo Archanioł Michał" ( Association Archangel Michael ) was founded in Szalejów Dolny / Niederschwedeldorf. The association was named after the war memorial dedicated to the Archangel Michael, whose relocation to a worthy place next to the church was the first major task.
This association manages the donations to finance the extensive work. The board takes on necessary negotiations with authorities and landowners; the members do manual and machine work, provide vehicles and maintain the green and flower beds around the monuments. Thanks to the financial support with donations, especially from the members of the Niederschwedeldorf home group , numerous wayside shrines, memorial stones, crosses etc. from different eras have been restored and secured to this day. Helmut Goebel's concern was and is to restore these old monuments to the state they were in before 1939.
Street of monuments
On June 6th, 2009 the “street of the monuments” was inaugurated in Niederschwedeldorf. The war memorial with the Archangel Michael had already been moved to a new place next to the church with the help of a heavy crane. Before the renovation of the figure of the Bohemian national saint John of Nepomuk began, it received a new concrete base. Each wayside shrine and monument was restored as a separate project. The monument street begins at the monument to Pope John II, which was erected in 2012. There is also a large information board there. In addition to the local population, the mayor of Szalejów Dolny / Altwilmsdorf, the district administrator of the Powiat Kłodzki ( Glatz district ), the initiator Helmut Goebel and delegations from the home groups from Niederschwedeldorf and Oberschwedeldorf , both from Georgsmarienhütte , took part in the inauguration ceremony . Polish media also reported on Helmut Goebel's voluntary work.
Tour of the monuments
Goebel's efforts to bring about a more extensive project - a “Tour of the Monuments” from Altheide Bad through Ober- and Niederschwedeldorf, Altwilmsdorf and back to Altheide Bad - could not be realized for various reasons. This tour was supposed to be a hiking or cycling tour for tourists and spa guests from Polanica-Zdrój / Altheide Bad, which would have made the Kłodzka region more attractive for tourism.
Web links
- Curriculum vitae Helmut Goebels on the website of the Heimatverein Niederschwedeldorf
- Reconciliation in Niederschwedeldorf - Young Poles help an old Silesian (with photo)
literature
- Roswitha Hennig: Reconciliation in Niederschwedeldorf - Young Poles help an old Silesian . In: "Schlesien heute" No. 02/2003, p. 32f.
- Josef Brinkmann: Home register of the community of Niederschwedeldorf . Georgsmarienhütte / Oldenburg 2001, ISBN 3-927099-75-9
- Manfred Spata: Restored and newer monuments that remind of their German past in the Polish "Ziemia Kłodzka" (= Glatzer Land ). In: Horst-Alfons Meißner (ed.), New Beginning in the Foreign, Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2016, pp. 379–419.
Individual evidence
- ↑ archaniol michal / n / 1 / n / 1.html website of the association
- ↑ Westfälische Nachrichten (accessed August 22, 2017)
- ↑ Monitor Polski ( Memento from 23 August 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (pdf)
- ^ Website of the Heimatverein Niederschwedeldorf
- ^ List of BVO carriers in the Office of the Federal President
- ↑ Helmut Goebel was honored in Poland for his restoration work there: Angel with a golden heart , Westfälische Nachrichten, July 25, 2014
- ^ Order of Merit of Class V of the Republic of Poland , Westfälische Nachrichten, January 18, 2013
- ^ "Ost-West-Radio" - February 3, 2013 - February edition, Helmut Goebel honored with the Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland for the reconstruction of 36 monuments in the County of Glatz. , Antenne Münster
- ↑ Wybitny artysta uhonorowany Nagrodą Kulturalną Śląska , tuwroclaw.com, September 28, 2019
- ↑ Kulturpreis Schlesien 2019. In: Schlesischer Kulturspiegel , No. 54, 2019, p. 23. Accessed on September 30, 2019 . (pdf; 1.4 MB)
- ↑ Grafschafter Bote No. 11, Lüdenscheid 2019, pp. 1, 6 and 7
- ^ Website of the association
- ↑ Newspaper report ( Polish, accessed August 22, 2017 )
- ↑ Entry with report, photos and geographical location on dolny-slask.org. ( Polish, accessed August 22, 2017 )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Goebel, Helmut |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Goebel, Helmut Joseph (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German honorary monument conservator and expellee |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Niederwedeldorf , district of Glatz |