Helmut Rötzsch

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Helmut Rötzsch (1970)

Helmut Rötzsch (born December 17, 1923 in Leipzig ; † March 28, 2017 there ) was a German library scientist. From 1961 to 1990 he was the chief or general director of the Deutsche Bücherei in Leipzig.

Life

Helmut Rötzsch was the son of a railroad worker. After attending secondary school in Leipzig, he completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller at the Leipzig book wholesaler Koehler & Volckmar from 1938 and worked there as a bookstore assistant until 1941. He joined the NSDAP in 1941 and participated in the Second World War in the Luftwaffe, which ended in American captivity in February 1945. After his release in July 1946, he returned to Leipzig and worked for two years as a criminal secretary for the transport and criminal police at Leipzig Central Station . During that time, Rötzsch joined the SED . Probably because of his American captivity, he was considered a security risk by the police and fell victim to a party cleansing by the SED.

After passing the special school leaving examination, the district leadership of the SED delegated him in 1949 to a short course in economics and cultural studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Leipzig , which was founded in 1947 to train qualified party cadres. After completing a moderate degree, Rötzsch joined the Deutsche Bücherei in October 1950 as administrative director and manager . A rapid career followed. In 1953 he became head of the reading rooms department, in 1955 director of the procurement and access department, and from 1959 deputy to chief director Curt Fleischhack .

At the suggestion of the party leadership of the library and with the support of the MfS of the GDR, after Fleischhack's departure at the end of January 1961, Wilhelm Girnus , State Secretary for higher education and technical schools, made Rötzsch the new chief director on July 1, 1961, and from 1964 general director and head of the German library appointed. He was the first non-classically trained librarian in the function.

Rötzsch officially worked with the district administration of the MfS since he joined the German library in 1950. In 1955 he signed a declaration of commitment as IM "Sand" of the East German MfS . Due to his numerous business trips to the Federal Republic of Germany, he worked for the intelligence headquarters and was awarded for it. Internal conflicts were not part of his role as IM. As head of the Deutsche Bücherei, he was exempt from the MfS's operational tasks until 1973.

In the library, Rötzsch used less the class struggle rhetoric, but rather sought consensus and thus became a figure of integration. In the 1970 / 1980s, instead of the basic SED organization, he increasingly decided himself on the allocation of privileges such as trips to the West, private loans and vacation spots.

In his function, Rötzsch contributed to the transformation of the German library into a socialist institution, which, due to the general task of collecting German-language literature, also had the task of making technical and scientific literature accessible to science and practice in the GDR. Rötzsch finished planning a bibliography with only GDR titles and continued to have bibliographies compiled, covering all German-language literature. He was committed to the maintenance and expansion of the German Museum of Books and Writing, which was incorporated in 1950 . A liberal lending policy and maintaining the connection to the Börsenverein in Frankfurt am Main were further goals of his work. However, the criteria of the librarians for the secretion of titles were applied much more restrictively than at the German State Library in East Berlin.

The third expansion of the Deutsche Bücherei fell during his tenure at the end of the 1970s. The new magazine tower was the largest new library building in the GDR and cost 25 million marks. After the reunification of Germany , the senior library councilor Rötzsch retired in January 1991.

Rötzsch received his doctorate in 1969 at what was then Leipzig's Karl Marx University on the subject of "Contributions to the history and development of the German library" and taught there from 1970 as an honorary professor for library and information science. Among other things, he was a member of the university and technical college council in the German Democratic Republic , chairman of the advisory board for academic libraries, between 1968 and 1974 president of the German library association and from 1961 city councilor of Leipzig. In 1988 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold.

Rötzsch died on March 28, 2017 at the age of 93.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Frank Wagner, Ingrid Kirschey-Feix:  Rötzsch, Helmut . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  2. ^ A b c Christian Rau: "National Library" in the divided country. The German Library 1945–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3199-0 . P. 249.
  3. ^ A b c Christian Rau: "National Library" in the divided country. The German Library 1945–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3199-0 . P. 266 f.
  4. ↑ Armin Görtz: Stasi surprise for the anniversary. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , December 10, 2012, page 3
  5. ^ A b Christian Rau: "National Library" in the divided country. The German Library 1945–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3199-0 . P. 676.
  6. ^ Christian Rau: "National Library" in the divided country. The German Library 1945–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3199-0 . P. 675.
  7. ↑ Helmut Rötsch: The German Library in Leipzig, Development and Task of the Complete Archive of German-Language Literature (PDF; 1.8 MB)
  8. ↑ Jan-Pieter Barbian, Frank Simon-Ritz : German National Library 100 Years - and not a bit quiet . In: boersenblatt.net , October 8, 2012
  9. ^ Christian Rau: "National Library" in the divided country. The German Library 1945–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-8353-3199-0 . P. 679.
  10. ↑ Klaus G. Saur : Great services for book trade and publishers: Helmut Rötzsch died at the age of 93. In: Börsenblatt. April 4, 2017. Retrieved April 6, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Helmut Rötzsch (1923–2017) - In memoriam ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Obituary of the German National Library, accessed on April 7, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dnb.de
personal data
SURNAME Rötzsch, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German library scientist
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 2017
Place of death Leipzig