Historic Association Heilbronn

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The Historical Society Heilbronn is a 1876 founded Historical Society , which deals with the history of the city of Heilbronn is concerned. Before the Second World War, the association operated the historical museum in the meat store and the Alfred Schliz museum for local prehistory and early history in the old cemetery in Heilbronn . The association gained journalistic importance as the editor of its reports (since 1969 as the yearbook for Swabian-Franconian history ), in which numerous important contributions to regional historical research have appeared. The association has always had a close relationship with the Heilbronn city archive , which has been responsible for editing and publishing the association's publications for some time.

history

History of the foundation

Friedrich Betz, initiator and first chairman of the association

After the founding of the Historical Association for Württembergisch Franks in Künzelsau in 1847, to which Heilbronn members had belonged since 1856 and which held its annual meeting in Heilbronn in 1863, Künzelsau temporarily became the focal point of Heilbronn historical research, as the reports of Heilbronn historians were published there , Reports from outside people about Heilbronn's history appeared and historical finds from Heilbronn came to the Künzelsau Association Museum. When the Historical Association for Württembergisch Franken was looking for a new seat in 1872, it was decided against Heilbronn and Schwäbisch Hall . At the end of 1875 there were first attempts to found a branch in Heilbronn. The initiators of the Association for the Württemberg Franconia included the Heilbronn doctor Friedrich Betz , who was a member of the association's committee, and the board member Julius Hartmann as well as local dignitaries such as Heilbronn's Lord Mayor Karl Wüst , the former Paulskirchen deputy Louis Hentges and the Neckarsulm district judge Wilhelm Ganzhorn . On December 27, 1875, a consultation took place in the Heilbronn council chamber , followed by lectures on regional history, a tour of important Heilbronn monuments and an evening banquet. An association was not yet founded that day.

Branch of the Association for Württemberg Francs from 1876

In the Heilbronner Fleischhaus (photo taken before 1929), the association ran a history museum from 1876 until the Second World War

The constituent assembly of the association, to which a provisional committee consisting of Sanitary Councilor Friedrich Betz, paint manufacturer August Bilfinger, Lord Mayor Karl Wüst and District Judge Bonhöffer had invited, took place on February 17, 1876. The goal of the association was to collect antiquities from Heilbronn and the surrounding area and to arouse interest in the history of the city from all walks of life. The association was initially a branch of the Historical Association for Wuerttemberg Franconia, but had its own treasury and committee from the start. The members of the association were at the same time full members of the entire association in which the Heilbronner Verein participated in the publication of its magazine. Friedrich Betz was elected as the first chairman, in addition to the committee members, the teacher and later rector of the Karlsgymnasium , Friedrich Dürr , the former Neuenstadt camera administrator Roth and the former Heilbronn city archivist Gustav Weismann were accepted. The manufacturer Bilfinger wrote the first statute of the association. A few months after it was founded, the local councilor Georg Härle joined the association, which was in the role of cashier.

Just a few weeks after it was founded, the association received approval to use rooms in the Fleischhaus to display its collection as a historical museum, which opened on June 24, 1879. Teacher Dürr became museum administrator and librarian, bookbinder J. Böker became custodian of the museum. In addition to collecting finds from prehistory, the association soon began giving lectures on topics from early history, more recent history and buildings in Heilbronn. In addition, the association was also involved in research, especially in early historical excavations, but z. B. also at the opening of the sarcophagi of the last lords of Hirschhorn in Heilbronn's Kilian Church .

Independent association from 1881

Since Heilbronn had developed into the largest city in the Württemberg Franconia and the association also wanted to publish its own publications, tensions arose with the main association from 1880, so that the Heilbronn Historical Association saw itself as an independent association from late 1881 and a new one in 1882 Articles of Association published.

In the early years, the members of the association consisted predominantly of merchants and manufacturers. While the Haller Verein had many pastors as members, the Heilbronn association did not initially have a single pastor, just as there were no vine gardeners or workers who were otherwise strongly represented in Heilbronn. Already among the members of the early years were several who wrote fundamental works on the history of the city of Heilbronn, including Friedrich Dürr, who compiled the first volume of the Heilbronn Chronicle based on the documents of the city archive, and the teacher Theodor Knapp, who wrote a pamphlet in 1894 The four villages of the former imperial city Heilbronn published. By joining the German Anthropological Society , the Germanisches Museum or the German Schiller Society , the association soon networked with similar but supraregional institutions.

The association's collections received significant growth from the estate of founding member Ganzhorn, who bequeathed his collection of Roman antiquities to the association, and from the estate of the doctor Th. Roman, who bequeathed a large mineral collection to the association. As a result of renovations to the Kilian's Church , the town hall or the Nikolaikirche , historical building sculptures were also transferred to the association.

Alfred Schliz (photo taken in 1877), chairman of the association from 1899 until his death in 1915

When Friedrich Betz resigned from his position on the board of the association in 1899 for reasons of age, he was succeeded by the Heilbronn doctor Alfred Schliz , who had recently started archaeological excavations and who became famous among archaeologists primarily as the discoverer of the Großgartach culture . Schliz published numerous writings about his finds, but also reorganized and cataloged the collections of the association museum, which were greatly increased not least due to his excavation activities, and campaigned for the preservation and restoration of Heilbronn monuments and small monuments. Under Schliz, the lecture activities of the association gained supraregional importance, as it invited renowned researchers to lectures on general history, including the church historian and former Klingenberg pastor Max Duncker , the art historian Julius Baum and the philologist Wilhelm Nestle . In addition, the club outings were intensified. In 1900 the association had more than 300 members for the first time, a membership that was no longer reached until after the Second World War. In the same year, the association erected the Duke Magnus Monument outside of Obereisesheim .

After Alfred Schliz's death in 1915, the historian Moriz von Rauch succeeded him as a member of the board. Rauch, who had been sponsored by his predecessor Schliz, worked on partial volumes of the Heilbronn document book for two decades and presented a large number of regional historical writings. It is his lasting merit to have documented the Heilbronn documents, so that even after the destruction of a large part of the documents in the Second World War, important sources on the city's history are still known. Rauch led the club during the First World War, which was unfavorable for club life, and through the subsequent period of inflation, gave a large part of the lectures himself in the times of empty coffers and brought the excursion activities back to life after the inflation. The economic hardship also had an impact on the number of members, which was barely more than 200 during Rauch's tenure. One of the most active members during Rauch's tenure was the officer Ferdinand Fromm (1857–1941), who gave several lectures to the association from 1913 to around 1930 and was a member of the committee from 1916 to 1937. During Rauch's tenure, the association member Karl Hermann (1888–1961) began a lively activity of publishing articles on the history of the local area, which lasted well after the Second World War.

After Rauch's death, the board of the association changed in quick succession. Rauch was followed in 1928 by the rector of the Karlsgymnasium , Julius Wagner, who had only few connections to the history of Heilbronn and reluctantly gave up the chairmanship when he retired in 1932. He was followed by Albert Stöckle, who was also a teacher at the Karlsgymnasium and wrote some genealogical works, but had to relinquish the chairmanship after the Nazis came to power in 1933 due to his political views. Alfred Schliz, son of the same name of the board of directors who was in office from 1899 to 1915 and who has been on the committee of the association and in looking after the museum for some time, became Stöckle's successor. Schliz junior submitted writings on Heilbronn's constitutional history, but moved to Berlin in 1936 and passed the chairmanship on to his previous deputy, the teacher Georg Albrecht , who had been Moriz von Rauch's successor as a part-time city archivist from 1929 to 1934. In the early 1930s, the schoolteacher Kurt Bach joined the association as secretary and the manufacturer Georg Mertz as the computer. Both held their offices until the 1960s and were later made honorary members. In the further course of the 1930s u. a. the Heilbronn dean Rauscher as well as the teacher Wilhelm Mattes and Götz Krusemarck, who was appointed full-time city archivist in 1934, were accepted into the association's committee.

In the years up to 1939, board member Georg Albrecht completely reorganized the association's collections. At that time, the association also succeeded in acquiring the previous natural history museum in the Old Cemetery , in which the association's prehistoric and early historical collections were relocated, which from 1935 formed the Alfred Schliz Museum for local prehistory and early history . The historical museum was reorganized under the association member Oberlehrer Braun, with a viticulture museum, a city history collection, a lapidarium and a new Robert Mayer room . The association's lecture and excursion system was also intensified again in the late 1930s. As a speaker in front of the association appeared next to local researchers u. a. also the archaeologist Oscar Paret and the art historian Walter Paatz .

The Second World War brought club life to a standstill. Many committee members were called up for military service and quite a few members of the association, including the prehistoric expert Günther Beiler and the archivist Götz Krusemarck, fell on the front lines. The air raid on December 4, 1944 finally destroyed the two museums with the association's collections along with the entire city center of Heilbronn. Many of the surviving club members moved to other places after the city was destroyed, including the former board member Georg Albrecht.

New beginning after the Second World War

After the Second World War, the Heilbronn manufacturer Ernst Wecker called for a collection of culturally and historically valuable pieces from the city of Heilbronn and its surroundings. Wecker also gave lectures in which he advocated the re-establishment of the destroyed Heilbronn museums. As a result, on November 25, 1947, a club meeting took place for the first time. The chairmanship was held by Emil Kost from the Historical Association for the Württemberg Franconia, which was initially rejoined as a branch association due to the desperate conditions in the war-torn Heilbronn. At the first general meeting on March 9, 1948, the Heilbronn Historical Association declared itself to be independent again. The bank director Georg Rümelin (1880–1969) was elected as the first post-war chairman and Ernst Wecker as his deputy. The committee included city archivist Alexander Renz, the architect Richard Scheffler , the factory owner Erich Landerer, the journalist Ilse Fischer, and later also Lord Mayor Paul Meyle and District Administrator Eduard Hirsch . By 1950, with 287 members, it almost reached the pre-war high again.

After the Second World War, the association resumed its lecture, excursion and publication activities. However, the Heilbronn museums had passed into the hands of the city after the war, so that the association no longer opened a museum. Rather, the acting director of the Historical Museum from 1960, Werner Heim , became deputy chairman of the association, which means that the association remained in close association with the Heilbronn Municipal Museums . When Georg Rümelin resigned his position as chairman of the association at the age of 85 in 1965, he was succeeded again in Hans Moriz von Rauch (1910-2001), a son of a previous chairman. During his tenure in 1969, the association's publications were renamed the Yearbook for Swabian-Franconian History . Rauch served only a few years before he had to resign from office in 1971 for health reasons, but he remained an honorary member of the association for many years. He was followed by the city archivist Helmut Schmolz (1928-2006), who had been the association's secretary since 1965 and was chairman of the association from 1971 until his death in 2006.

During the Schmolz era, the association recorded an immense increase in membership. In 1976, the year of the 100th anniversary, there were 452 members. In 1982 the association reached its highest membership level with 652 members. Under Schmolz, who as an archivist has published and lectured many times on the history of the city of Heilbronn, the association began to be even closer to municipal institutions, as the Heilbronn city archive also took over the editing of the association's publications in future . Together with Schmolz, his deputy in the city archive, Hubert Weckbach , worked for many years in the association's editorial team. In 2001 the committee members included Schmolz as well as district archivist Wolfram Angerbauer , former school director. D. Karl-Heinz Dähn , retired Mayor D. Erwin Fuchs , District Administrator a. D. Otto Widmaier and archive director Christhard Schrenk .

present

In the period after 2000 there was a clear decline in membership, as for many years hardly any young members could be won, while many older members died. After Schmolz's death in 2006, the factory owner Christian Mertz (1932–2015) succeeded in chairing the association. He had been a member of the committee since 1971 and when he was elected he jokingly remarked that he could hardly contribute to the rejuvenation of the club. Nevertheless, it is considered to be Mertz's merit to update the profile of the association by expanding the topics dealt with by the association to the present day and limiting the previously mostly national excursions to the core region of the association. The decline in membership due to aging also had a negative effect on the association's publication activities. In 2006, therefore, the yearbook for Swabian-Franconian history issued by the association was combined with the Heilbronnica series of the Heilbronn City Archives.

In 2015, the Neckarsulm headmaster i. R. Peter Huther chaired the association. In that year, the committee included the monument conservator Joachim Hennze and the archive director Christhard Schrenk .

Board members

  • 1876–1899: Friedrich Betz , Medical Council
  • 1899–1915: Alfred Schliz , doctor
  • 1915–1928: Moriz von Rauch , private scholar
  • 1928–1932: Julius Wagner, senior director of studies
  • 1932–1933: Albert Stöckle, teacher
  • 1933–1936: Alfred Schliz, senior public prosecutor
  • 1936–1944: Georg Albrecht , senior teacher
  • 1947–1965: Georg Rümelin, bank director
  • 1965–1971: Hans Moriz von Rauch, doctor
  • 1971–2006: Helmut Schmolz , archive director
  • 2006–2015: Christian Mertz, manufacturer
  • since 2015: Peter Huther, headmaster i. R.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Georg Rümelin (1880–1969) . In: Historischer Verein Heilbronn, year book 26/1969 , p. 4 with ill.
  2. Hans Peter Brugger: Report on the Heilbronn Historical Society for the years 2001–2005 / 06 . In: Heilbronnica 3 , Heilbronn City Archives 2006, pp. 325–340.
  3. Peter Huther: Dr. rer. nat. Christian Mertz in memory . In: Heilbronnica 6. Contributions to the city and regional history , Heilbronn 2016, pp. 9/10.
  4. ^ Annette Geisler: Report of the Heilbronn Historical Society for the years 2013 to 2016 . In: Heilbronnica 6. Contributions to the town and regional history , Heilbronn 2016, pp. 513–519.

literature

  • Helmut Schmolz : 100 years of the Heilbronn Historical Association. A look back . In: Yearbook for Swabian-Franconian History (Historischer Verein Heilbronn, 28th publication), Heilbronn 1976, pp. 303-330.

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