Karl Wuelfrath

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karl Wülfrath (born September 21, 1904 in Gelsenkirchen , † 1981 in Düsseldorf ) was a German historian and organizer of large-scale church book mapping .

life and work

Karl Wülfrath began his professional life with an apprenticeship as a clerk before studying economics and social sciences at the University of Cologne from 1924 . In 1926 he changed the subject and took history as well as German and English philology. From 1929 he managed the position of a scheduled assistant at the English seminary, which he then held from 1934 to 1941. In his youth he was a member of the Boy Scouts and wrote several articles for their magazine "Auf neuempfad."

In July 1933 Wülfrath did his doctorate with the literary history work "Bibliotheca Marchica" in the subject of history. On October 1, 1933, he joined the SA and in 1937 became a member of the NSDAP . In 1934 he married. His financial situation improved fundamentally thanks to the family history collaboration with the Dutch consul general in Cologne, Hans Carl Scheibler . The joint genealogical research on the Scheibler family and their marriage group led to the publication of the "West German Ahnentafeln" in 1939. Behind this misleading title hides a significant book for economic and social history, in which the economic and family ties of the entrepreneurial families and the bank capital on the Rhine and Ruhr are shown in an exemplary way.

In early 1937, the historian suggested Gerhard Kallen on, Wülfrath should a book about farming clan customer design as the second volume of the "West German pedigrees," the same time as a county family book for the district Bergheim should appear. On August 17, 1937, Wülfrath was officially commissioned by the rural peasantry and the Society for Rhenish History to conduct a population- historical study of the Erft landscape . The state farmers wanted to push the mapping, Wülfrath should scientifically evaluate the data.

Wülfrath called this objective, based on the pastor Johann Bredt , "historical national body research ". Since the promised support for the mapping remained low, Wülfrath took over the organization and management of the mapping work on a voluntary basis in 1938, for which he founded a "workshop for historical national body research at the University of Cologne" on a private basis. He managed to get up to 30 students from the Reichsstudentenführung assigned to the chartering and to secure their expense allowance, as well as the volunteer teachers recruited through the NSLB . When work stalled after the start of the war in 1939, Wülfrath managed in December 1939 to incorporate the workplace as a subdivision of the Rhenish department (Oidtmann collection) of the university library at the University of Cologne. In 1941 the workplace was upgraded to the Rhenish Provincial Institute for Family and National Body Research.

As early as June 4, 1941, due to the war, the Reich Minister of the Interior had forbidden the Association for Peasant Family Studies and Peasant Coat of Arms to support the mapping work . On September 2, 1943, the Reich Minister for Church Affairs instructed that “the ongoing mapping work should be shut down.” These orders also led to the closure of Wülfrath's institute in Cologne on September 30, 1943. He himself switched to the office of the funding association as treasurer "Healthy rural people" to Berlin. After this office was bombed on January 15, 1944, Wülfrath worked in the alternative location in Landshut until May 1945 . There he was arrested by the American military government and interned for 19 months.

After his release in 1947, Wülfrath tried again, but in vain, to build up a secure professional life as a historian. He only received orders for smaller company stories. He failed with requests to get the genealogical index of the Erft landscape back in hand and to evaluate it statistically. It is in the Brühl civil status archive owned by the West German Society for Family Studies .

Wülfrath's written estate from the years 1933 to 1943 is in the Witten City Archives .

literature

  • Klein, Ralph: Karl Wülfrath and the "Rhenish Provincial Institute for Family Research and National Body Research " . In: Burkhard Dietz, Helmut Gabel, Ulrich Tiedau (eds.): Griff nach dem Westen . 2 volumes, sub-volume 2. Waxmann, Münster 2003, pp. 791–817, ISBN 978-3-8309-1144-9 ( digitized version ).
  • Haupts, Leo: University in the National Socialist waters. The case of the “Rhenish Provincial Institute for Family and National Body Research at the University of Cologne” . In: Peter Hanau , Carl August Lückerath, Wolfgang Schmitz and Clemens Zintzen (eds.): Dedicated administration for science. Festschrift for Johannes Neyses, Chancellor of the University of Cologne, on his 60th birthday . University and City Library, Cologne 2007, pp. 149–170, ISBN 978-3-931596-41-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zwilling, Martin: 100 years of genealogical research between science, society and politics - The West German Society for Family Studies 1913–2013 . In: 100 Years of the West German Society for Family Studies 1913–2013 . Cologne: WGfF 2013, pp. 15–128, here p. 73.
  2. ^ Günter Junkers and Dirk Rodekirchen: Cologne district group . In: 100 Years of the West German Society for Family Studies 1913–2013 . Cologne: WGfF 2013, pp. 219–230, here p. 225.
  3. ↑ Witzel, Ulrike: Finding aid for the "Wülfrath Collection" . Witten City Archives 1987.
personal data
SURNAME Wuelfrath, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelsenkirchen
DATE OF DEATH 1981
Place of death Dusseldorf