Matthias Rudolf Vollmar

Matthias Rudolf Vollmar (born January 10, 1893 in Bonn , † January 17, 1969 in Cologne ) was a German lawyer , civil servant , lawyer and alderman .

Origin and career

Matthias Rudolf Vollmar was born in Bonn as the second youngest son of the Catholic tailor, ladies' coat worker and later owner of a laundry, Mathias Rudolf Vollmar and his wife Anna Maria Thelen, where his father's company was still operating as a court laundry in the 1920s. Of his nine siblings (three sisters and six brothers), in addition to the teacher Peter Joseph Vollmar (1880–1951), the bookseller Wilhelm Vollmar (1884–1962) and the dentist Dr. Anton Josef Vollmar (1896–?) Especially the religious Heinrich Ludwig Vollmar (1882–1958; Benedictine , Father Gabriel) and Paul Vollmar (1886–1970).

After attending grammar school, Vollmar studied law and political science . On February 28, 1920 he received his doctorate with the elaboration of the concept and cases of the ineffectiveness of the legal transaction in contrast to the nullity in the B.-G.-B. at the Julius Maximilians University in Würzburg for Dr. jur. et. rer. pol., his speaker was Julius Binder . At the time his dissertation went to press, Vollmar was a trainee in the Prussian Judicial Service.

Alderman in Solingen

In 1926, starting from the financially weak city of Höhscheid , new initiatives began to reorganize the municipality with the aim of merging the cities of Wald , Gräfrath and Ohligs, which were previously also part of the Solingen district , and the city of Solingen to form a new major city of Solingen. Solingen has been run by the Lord Mayor August Dicke since 1896 , who had been striving to form a Greater Solingen for a quarter of a century. Now he set about making his dream come true, in order to complete it before the end of his regular term on September 30, 1927.

The administrative tasks related to the association were assigned to the new legal alderman of the city of Solingen, Matthias Rudolf Vollmar. At this point in time, 33-year-old Vollmar started an advertising campaign that “would have been for a large trading and industrial company”, obviously not bound by instructions. In addition to the usual communication channels, the association was advertised with generous financial means, with reports, posters, photos and even a promotional film. Perhaps Vollmar saw a good opportunity to raise his profile, as he had legitimate hopes for a candidacy as successor to the outgoing Mayor Dicke. By November 24, 1927, Vollmar's expenses amounted to 168,997.12 marks.

In order to be able to realize the merger without the simultaneous appointment of new members of the mayor's office, Dicke received a six-month provisional extension in his office until April 1, 1928, so that nothing stood in the way of the reorganization. But then on October 27, 1927, the KPD- affiliated Bergische Arbeiterstimme published an article with the headline “Corruption Scandal in Solingen”, which dealt with financial transactions, coupled with allegations against the Solingen city administration. The public scandal was reprinted in numerous national newspapers. However, the appointed municipal investigative committee, like the district president in Düsseldorf , who refused disciplinary proceedings against Vollmar, was unable to confirm corruption in office. Rather, the careless handling of public money was generally criticized, a fault also seen on the part of the council of elders, which was not informed of all Vollmar's steps, but also did not intervene and recognized Vollmar's zeal. The government also disapproved of a financial allocation from Vollmar to the party-related Bergische Post in Opladen . It was not known whether the sheet close to the center should carry out a print job for this or whether its opinion should be influenced. But Vollmar made another mistake when he crudely forged the minutes of the committee of inquiry. When this became public, Dicke covered Vollmar, which led to his immediate resignation after it became known. While Dicke's request was not granted, the Solingen city council refused to cooperate with Vollmar. He had already successfully applied in Frankfurt am Main before the scandal became known ; His salary and expense claims offered the communists in the Frankfurt city council, however, the target area to contest his election. So the only option left for the city of Solingen was to put its deputy Vollmar into temporary retirement at the age of 36. After taking power , the National Socialists tried to get money back from Vollmar by means of recourse and also withheld his pension.

Initially still living in Solingen, Vollmar returned to his hometown Bonn around 1930/1931, where he established himself as a lawyer . He officially moved to Soldan (Tyrol) on July 31, 1931, from where he returned on March 1, 1932. Since November 1, 1935, according to the house list of the city of Bonn, he lived in the house at Meckenheimer Str. 49.

Depromotion and expatriation

According to the Solingen chronicler Rosenthal, Vollmar successfully defended himself against the measures of the National Socialists, but ultimately they achieved their goal through a detour via a criminal expatriation. On October 7, 1941, the Deutsche Reichsanzeiger published list 257, according to which Vollmar and numerous other Germans, mainly Jews, were stripped of their German citizenship. At that time, however, Vollmar was already permanently in Switzerland. This was preceded by his depromotion, which took place under pressure from the National Socialists . The University of Würzburg recognized him with a resolution of October 15, 1940, the academic degree of Dr. jur. et rer. pole. from. It was not until 2011 that she “expressly stated that these unlawful acts of political persecution were null and void from the start”. It is possible that Vollmar had never learned of his depromotion. According to his death certificate, he last lived as Dr. jur. et rer. pol., lawyer and associate a. D. in Engelberg (Switzerland), Alte Gasse 10. In 1951 he had married Minna Frieda Erna Weitemeyer in Bonn, where he probably stayed with his siblings in his parents' house, but she died before him.

Engelberg Benedictine Abbey

In Engelberg lived Vollmar in close proximity to the local abbey of Benedictine, his older brother Louis the parent Order. In the 1950s he gave him a wooden late Gothic figure of Mary from southern Germany along with a ceiling chandelier. Vollmar's proposal to place the statue in the niche of the Madonna's altar was rejected, but it was agreed that it would be placed in the church porch. It has been on a stone console above the Johannespforte since around 1966. The ceiling chandelier was hung in the vault at the same time.

Fonts

• Concept and cases of ineffectiveness of the legal transaction in contrast to the nullity in B.-G.-B. (= Dissertation, Faculty of Law and Political Science at the Bavarian Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg), Th. Wurm, Bonn 1920.
• City finances and schools. The influence of the financial situation on the community school system. Lecture given at the conference of the School Association of German Cities in Breslau on June 14, 1927. Kommunal-Schriften-Verlag, Cologne 1927, 35 pages.
• The union of the five cities in the Solingen industrial district. Ed. U. Edited on behalf of the city administration of Solingen. Self-published by the city of Solingen, Solingen 1927.

literature

• University of Würzburg (ed.): The robbed dignity. The revocation of the doctoral degree at the University of Würzburg 1933–1945. (= Contributions to Würzburg University History, 1), Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8260-4569-1 .
• Michael Hepp (ed.): The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger. Volume 1. KG Saur Verlag KG, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-598-10538-X , p. 577 (list 257, no. 133).
• Heinz Rosenthal: Solingen. History of a city. Volume 3: From the middle of the 19th century to the end of the Second World War. Braun, Duisburg 1975, ISBN 3-87096-126-0 .
• Volker Wünderich: Labor movement and self-administration. KPD and local politics in the Weimar Republic. With the example of Solingen. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1980, ISBN 3-87294-160-7 .

Web links

• List of names of graduates from the University of Würzburg on uniarchiv.uni-wuerzburg.de
• Reichsanzeiger on archiv.uni-leipzig.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bonn city archives, civil status documents, registry office Bonn I, births no. 56/1893.
2. ^ Landesarchiv NRW, civil status archive Rhineland, civil status register, registry office Cologne-Altstadt, deaths, 143/1969.
3. ^ Bonn city archive, Bonn address book, old card index (* 1880 to 1919) and civil status register.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} University of Würzburg (ed.): The robbed dignity. The revocation of the doctoral degree at the University of Würzburg 1933–1945.
5. ^ Verlag Th. Wurm, Bonn 1920.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Volker Wünderich: Labor movement and self-administration. KPD and local politics in the Weimar Republic. With the example of Solingen.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Heinz Rosenthal: Solingen. History of a city. Volume 3: From the middle of the 19th century to the end of the Second World War.
8. ↑ Source: Bonn City Archives
9. ↑ Michael Hepp (ed.): The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger. Part 1.
10. ↑ The Benedictine monastery church in Engelberg on schmidpart.ch, p. 106. (PDF; 866 kB)