Otto Bickel

Otto Bickel 1966

Otto Heinrich Bickel (born March 8, 1913 in Rinklingen ; † December 27, 2003 there ) was a German family and homeland researcher.

Life

Otto Bickel was born as the fifth and youngest child of the married couple Heinrich Bickel, farmer and railroad worker, and his wife Christine, née Zickwolf, in Rinklingen near Bretten . His teacher Karl Ihrig and the local pastor Bruno Goldschmit noticed the intelligent boy in particular. They urged the parents to send the boy to secondary school in Bretten. The financial burdens that this would place on the family could only be managed by the thrift of all family members. The young Otto Bickel received special support from his mathematics and physics teacher, Professor Josef Steuerle. It was also he who introduced the adolescents to the exploration of home and family. As a 16-year-old, Bickel was a welcome guest in the General State Archives in Karlsruhe . After graduating from high school with flying colors in 1932, Steuerle financed a number of trips with the condition that the ancestors of the Steuerle family be found out. Otto Bickel would have loved to study history, but there were no financial possibilities. The rampant unemployment in Germany also prevented them from taking up vocational training. So in 1934 he took up an unpaid volunteer activity at the University Library in Heidelberg . In 1935 he was employed as a financial assistant at the Baden Ministry of Finance, where he passed the inspector 's examination in 1938 .

In 1939 Otto Bickel was called up for military service. During the war he was in a flak unit and a. used in the Ruhr area. After his return from the war, he married Elsbeth Groll in 1947, with whom he had three children.

As a result of the publication of the local history of Rinklingen in 1969, Otto Bickel was made an honorary citizen of his home community. In 1986 Otto Bickel was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with ribbon for his services . In 1993 he was also presented with the medal " For Services to the Homeland of Baden-Württemberg ".

Honors

• 1969: Awarded honorary citizenship of the Rinklingen community
• 1986: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
• 1993: Home Medal of the State of Baden-Württemberg

Works

The first successes of his research activities were from 1933 publications on topics such as “The guilds in the Bretten Oberamt”, “Swiss immigration in Rinklingen”, “The students of the former Bretten district at the University of Heidelberg” or “Meadow construction and irrigation on the Saalbach” in various magazines.

Field names Rinklingen

He was able to present his first major publication in 1934 with The field names of Rinklingen in the Badische field names series.

As early as 1935 he completed the treatise The Gropp stem sequence , which was published in 1938 in the 2nd Baden volume of the German gender book (vol. 101).

In 1950 Otto Bickel self -published the Kraichgauer Bickel book together with his brother Willy . This family history lists u. a. in a lineage, based on the oldest ancestor Hans Bickel, who worked as a landlord in Diedelsheim in 1642, his descendants up to the present day.

In the years 1957 to 1970 he made a few hundred slides of his home community in order to leave a contemporary document for posterity. In the following years he published several articles on this subject, including a. in the magazines Badische Heimat (1959) and in the magazine Photoblätter (1966). In 1964 he gave a lecture on the radio: "The image of our homeland". He made more than 1000 slides of the city of Bretten, which he presented to the mayor at the time in 1967.

In 1964, together with his brother Willy, he published the Zwei Kraichgauer Bickel pedigree , a comprehensive illustrated ancestral history.

In 1969 he published Rinklingen, Ein Kraichgaudorf in the past and present , an extensive local history of his home community.

He has published several articles in the Bretten Yearbook for Culture and History on topics such as "Wolfhard Heinrich Möller and his time" (1960), "Executioners in the Oberamt Bretten" (1960), "The emigration from Bretten and the surrounding area in the 19th century "(1964)," Foray through the history of the population of the Kraichgau "(1967).

Otto Bickel made a special name for himself as the author of several local histories of Bretten suburbs ( Bauerbach - together with his brother Willy, Dürrenbüchig, Ruit, Diedelsheim ). His most extensive local history was presented in 1993 with the book Remchingen , the history of its districts and the noble family of that name .

literature

• Edmund Jeck (ed.): Bibliography Otto Bickel, published on the occasion of his 80th birthday, City of Bretten 1993

Web links

• Otto Bickel on Stadtwiki Karlsruhe

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Bahn, Edmund Jeck (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the 90th birthday of Otto Bickel . Bretten 2003, p. 7-8 .
2. ^ Peter Bahn, Edmund Jeck (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the 90th birthday of Otto Bickel . Bretten 2003, p. 8 .
3. ^ Peter Bahn, Edmund Jeck (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the 90th birthday of Otto Bickel . Bretten 2003, p. 9 .
4. ↑ Otto Bickel: The field names of Rinklingen . Heidelberg 1934.
5. ↑ Otto Bickel: The Gropp family . Publishing house for family research, Görlitz 1938.
6. ↑ Otto Bickel, Willy Bickel: Kraichgauer Bickel book . Self-published, Bretten 1950.
7. ↑ Otto Bickel, Willy Bickel: Two Kraichgauer Bickel pedigrees . Self-published, Bretten 1964.
8. ↑ Otto Bickel: Rinklingen, A Kraichgaudorf in the past and present . Rinklingen Mayor's Office, 1969.
9. ↑ Otto Bickel, Willy Bickel: Bauerbach. From the Reichsdorf to the Bretten district . Mayor's office in Bretten, 1978.
10. ^ Otto Bickel: Dürrenbüchig. From the Vogteihof to the Bretten district . Mayor's office in Bretten, 1978.
11. ↑ Otto Bickel: Ruit. History and present of the Bretten district . Mayor's office in Bretten, 1981.
12. ^ Otto Bickel: Diedelsheim. From the knightly village to the Bretten district . Mayor's Office Bretten, 1985.
13. ↑ Otto Bickel: Remchingen, history of its districts and the noble family of this name . 1993.