Paul Wolfrum (Nazi propagandist)

Paul Wolfrum at the carnival ball in the Deutsches Theater (in the middle of the standing group of three), Christian Weber to the left . Sitting Paul Wolz with his wife, to the right of Munich's Lord Mayor Karl Fiehler with his wife.

Paul Wolfrum (born July 27, 1901 in Hof , † February 13, 1985 in Ebersberg ) was a German propagandist for National Socialist Germany, a publicist and director of the Munich Tourist Office .

Early years

Paul Wolfrum was born as the second child of a train station attendant in Hof. After completing a bank apprenticeship, he volunteered for the front at the age of 17. After the end of the First World War he worked at Lloyds Bank in Gdansk, where he was promoted to general manager. As a result of the inflation, he changed his profession and began as a trainee in a printing company, then became a typesetter, proofreader, journalist and most recently editor at the Munich-Augsburger Abendzeitung .

Paul Wolfrum was considered urbane. While working as a journalist, he had spent a few months in the USA in the late 1920s , where he met a wealthy German-American woman whom he married. His travels took him to North and South America, Asia Minor and large parts of Africa, so that at times he referred to himself as a "travel writer".

Political career

In 1932 Paul Wolfrum joined the NSDAP through the mediation of his colleague Otto Dietrich . In 1933 he became a member of the SS , where he finally became Obersturmbannführer. Paul Wolfrum was promoted to district propaganda leader , an office he held until March 1934. He was also a member of the Reich Press Chamber and the Reich Student Union of German Advertising Experts. In October 1934 he became a Munich councilor and at the same time was appointed to the city's main committee.

From the summer of 1933, tourism was reorganized in the entire German Reich according to the “guide principle”. The Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs supervised the three Bavarian foreign traffic associations ("Saar-Palatinate", "Nuremberg and Northern Bavaria with Bavarian Ostmark" and "Munich-Southern Bavaria"). Had to Parent Hermann Esser , since 1935 president of the Reich Tourist Association in Berlin, broad authority, controlled by the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda .

By order of the Mayor of Munich Karl Fiehler , the “Tourist Office of the Capital of Movement” was established on May 1, 1937 (directly at the main train station in the Reichsbahndirektion building , Prielmayerstraße 1 / II). It largely took over the previous tasks of the regional transport association Munich and Southern Bavaria e. V. and was responsible for looking after and promoting tourism. Paul Wolfrum, already director of the regional tourism association in Munich and Southern Bavaria, was also a member of the board. He bundled the majority of the widely ramified tasks and expanded the tourist office. His department had to initiate and carry out cross-regional advertising campaigns, distribute funds for tourism promotion and monitor the correct use.

Paul Wolfrum recognized that a flourishing theater landscape was necessary to stimulate Munich's tourism. That is why he promoted the Munich Volkstheater , the German Theater and was managing director of the Neue Münchner Kammerspiele GmbH until 1938 . In addition, Wolfrum took on a number of other offices. For example, he was the deputy president of the Verein Ausstellungpark e. V. and economic advisory board in the Munich office of the Nordic Society .

In order to accelerate the mass tourism aimed at by the regime and to bring as many guests as possible to Munich and the surrounding area, he realized a series of events that began with the opulently staged carnival and ended each year on the evening of November 8 with the so-called commemorative march of the Hitler coup , an opportunity to see the “Führer” and the entire Nazi leadership from the Munich Bürgerbräukeller to the Feldherrnhalle and on to the temples of honor on Königsplatz . In addition, Paul Wolfrum was President of the Greater Munich City Association. V. and consultant at the SS-Oberabschnitt South.

Wolfrum was a close collaborator and an important source of ideas for Christian Weber . In addition to their passion for traveling, they both had a great love for horses and beautiful women. As chairman of the working committee, Wolfrum organized the anniversary weeks “500 years of Munich horse races” held in 1936 and was managing director of the board of trustees Das Braune Band von Deutschland e. V. For the organization of the Night of the Amazons , Wolfrum took over the general management as Christian Weber's deputy. As a passionate chess player, Paul Wolfrum played a major role in the "Chess Olympics" held in Munich, which followed the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Held by the Greater German Chess Federation, it was the German counter-event to the official Chess Olympiad of the World Chess Federation .

In his capacity as chairman of the Münchener Fasching e. V. organized Wolfrum's outstanding carnival balls, above all the "Aufgalopp" organized by the Munich-Riem racing club and the Reichsorganization Das Braune Band von Deutschland at the start of the season. In addition, he was responsible for the organization of the Munich carnival parades, the International Carnival Congress 1937 (with international carnival exhibition), the shop window competition, the pageant "500 years of German horse breeding 1936", the annual flower decoration competition and the competition "Book about Munich" as well the Oktoberfest parades and the annual costume parade and rifle parade .

Paul Wolfrum made a name for himself as a brilliant organizer and financial juggler. From 1935 he organized the "Munich Festival Summer", which was soon considered to be the "largest coherent event on the continent". In 1938 the enormous sum of 1,065,000 Reichsmarks was available to organize “225 exhibitions, sporting events, festival performances, conferences and social celebrations of high importance”. He succeeded in making Munich and southern Bavaria the leading tourism region of the empire through various measures. The number of tourists in Munich doubled between 1933 and 1939 from 608,359 to 1,242,763 visitors.

World War II and post-war period

Paul Wolfrum's relationship with Christian Weber worsened at the end of 1939 when he took over the post of liaison officer between the city and the military command of Munich and founded a support center for military vacationers traveling through. Christian Weber forbade him to do this and accused the poorly sighted person of "deserting in front of the Polish front on the pretext of his eye problems". Despite the backing of Munich's Mayor Karl Fiehler , Wolfrum was appointed to the front in October 1942 and initially joined the Waffen SS in Vienna, later he was the representative of the Reich leadership in Croatia and finally came to the SS main office in Berlin. There he deserted in early March 1945 and made his way to Munich. In the summer of 1945 he was arrested by the Americans and taken to Normandy. Because of a depression he was finally taken to the American Hospital in Eglfing in 1040 . In his denazification process , he was able to prove that he had made amends for what Christian Weber had committed. That is why he was sentenced to 70 percent in group II (incriminated) with three years of special work and confiscation of his property. By that time, his German-American wife had long since divorced and had returned to the United States.

In the post-war years , Paul Wolfrum lived secluded in Grünwald , later in Zorneding . In his third marriage on July 19, 1978, he married a former secretary who had helped him organize the "Night of the Amazons". Until his death, worldwide investments enabled him to lead a privileged life without gainful employment.

Works

• Paul Wolfrum (Ed.): Reiseland Südbayern, Munich 1938.
• Paul Wolfrum: Munich - The city of art and joie de vivre, Munich 1939. (Brochure, some with texts in English, French and Italian).
• Paul Wolfrum: That can only be Munich, Munich 1942.

literature

Doris Fuchsberger: Night of the Amazons: A Munich series of festivities between Nazi propaganda and tourism attraction, Allitera Verlag Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-86906-855-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Doris Fuchsberger: Night of the Amazons: A Munich series of festivities between Nazi propaganda and tourist attraction, Allitera Verlag Munich 2017.
2. ↑ StadtAM (Kulturamt 66).
3. ↑ StadtAM Cultural Affairs 64/1 (Karl Fiehler on March 3, 1938).
4. ↑ Munich Yearbook, 1939 edition.
5. ↑ StAM Spk 2009.
6. ↑ StAM Spk 2009.
7. ↑ Stadtarchiv Hof BE 512 and 55/85.