Richard Zahn

Richard Zahn (born March 25, 1891 in Bielefeld , † December 28, 1975 in Nordhorn ) was an Evangelical Lutheran German photographer and politician ( CDU ). He was district of Bentheim and member of the Lower Saxony state parliament .

Life

Zahn attended elementary school in Gütersloh and trained with his father, who was a freelance photographer with shops in Bielefeld, Rheda and Gütersloh. In 1908, living in Oelde at the time, he passed his journeyman's examination in Münster. Zahn then continued his education by attending technical schools, for example in Dresden , and worked in various photo studios, among others. a. in Paris . In 1912 he started his own business as a photographer with his own photo studio in Nordhorn in the county of Bentheim.

Zahn was drafted during the First World War and, after completing his courses, was employed as a photographer for an aviation department in northern France. At the end of 1918 he returned to Nordhorn. In 1925 he built a residential and commercial building on the city ring (demolished in 2010). He roamed the Bentheimer Land and photographed numerous events, industrial buildings and natural monuments as well as numerous counters.

In 1935/36, Zahn became a member of the board of the Osnabrück Chamber of Crafts , in which he held a leading position after the war. After the war ended, Zahn joined the new CDU and became a member of the Nordhorn City Council in 1946. From 1948 to 1972 he was also a member of the district council and from 1951 to 1968 district administrator of the Grafschaft Bentheim district. He was a member of the regional, district and Nordhorn local councils of the CDU. Politically, he was primarily concerned with the cultivation of the large wasteland areas in the region, the development of traffic and, in the 1960s, primarily with the improvement of the poor range of schools in the district. Furthermore, improving relations with the Netherlands was important to him.

When he was elected district administrator, Zahn gave his photo business to his daughter Ingeborg Zahn (1921-2004). A photo collection founded by him with around 8,000 negatives and prints from the period from 1912 to 1970 shows them to be the leading picture chroniclers of the Nordhorn in the first half of the 20th century and is now in the Povelturm City Museum in Nordhorn.

He was holder of the Cross of Merit First Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , the Lower Saxony Cross of Merit 1st Class and the silver badge of honor of the East Prussian Landsmannschaft . He was also an honorary member of the district council of the Grafschaft Bentheim district .

From the end of 1953 to 1959, the committed Protestant was a member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church .

MP

Zahn was a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament from the second to the fifth electoral period from August 31, 1952 to June 5, 1967.

swell

• Helmut Lensing: Article Zahn, Richard , in: Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte (Ed.): Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 12 , Haselünne 2005, pp. 393–400 ( ISBN 3-9808021-3-2 ).
• Barbara Simon : Member of Parliament in Lower Saxony 1946–1994. Biographical manual. Edited by the President of the Lower Saxony State Parliament. Lower Saxony State Parliament, Hanover 1996, p. 415.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stadtmuseum Povelturm: Pictorial chroniclers of the city's history: Richard Zahn and Rudi Bulla
2. ^ The Ostpreußenblatt of January 17, 1976: Obituary Altlandrat Richard Zahn p. 17. Archive of the Prussian General