Roland Ritzefeld

Roland Ritzefeld (* 1808 in Cologne ; † 1900 in Stolberg (Rhld.) ) Was a Catholic pastor and founder of the welfare, health and higher education system in Stolberg in what was then the Aachen district (today the Aachen city region ).

Life

Roland Ritzefeld was a Catholic pastor and pastor in St. Lucia for 60 years - from 1840 to 1900 . He served on the parish council and expanded his parish church to keep up with the growing number of believers during the industrial revolution. His main merits are in the institutions he has set up in the charitable medical field and in education.

Charitable and medical institutions

He was the founder of the Bethlehem Hospital , which was established in the former Kupferhof Steinfeld in 1866 , the Stolberg orphanage and the Roland House named after him (inaugurated in 1883), where the local section of the “Catholic Journeyman Association” founded in 1863 (today the Kolping Family ) found a home . Ritzefeld supported his charitable projects with his own donations to a considerable extent.

Education

Former Goethe grammar school on Kaiserplatz

As a local school inspector, he sought to remedy the inadequate conditions at the elementary schools by building several new schools, hiring new teachers and making efforts to increase school attendance.

In the Rolandshaus he had lessons in German, arithmetic, bookkeeping and drawing. This is where the beginnings of vocational teaching in Stolberg lie. In 1854, Roland Ritzefeld founded a state-recognized Catholic rectorate school that accepted Catholic and Protestant boys and girls. His chaplain Johann Wimar Scharrenbroich (1840-1870), who was already working as a primary school teacher, took over the management. These are the beginnings of higher education in Stolberg. The Stolberg Goethe-Gymnasium still counts its anniversaries according to this date. Ritzefeld's efforts to set up a larger girls' school did not lead to success in 1870. The Catholic rectorate school was closed during the Kulturkampf . In 1858 an evangelical higher rectorate school was established. In 1878, after tough struggles during the cultural struggle for the denominational character of the new higher education institution, a higher city school for boys was established in the school building of the former Protestant rectorate school, and in 1880 a city higher school for girls, which was able to move into the Goethe-Gymnasium on Kaiserplatz in 1908. Against this background, Roland Ritzefeld is considered to be the initiator of the higher education system in Stolberg.

Honor and memory

In 1893 Roland Ritzefeld was made an honorary citizen of his hometown. The Ritzefeldstrasse and the Rolandshaus he founded bear his name. In 1980 the school on Ritzefeldstrasse, previously known as the Stolberg Girls ' Gymnasium, was renamed the Ritzefeld Gymnasium after the introduction of co-education in 1977 .

literature

• August Brecher: History of the Catholic parishes in Stolberg. Volume 2. From the beginning of the 19th century to the First World War . Stolberg 1960.

Web links

• Ritzefeld high school in Stolberg