Rolf Wandhoff

Rolf Wandhoff (born September 15, 1917 in Osnabrück ; † November 4, 1995 ) was the district president of the administrative districts of Lüneburg and Stade (1976–1981).

Life

Wandhoff grew up in Freiberg , where his father Erich was a professor at the Bergakademie . Immediately after graduating from high school, there was first labor and then military service. He participated in World War II from beginning to end.

After being a prisoner of war, he completed his law studies in Göttingen and Bonn. After a brief activity as a judge, he moved to the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior in Hanover in 1951 .

In 1953 he switched to the local supervisory authority of the Osnabrück district government and took over the interim management of the orphaned legal office and local authority supervisory authority in the county of Hoya. In 1955 he was transferred to the State Chancellery as an advisor to Prime Minister Hellwege for administrative reform, local law and broadcasting issues. In addition, he was teaching director for local law at the administrative academies Bad Nenndorf and Osnabrück for inspector candidates.

In 1958, he successfully applied for the position of senior district director in the Melle district. This fulfilled his youthful wish to become a “Prussian District Administrator” one day.

As a member of the so-called “ Weber Commission ”, spokesman for his colleagues in Lower Saxony and in other functions, he worked far beyond the district's borders.

In 1968 he was elected to the senior district director of the Gifhorn district, not only faced with special problems as a border area, but also Germany's largest district. The forest fire disaster in 1975 fell during his term of office , in which he was the chief disaster manager in his district.

In the highly emotional discussion about the future design of the previous district of Melle, Rolf Wandhoff was invited as Gifhorn's head of administration in November 1971 to his former area of ​​activity, and in a public, passionate plea, he emphatically advocated the creation of today's “unified community” of Melle (MK November 23, 1971). Until then, the majority of the municipal area had advocated a small-scale "five-tier solution" for the new municipal formation of the previous district of Melle. Not least thanks to his urgent appeal, the bill was changed a few days before it was introduced to the state parliament: Rolf Wandhoff can be seen as the “father” of today's city of Melle.

In 1976, under Prime Minister Albrecht, Rolf Wandhoff was appointed regional president of Lüneburg and Stade. Due to the amalgamation of the previous administrative districts of Lüneburg with Stade, Rolf Wandhoff was district president of initially two district governments in Lower Saxony.

During his term of office, there were violent disputes over the Gorleben nuclear repository , natural disasters such as devastating forest fires, floods or the breakthrough of the Elbe canal, as well as major structural problems in the “peripheral zone” and environmental conflicts on the edge of the industrial conurbations around Hamburg, Bremen and Hanover.

He spent the last years of his life in Melle again after his retirement. Rolf Wandhoff received the highest awards, including the Great Federal Cross of Merit and the Great Lower Saxony Cross of Merit, for his diverse municipal services and activities in the fire service and DRK . His passion also belonged to the local history research of the Grönegau, the results of which he presented in impressive public lectures.

Rolf Wandhoff died at the age of 78 on November 4, 1995 and is buried in Melle with his wife Lore - with whom he was married for 52 years and had three children.

literature

• Arnold Beuke (ed.): At home between yard and steel . historical representation of the district of Osnabrück on the occasion of its 40th anniversary. 1st edition. District of Osnabrück , Osnabrück 2012, ISBN 978-3-9808014-7-8 , p. 88 ff .
• The Grönegau: Meller yearbook . in cooperation with the city of Melle. tape 18 . Steinbacher, 2000, ISSN  0724-6161 , Rolf Wandhoff - a portrait, p. 23 .
• Rolf Wandhoff: The Grönegau in Wittekind's time . In: Heimatverein Melle (ed.): Grönenberger Heimathefte . Melle 1987, DNB  910674833 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heimatverein Melle: 25 years ago (1987). In: Meller Kreisblatt. heimatvereine-melle.de, September 22, 2012, accessed on September 9, 2015 .