Siegfried Fussenegger

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Siegfried Fussenegger (born February 10, 1894 in Vienna , † August 31, 1966 in Dornbirn ) was an Austrian textile manufacturer, fossil collector and museum founder.

Life

Siegfried Fussenegger came from a family of textile entrepreneurs. After graduating from high school in Dornbirn in 1912, he attended the textile school in Como . From 1914 to 1918 he took part in the First World War as an artillery officer . During his assignment in the Dolomites, he met the geologist Raimund von Klebelsberg . After the war he joined his father's textile company, IG Ulmer. In addition to his professional activity, he devoted his free time to collecting fossils and painting large-format landscape panoramas.

After the company IG Ulmer had ceased operations in the early 1930s for economic reasons, he gave up his job in 1934. In 1937 he became director of the Vorarlberg State Museum and remained so until 1943. When, after the "Anschluss" in March 1938, the State archivist Viktor Kleiner resigned from the Board of Directors of the Museum Association , Siegfried Fussenegger, as a long-time NSDAP party member, initially became the "Acting Director" of the association and the museum . After a review by the standstill commissioner, in September 1938, at the suggestion of the Regional Councilor Rudolf Kopf , Fussenegger was also commissioned to “take care of the day-to-day business” of the museum association. In December 1938 the authorities decided that the museum association could continue to exist as an independent association. Fussenegger was appointed by the “standstill commissioner” as the “final club manager”. Fussenegger first exhibited his natural history collection, which had been created over many years, in 1927 in the old Fronfeste in Dornbirn. On November 16, 1929, the new natural history museum was opened in the town hall in Dornbirn. It was clear from the start that the exhibition in the town hall was limited in time. Governor Otto Ender supported the project with the mayor of Dornbirn, Josef Rüf, and wrote that he “could only warmly congratulate the city of Dornbirn on its Fussenegger”. Considerations to integrate the Fussenegger's collection into the collections of the State Museum and to move it to the Kornhaus in Bregenz failed due to financing issues. A natural science museum redesigned by Fussenegger was opened on June 4, 1939 in an adapted hall of the Dornbirn cattle market. The background to his dismissal on September 3, 1943 as director of the Vorarlberg State Museum were evidently differences in the assessment and compensation of his collection, which he wanted to cede to the Gau Tirol-Vorarlberg.

Even after the war, the plans for the private natural history museum (“show of natural history in Vorarlberg”) could not be implemented immediately. It was not until 1957 that the "Naturschau" was taken over by the city of Dornbirn and the state of Vorarlberg . Fussenegger became head of the collection now called " Vorarlberger Naturschau ", the new building of which was opened in 1960.

Fussenegger was also an artist. He took classes in an animal painter at the Academy in Munich . He painted landscapes and topographically exact landscape panoramas, which show parallels to the view of southern German realism around Hans Thoma . He painted landscape not only as a view, but also as an event.

1960 Fussenegger from the University of Innsbruck for Dr. phil. appointed hc . The Siegfried-Fußenegger-Straße in Dornbirn is named after him.

Publications (selection)

  • The geological structure of Dornbirn and the surrounding area . In: Heimat Jg. 7, H. 5–9 (special issue Dornbirn), Bregenz 1926.
  • with Arnold Heim , Ernst Baumberger, HG Stehlin: The subalpine Molasse in western Vorarlberg . Quarterly journal of the Natural Research Society in Zurich , Volume 73, 2, 1928 ( digitized version )
  • with Arnold Heim, Ernst Baumberger: Jura and Lower Cretaceous in the Helvetian Alps on both sides of the Rhine (Vorarlberg and Eastern Switzerland) . Memorandum d. Switzerland. Natural science. Ges. , Vol. 68, Abh. 2, Zurich 1934
  • with Arnold Heim, O. Seitz: The middle chalk in the Helvetian Alps of the Rhine Valley and Vorarlberg and the problem of condensation . In: Memoranda of Switzerland. Naturf. Ges. , Vol. 69, Abh. 2, Zurich 1934, pp. 185-310
  • with H. Gams, Janetschek, A. Methlagl, GA Moosbrugger, U. Ilg: Festschrift on the occasion of the opening of the Vorarlberg Nature Show in Dornbirn on Saturday, June 11, 1960 . H. Mayer, Dornbirn 1960

literature

  • Rudolf Oberhauser : Siegfried Fussenegger . In: Mitteilungen der Geologische Gesellschaft in Wien Volume 59, Issue 2, 1966, pp. 265–269 ( digitized version ) (with list of publications).
  • Helmuth Zapfe : Index Palaeontologicorum Austriae (= Catalogus fossilium Austriae issue 15). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1971, p. 35 ( digitized version ).
  • Dornberger writings. Contributions to the history of the city II . Stadtarchiv, Dornbirn 1987 (contains several articles on Fussenegger and the museum he founded) ( digitized version ).
  • J. Georg Friebe: On palaeontological research in Vorarlberg: Siegfried Fussenegger's (foreign) scientific contacts between 1924 and 1939 . In: Vorarlberger Naturschau 7, 1999, pp. 189-206 ( digitized version ).
  • Peter Melichar , On the Art of Founding a Museum. Or: who was Siegfried Fussenegger? In: museum magazine. Published by the Vorarlberger Landesmuseumsverein, vol. 4 (2014), no. 8, 6-7.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Melichar, On the Art of Founding a Museum. Or: who was Siegfried Fussenegger? In: museum magazine. Published by the Vorarlberger Landesmuseumsverein, vol. 4 (2014), no. 8, 6-7.
  2. ↑ Vorarlberger Tagblatt, June 5, 1939, pp. 6-7.
  3. ↑ Susanne Fink, Cornelia Rothmund: Fine arts in Vorarlberg. 1945-2005. Biographical lexicon. Vorarlberger Landesmuseum, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bucher-Verlag, Hohenems 2006, ISBN 978-3-902525-36-9 , p. 99; Karl Strobl : The contemporary artists. In: Art in the People. Magazine for friends of the fine arts . 8, 1957, 1/2, pp. 28-64.
personal data
SURNAME Fussenegger, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian entrepreneur, fossil collector and museum founder
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1966
Place of death Dornbirn