Walter Boll

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Walter Boll (born February 9, 1900 in Darmstadt ; † November 24, 1985 in Regensburg ) was a German art historian , cultural department head and museum director in Regensburg.

Origin and education

Walter Boll was the son of Wilhelm Boll (1866–1929) and his wife Bertha Katharina, b. Bany (1868-1946). In 1955 he married Doris Hellmuth. From this marriage a daughter was born.

Boll studied modern art history, archeology and history in Frankfurt am Main , Würzburg and Munich . In 1922 he submitted his doctoral thesis on The Schönborn Chapel at the Würzburg Cathedral in Würzburg . He then worked as an assistant at the State Art Collections in Stuttgart and Munich.

Regensburg years 1928 to 1945

In 1928 Walter Boll came to Regensburg as the city conservator under Lord Mayor Otto Hipp and was commissioned in 1931 to found a city museum. The museum, which was founded in 1931 and is now the Regensburg Historical Museum , is located on the Dachauplatz in the buildings of the former Minorite monastery of St. Salvator . The plans for the municipal museum were changed around 1935 and after the Gau Bayerische Ostmark it was now to be called "Ostmarkmuseum". However, the museum did not open until 1949. Boll also got involved in the art and trade association and later became the second chairman of the association (1932–1945). During the Nazi era, Boll was in charge of the “Department for Museums, Archives and Libraries” and was supported in every respect by Lord Mayor Otto Schottenheim and 2nd Mayor Hans Herrmann . B. in the preservation of the buildings of the Herzogshof on the Domplatz from total demolition. He also tried to forestall threatening plans to demolish the Heuporthaus and had the facade of the house redesigned with the row of Gothic tracery windows that have dominated the facade ever since. As a result, the house was to be upgraded to a unique coffeehouse in terms of tourism in Germany, and demolition was to be made impossible.

Boll was a member of the NSDAP and its district culture warden. In November 1933 he was elected "Leader" of the Harmonized Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg . In 1941, NS mayor Otto Schottenheim (1890–1980) took over the management of the association. Under his leadership, unpleasant members were removed from the board ( Hanns von Walther , Eugen Wiedamann ); the association degenerated into a mere instrument of National Socialist cultural policy.

The time after the Second World War

denazification

After the collapse of the Nazi regime, Boll was removed from service by the American military government and reinstated as a “fellow traveler” in August 1948 after denazification. New research was published in 2019 on the expiry of Boll's denazification.

Head of Cultural Affairs and Museum Director

In 1949 the Regensburg Municipal Museum (today: Regensburg Historical Museum ) was opened. Boll was appointed museum director, under the responsibility of the then 2nd mayor Hans Herrmann , who was elected mayor in 1952. Boll remained head of the city archives and cultural department until he retired as a civil servant in 1968. His successor as museum director was Dr Wolfgang Pfeiffer.

Commitment to monument protection and cultural promotion

After the Second World War , Boll advocated the preservation of monuments and the preservation and renovation of old and medieval buildings in the old town of Regensburg . He tried to limit the demolition of numerous historical buildings planned at the time as part of the intended gutting and renovation of the old town. Even if this did not succeed in some cases, the old town was able to become part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006 .

  • After 1945 research by Walter Boll showed that the statue of Bishop Sailer , which was supposed to be melted down, could be found in Hamburg and returned to Regensburg in August 1949. Since Emmeramsplatz, as the former location of the statue, had become the focus of urban traffic planning after 1950 and was later required as a parking lot, the new location for the statue was a place near the monument to King Ludwig I in the green areas at the Peterskirchlein near the train station.
  • After 1952, Walter Boll provided grants from the city museum's budget to help with measures to preserve the ornamental lattices of grave monuments in the envoys' cemetery near the Trinity Church .
  • With the support of Walter Boll, the painter Xaver Fuhr , who had been banned from painting and exhibiting by the National Socialists, was able to move into an apartment in an attic apartment in Albertstrasse 7a in Regensburg and set up his own small studio there until his death stayed resident.
  • When in 1956 parts of the city council voted for the demolition of the completely ailing Thon-Dittmer-Palais in favor of the construction of a modern department store, Boll helped the mayor at the time, Hans Herrmann, with the acquisition of the additional funds needed to secure a supplementary budget for the renovation of the roof structure to prevent the demolition of the palace.
  • Walter Boll was in charge of the " Ostdeutsche Galerie " founded in 1966 as a museum in the legal form of a foundation from its opening in 1970 as museum director until 1978. a. on Walter Boll's initiative. In an appeal from February 15, 1949 in the Mittelbayerische Zeitung for the opening of the former Regensburger Museum (now the Historisches Museum Regensburg ), Boll had already written: “In particular, we ask the Bavarian State Government and the representatives of state collections to provide suitable loans from their extensive holdings to contribute to rounding off and completing the genuine and convincing representation of the old Bavarian cultural achievement and its former center of Regensburg, which we strive for. "
  • Together with Ernst Schremmer (1916–1998), managing director of the Künstlergilde eV Esslingen, and from 1940 to 1945 press and cultural advisor to the Reich governor in Sudetenland Konrad Henlein , he edited several publications on the Ostdeutsche Galerie as museum director, which are listed in the bibliography on the official website of the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, however, cannot be named.
  • After his retirement from 1966 until his death in 1985, Walter Boll was director of the German-American Institute in Regensburg, which he initiated and operated after 1953 in the Thon-Dittmer-Palais , which was partially renovated with American money .

In 1982 the weekly newspaper Die Zeit had a conversation with Walter Boll, in which he was described as follows: “He didn't let anything stop him, not even the Nazis, whose uniform he put on to“ somehow get on with our things ”. After that he slipped smoothly into the new era, just picked up where he left off and later became head of culture. "

Honors

Controversy

The city council group of the Regensburg ÖDP applied in 2008 and 2010 to name a street to Boll. This application met with criticism because of Boll's NSDAP membership, and one decision was postponed.

At the end of January 2019, the Regensburg city administrator Werner Chrobak organized an event in which the Regensburg author Waltraud Bierwirth presented her research results on Boll's active involvement in the "Aryanization" of Jewish property in a public lecture. The City of Regensburg's press office announced at the beginning of March 2019 that the Office for Archives and Monument Preservation would carry out “a comprehensive cultural and historical examination”.

literature

  • Alfred Krinner: Boll, Walter, art historian. In: Karl Bosl (ed.): Bosls Bavarian biography. Supplementary volume. 1000 personalities from 15 centuries. Pustet, Regensburg 1988, ISBN 3-7917-1153-9 , p. 16 ( digitized version ).

Fonts (selection)

  • Regensburg ( Deutsche Lande - Deutsche Kunst ), photographs by Werner Neumeister and Wilkin Spitta, 4th edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1983 (first edition 1955), ISBN 3-422-00123-9 .
  • East German Gallery Regensburg. Westermann Braunschweig, 1978.
  • Reichstag Museum. Central Bavarian. Printing and Publishing Company, 1973.
  • The Schönborn Chapel at the Würzburg Cathedral. A contribution to the art history of the XVIII. Century. G. Müller, Munich 1925, DNB 579229467 (Dissertation University of Würzburg, Philosophical Faculty 1922, 146 pages).

Web links

  • Heike Nasritdinova:  Boll, Dr. Walter . Entry in the database of the Oberpfälzer Kulturbund (currently not available)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Regensburg University Library: Bosls Bavarian Biography / ed. by Karl Bosl. - Regensburg: Blow [2]. Supplementary volume: 1000 personalities from 15 centuries, 1988. - XVI, 189 pp. Http://bosl.uni-regensburg.de/?seite=32&band=2
  2. ↑ Mittelbayerische Zeitung. Regensburg Museum and the story of its creation. Museum director Dr. Walter Boll, p. 4 No. 18 of February 15, 1949.
  3. ↑ Peter Morsbach: Regensburg as a monument to the German spirit in the Third Reich . In: Working Group Regensburg Autumn Symposium (ed.): "To the devil with the monuments" 200 years of monument protection in Regensburg . tape 25 . Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-937527-41-3 , pp. 32 .
  4. ↑ Eugen Trapp: Domplatz, The return of the king . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 12 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2371-6 , pp. 134 .
  5. ↑ Christine Schimpfermann: Planning and Building . In: Kunst und Gewerbeverein Regensburg eV (ed.): It is a pleasure to live! The 20s in Regensburg . Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag = Regensburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-937527-23-9 , pp. 92-94 .
  6. ↑ a b Helmut Halter: City under the swastika. Local politics in Regensburg during the Nazi era (published by the museums and the archives of the city of Regensburg), 1994, p. 384.
  7. ↑ How Walter Boll became a resister . Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  8. ↑ Hans Herrmann - a mayor for every system . regensburg-digital from August 6, 2012, accessed on March 6, 2018.
  9. ↑ A respectable "Boll work". In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung , February 8, 1975.
  10. ↑ Dr. Walter Boll turns 80 and an honorary citizen - a bulwark. In: The Week , February 7, 1980.
  11. ↑ Eugen Trapp: Domplatz, The return of the king . In: City of Regensburg, Office for Archives and Preservation of Monuments (ed.): Preservation of monuments in Regensburg . tape 12 . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7917-2371-6 , pp. 136 f .
  12. ↑ Klaus-Peter Rueß: The ambassador's cemetery at the Dreieinigkeitskirche in Regensburg, its origin and its construction history. State Library Regensburg, Regensburg 2015, p. 132ff.
  13. ^ Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 590 f .
  14. ↑ Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 77 .
  15. ↑ P. May: Dr. Walter Boll in memoriam “He founded the Kunsthalle am Stadtpark and the Ostdeutsche Galerie, which was particularly close to his heart until the end and which he affectionately called 'his museum'.” Http://www.heimatforschung-regensburg.de/2222/1 /1001577_DTL2008.pdf
  16. ^ Regensburg University Library: Bosls Bavarian Biography / ed. by Karl Bosl. - Regensburg: Pustet http://bosl.uni-regensburg.de/?seite=32&band=2
  17. ↑ Ernst Schremmer: https://www.literaturportal-bayern.de/nachlaesse?task=lpbestate.default&id=1102
  18. ↑ Werner Chrobak: The Thon Dittmer-Palais . In: City of Regensburg, Kulturreferat (Hrsg.): Kulturführer . tape 25 . City of Regensburg, Regensburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-943222-55-5 , p. 76 f .
  19. ↑ Awakened from the Middle Ages, Regensburg: From Manfred Sack in conversation with Walter Boll. July 9, 1982, http://www.zeit.de/1982/28/aus-dem-mittelalter-erwacht/komplettansicht
  20. ^ City of Regensburg - Honorary Citizens and Medals Homepage of the City of Regensburg
  21. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 31, No. 5, January 9, 1979.
  22. ^ City of Regensburg - honorary citizens and medals Official website of the city of Regensburg
  23. ↑ Boll - also the heart of the city. In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung
  24. ↑ bosl.uni-regensburg.de
  25. ↑ Walter-Boll-Straße still has to wait . Report in the Mittelbayerische Zeitung on September 23, 2010.
  26. ^ Robert Werner: City administration checked honorary citizen Walter Boll . Retrieved March 10, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Boll, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1985
Place of death regensburg