Walther Zimmermann (art historian)

Friedrich Emil Adolf Walther Hubert Zimmermann (born June 28, 1902 in Bad Munster am Stein ; died July 15, 1961 in Bonn ) was a German art historian and preservationist .

Life

The Protestant Walther Zimmermann was the son of the pastor of Bad Münster am Stein, Julius Zimmermann, who died in 1928, and his wife Else Zimmermann, née Stephani. For the first four years of his school days he attended elementary school in Bad Münster am Stein, but then switched to the state high school in Bad Kreuznach, which he left when he passed his school- leaving examination at Easter 1921. Walther Zimmermann was practically born with the history of his homeland, the Kreuznach district , from his father. Based on extensive knowledge of regional history and church history, he gave his son an introduction to the matter as well as showing him his further path.

Walther Zimmermann studied art history at the universities in Bonn , Munich , Berlin and finally again in Bonn. As early as 1925, he took part in the preparations for the millennium exhibition in Cologne as a research assistant, for which he took leave of absence in the 1925 summer semester. At the exhibition, which took place on the occasion of the Rhenish millennium , Zimmermann was especially entrusted with setting up the “Evangelical Church” department. At the conclusion of his studies he was in 1927 when Paul Clemen with the work of Art in the near area with special consideration of the circle Kreuznach to Dr. phil. PhD . During his student days, Zimmermann's teachers included his long-term sponsor Paul Clemen in Bonn, Franz Winter , Wilhelm Levison , Karl Koetschau and Heribert Reiners , in Munich Heinrich Wölfflin and Hans Rose and in Berlin Adolph Goldschmidt .

In the course of preparing and collecting material for his dissertation, Walther Zimmermann began to write down the manuscript for the edition of the Kreuznach district within the inventory series Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz published by Clemen . He submitted the completed manuscript for this in 1928, but publication was initially postponed. In 1932 the dissolved Meisenheim district came to the Kreuznach district. As Zimmermann previously only worked on the old Kreuznach district, it was necessary to visit and prepare the newly added area of ​​the former Meisenheim district before publication. In the meantime, Zimmermann had received the order to process the art monuments inventories of the Saar area in 1928 and by way of a scholarship from the Saar Research Association . In other words, those circles that previously belonged to the Bavarian Palatinate or Prussian Rhine Province, here the Trier administrative district, and which were assigned to the League of Nations as a mandate area from 1920 to 1935 after the First World War .

Up until 1935, Zimmermann worked on the volumes on the city and district of Saarbrücken, as well as the districts of Ottweiler and Saarlouis. At the same time, by August 1933, he also completed the volume on the extended Kreuznach district, so that it could appear in 1935. In the same year, on April 1, 1935, he received his appointment as head of department for the acceptance of art monuments in the Rhine Province at the provincial administration based in Bonn, and on July 1 of the following year, he was promoted to the state administrative council .

During the Second World War , Zimmermann was employed as a war administrator for the art protection department in Dijon from 1940 to 1942 , but then returned to Bonn in 1943/1944 as a salvage officer. Finally, he was transferred to Russia for military service, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. After his return in 1946 he took over the management of the art monuments recording for that part of the previously Prussian Rhine province that came to be in the British occupation zone, the state of North Rhine . On December 13, 1954, he was appointed regional supervisory board member of the Rhineland Regional Council, established in 1953 , and left the service prematurely on December 31, 1960 due to serious illness. He died barely seven months later in Bonn.

Fonts (selection)

• The art in the Nahe area with special consideration of the Kreuznach district (= publication by the Association for Local History in Kreuznach ; Volume 38), Harnach, Kreuznach 1927, OCLC 459244040 (dissertation, University of Bonn 1927, 44 pages, 4).
• The art monuments of the city and the district of Saarbrücken. Ed. Saarforschungsgemeinschaft, L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1932 (Unchanged reprint Association for the Preservation of Monuments in Saarland, Saarbrücken 1975).
• The art monuments of the Ottweiler and Saarlouis districts. Ed. Saarforschungsgemeinschaft, L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1934 (Unchanged reprint Association for Monument Preservation in Saarland, Saarbrücken 1976).
• The art monuments of the Kreuznach district. (= Paul Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, Volume 18, Department I), L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1935 (first reprint Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-422-00540-4 ; second reprint Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann-Bagel, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-590-32149-0 ).
• with Heinrich Neu : The work of the painter Renier Roidkin . Views of West German churches, castles, palaces and cities from the first half of the 18th century. In: Rheinischer Heimatbund (Rheinischer Heimatbund ( Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz ), born in 1939 (= Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, Supplement 1), L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1939.
• Eating the minster. (= The art monuments of the Rhineland, supplement 3) Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen 1956.

literature

• Dedicated to Walther Zimmermann in memory: Hans Peter Hilger : The stone figure cycle in the choir of the Aachen Cathedral. (= The art monuments of the Rhineland, supplement 8) Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen 1961.
• Rudolf Wesenberg (Ed.): Walther Zimmermann. 1902-1961. In: Yearbook of the Rhenish Preservation of Monuments. Volume XXV Reports on the activities of monument preservation in the years 1959–1964. Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1965, pp. 21-24 Bibliography.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Rudolf Wesenberg (Ed.): Walther Zimmermann. 1902-1961. In: Yearbook of the Rhenish Preservation of Monuments. Volume XXV Reports on the activities of monument preservation in the years 1959–1964. Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1965, pp. 21-24.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Walther Zimmermann: The art in the Nahe area with special consideration of the Kreuznach district (= 38th publication of the local history association in Kreuznach), Kreuznach 1927 (also dissertation, University of Bonn 1927), curriculum vitae.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Paul Clemen in the preliminary remark to: The art monuments of the Kreuznach district. (= Paul Clemen: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, Volume 18, Department I), L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1935 (first reprint Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-422-00540-4 ; second reprint Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann-Bagel, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-590-32149-0 ).