Wilhelm Hollbach

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Wilhelm Hollbach (born December 20, 1893 in Aachen ; † December 11, 1962 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German journalist and from March 28, 1945 to July 4, 1945, he was acting mayor of the city of Frankfurt am Main ( temporary lordmayor ). He was installed in this office the day before the final liberation of the Main metropolis by US military governor Colonel Howard D. Criswell after the director of the metal company , Hermann Lumme, had refused.

journalism

Hollbach spent his school days in Aachen and volunteered at the Aachener Post . He then wrote for the Weimar newspaper from 1911 - with interruptions during the First World War - until 1919 . This was followed by a job as a political editor and deputy editor-in-chief in Mannheim for the Neue Badische Landeszeitung (until 1924). After another change of location, he became a member of the editor-in-chief of the Kölner Tageblatt . As a member of the left-liberal Democratic Party , he became a city ​​councilor in Cologne , and until 1933 he was also involved in the non-partisan, pro-republican black-red-gold banner .

After Hollbach had already worked as a part-time correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920s , he moved to the Main in 1930 , where he was head of the newsroom until it was banned by the National Socialists (1943). At the same time he was editor-in-chief of the Illustrierte Blatt in Frankfurt from 1931 to 1944 and from 1934 also editor-in-chief of the Neuesten Zeitung - Illustrierte Tageszeitung and Versicherung , both of which were also published by Societätsverlag , the publisher of the nationwide important Frankfurter Zeitung.

Acting Mayor of Frankfurt am Main

Wolfgang Klötzer wrote in his Frankfurt biography that Wilhelm Hollbach had planned at the end of the war to “revive the Frankfurter newspaper, which was discontinued on August 31, 1943. Regarded by the invading Americans as an energetic democrat, H [ollbach] was named acting mayor of Ffm. On March 28, 1945 and was confirmed in office three days later by a “citizens' council” made up of politically unaffected people. Shortly beforehand - on March 26, 1945 - Hollbach had declared himself managing director of the Frankfurter Zeitung publishing house , after the National Socialist leadership had fled Frankfurt on March 25. The Nazi-loyal manager of the publishing house had set fire to and destroyed the political archive and tried to destroy the typesetting and rotary machines before he fled.

Hollbach put his staff together primarily from former editors of the Frankfurter Zeitung. In his administration he was completely dependent on the instructions of the military authorities, not least due to a lack of administrative experience. Because of his talent for improvisation and his unconventional and flexible way of working, he was still able to make some groundbreaking decisions. In April , for example, he called the veterinarian Bernhard Grzimek , who had written animal psychology columns for the Illustrierte Blatt , as his personal advisor. After Grzimek had been appointed Frankfurt police chief by the US authorities, but refused this office, Grzimek was appointed director of the Zoological Garden on May 1, 1945 at Hollbach's own request , and in this function he was directly subordinate to Hollbach. Grzimek then made sure that the zoo, which was already permanently closed by the US administration, was reopened and has been preserved until today.

In addition, Hollbach was instructed by the American military government in early April 1945 to rebuild the Frankfurt judiciary. After a meeting with unencumbered Frankfurt lawyers, Walter Moehrs was appointed President of the (yet to be established) Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main on April 19, 1945 . Under Hollbach's leadership, the offices of district court president, attorney general and president of the bar association were filled.

Hollbach criticized the American denazification policy as too schematic and turned against the confiscation of housing by the occupation forces. The military government had been impeaching him since the end of April 1945, which was finally carried out on July 4, 1945 by Criswell's successor Colonel RK Phelbs with immediate effect. A letter from the director of the Free German Hochstift dated December 14, 1953 shows that the US military government was allegedly persuaded by an envious KPD member to dismiss Hollbach from the post of mayor after only three months. A note in his personal file shows that Hollbach (nickname: Ho ) acknowledged his removal from office, which was not explained to him, with the words that he would not survive because he had always been against Nazi rule. A note on the file that has been received indicates that the US command officer, who removed Hollbach from his office under witnesses, did not consider the reasons for dismissal to be valid either.

In fact, Wilhelm Hollbach later failed to realize his hope, which was documented in writing in August 1945, to get back to his journalistic activities; the attempt after his impeachment to set up a three-circle publishing house in the French occupation zone failed with the currency reform in 1948 . In the files of the city of Frankfurt the following note from December 6, 1951 is handed down: "Mr. Hollbach has been admitted to the Herborn Asylum." He is a difficult patient who is constantly looking for arguments with other inmates, and: "He is an addict and a drunkard . ”Several more visits to the clinic, which brought his family to the verge of financial ruin, gradually stabilized his fragile health. He died on December 11, 1962 in Frankfurt of complications from cancer. Mayor Wilhelm Fay thanked him at a funeral address at Frankfurt's main cemetery on behalf of the city's magistrate “for the courage in the days after the American invasion”, but Wilhelm Hollbach was not awarded a grave of honor.

One of Hollbach's particular merits during his short term in office was his involvement in the reopening of the University of Frankfurt , which, however, only came about under his successor Kurt Blaum .

literature

Web links

swell

  • Institute for City History / City Archives Frankfurt am Main, Hollbach personnel file

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hilmar Hoffmann : Frankfurt's Lord Mayor 1945 - 1995: A contribution to the cultural history of the city. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2012, p. 34.
  2. ↑ "A judgment on his role as editor-in-chief under National Socialism is still an important research desideratum today." The only surviving copy of the "Neuesten Zeitung". On: Frankfurter Societäts-Medien GmbH , March 7, 2012, digitized
  3. ↑ Arthur von Gruenewaldt: The judges of the higher regional court Frankfurt am Main in the time of the national socialism . Mohr / Siebeck, Tübingen, 2015 ISBN 978-3-16-153843-8 , pp. 341, 342
  4. ↑ Hilmar Hoffmann: Frankfurt's Lord Mayor 1945 - 1995 ... , pp. 52–53.
  5. ↑ Hilmar Hoffmann: Frankfurt's Lord Mayor 1945 - 1995 ... , p. 54.
personal data
SURNAME Hollbach, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1962
Place of death Frankfurt am Main