Wilhelm von Boddien

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wilhelm von Boddien at the demonstration "Stop the demolition of the palace" on January 14, 2006 in conversation with a journalist

Wilhelm Dietrich Gotthard Hans Oskar von Boddien (born February 27, 1942 in Stargard in Pomerania ) is a German businessman and manager of the association for the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace . He comes from the Mecklenburg noble family Boddien .

Live and act

After fleeing Pomerania in 1945, Wilhelm von Boddien lived in Aumühle near Hamburg . He graduated from high school in Reinbek in 1962 . He then completed his military service until 1964 with the telecommunications force of the Bundeswehr and finished this as a lieutenant in the reserve. This was followed by a commercial apprenticeship with a degree in 1966. Then von Boddien joined the agricultural machinery company of his father, who died in 1945, in Bargteheide . From 1970 to the end of 2003 he was general partner of KG von Boddien und Co. and managing director of Boddien Land- und Kommunaltechnik GmbH. Wilhelm von Boddien managed the company alone from 1978 until it went bankrupt in 2004.

Inspired by visits to divided Berlin, which he had already undertaken as a high school student, von Boddien dealt intensively with Prussian history and architecture , in particular with the fall of the Berlin Palace . This was badly damaged in bombing raids in 1945 and was blown up and completely removed in 1950 on the instructions of Walter Ulbricht . In the 1980s von Boddien joined the influential group "Friends of Prussian Palaces and Gardens". Since the reunification of Germany , he saw an opportunity to rebuild the almost forgotten palace, which was replaced by the Palace of the Republic of the GDR . In 1992 von Boddien initiated the Friends of the Berlin Palace e. V. and became its honorary first chairman. After the bankruptcy of his agricultural machinery company, he has been the full-time managing director since March 2004, alongside Richard Schröder as president. The most spectacular action of the association was the establishment of a castle simulation in the summer of 1993 on the Schlossplatz in Berlin on a scale of 1: 1. It stood until the autumn of 1994 and made a decisive contribution to a psychological breakthrough in the reconstruction of the castle.

The Friends of the Berlin Palace e. V. wants to collect 105 million euros in donations for the baroque palace facades by the end of 2019, the time of the inauguration of the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin City Palace. Of this, 49 million euros in cash and 8 million euros in the form of the reconstructed construction plans and around 40% of the necessary 1: 1 models of the facade artwork had already been made available by the end of February 2016. According to the association, donations totaled EUR 81.5 million in February 2018. In 2011, the construction plans of the baroque facades of the palace, reconstructed by the architectural office Stuhlemmer & Stuhlemmer from Berlin on behalf of the Förderverein, were handed over to the Foundation Berliner Schloss - Humboldtforum as the basis for further work , with one of the partners Rupert Stuhlemmer himself on the board of the Förderverein until 2004 . Even after the new division of labor between the development association and the foundation, von Boddien remains a member of the specialist commission responsible for quality control of the facade parts to be produced.

Not least thanks to the efforts and preparatory work of Boddiens, the German Bundestag decided in 2002 to build the new Hohenzollern Palace (as the Humboldt Forum ) with historicizing facades on three sides. In 2007 the Bundestag approved the budget, which was updated in July 2011 to 595 million euros. The actual construction began in 2013 and should be completed in 2019. At the celebratory start of work with a drilling in the excavation pit on June 21, 2012, the then Federal Building Minister Peter Ramsauer thanked Wilhelm von Boddien “for his civic engagement with the Friends of the Berlin Palace” in this “largest cultural building project in the Federal Republic of Germany”. The foundation stone was laid in the presence of Federal President Joachim Gauck on June 12, 2013. At the topping-out ceremony on June 12, 2015, it was announced that they were on time and within budget and therefore had the goal of creating the "Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum" 2019, so 30 years after the fall of the wall, to open. "Without you, the castle would not exist," wrote the board of the Humboldt Forum Foundation, Johannes Wien, in a letter of congratulations.

Von Boddien has been married since 1966 and has five married children and 13 grandchildren with his wife Gabriele.

More functions

  • Member of the general assembly of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Lübeck 1980–2003
  • Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lübeck 1995–2003

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The people behind the castle. In: tagesspiegel.de. Retrieved May 11, 2016 .
  2. ^ Website of the Friends of the Berliner Schloss e. V .: How is the palace facade financed? ( Memento from February 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Donation level and use of funds. Website of the Friends of the Berlin Palace e. V .; accessed on February 18, 2018.
  4. ↑ taz.de January 12, 2006
  5. ↑ Annual report 2011 of the management on the activities of the Förderverein Berliner Schloss e. V.
  6. ↑ City Palace should be ready by 2019 . In: Der Tagesspiegel , November 23, 2010
  7. ↑ Sabine Gundlach: Berlin City Palace starts with an ambitious schedule . In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 22, 2012
  8. ↑ "Berlin lord of the palace" Wilhelm von Boddien turns 75 . World online
personal data
SURNAME Boddien, Wilhelm von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Stargard , Western Pomerania