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Nazi careerist and honorary citizen: Regensburg fights with "Causa Boll"

2023-03-21T22:22:36.644Z


In the debate about the long-standing museum director and cultural advisor Walter Boll, the city of Regensburg is now taking further steps to deal with his Nazi involvement.


In the debate about the long-standing museum director and cultural advisor Walter Boll, the city of Regensburg is now taking further steps to deal with his Nazi involvement.

Regensburg - Slowly something should now go forward in the processing of the so-called "Causa Boll" in Regensburg.

The Nazi involvement of Walter Boll, longtime Regensburg museum director, head of culture, museum director, city archivist, honorary citizen, NS district culture warden and Nazi careerist, has long been the subject of criticism.

The city council has been complaining about the outstanding work-up for more than twelve years.

After independent research on Boll: City returned looted art

After the research by the author Waltraud Bierwirth on Boll's involvement in the so-called "Aryanization" of Jewish property and the purchase of extorted works of art, as well as the research by the Regensburg journalist Robert Werner, the city administration has repeatedly announced that it wants to scientifically investigate Boll's role.

A first step, for example, was the return of looted art that Boll had incorporated into the city during the Nazi era to a Freemason lodge in Regensburg.

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Walter Boll: An "Aryanizer" shaped the city's cultural policy for many years

At the end of 2022, on the initiative of the cultural department, a "workshop" took place in cooperation with relevant institutions in which Boll worked.

These include the Office for the Preservation of Monuments, the Regensburg State Library, the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg, the East German Gallery Art Forum and the Regensburg Museums.

Around 30 experts from culture, administration and science took part in the meeting in the Haus der Musik on Bismarckplatz and discussed the work of Boll, who shaped the city's cultural policy over large parts of the 20th century.

Processing of the “Causa Boll”: City wants to make archival materials publicly accessible

At a meeting of the culture committee, cultural advisor Wolfgang Dersch recently delivered an interim report and informed the city councilors about the next steps.

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Among other things, a scientific review is planned, which one wants to strive for in cooperation with the University of Regensburg.

Archival materials on Boll from the various institutions are to be brought together, digitized and made accessible to the interested public and pending research.

Symposium to focus on the role of Walter Boll

According to Dersch, 50 file units stored in standing folders have already been taken from the Historical Museum to the city archive - after he had "written a letter to the museum".

The out-of-print standard work on Regensburg’s Nazi history by historian Helmut Halter (City under the Swastika), who died in 2017, is also to be digitized and made accessible to the public.

At this year's Regensburg Autumn Symposium for Art, History and Monument Preservation, the subject of Boll and monument preservation is to be presented, and the city archivist Lorenz Baibl is to write a scientific essay on Boll.

In the 1930s, a small room in a historic building in Regensburg was converted into a hiding place.

Experts now have to find out whether opponents of the regime were hidden in it.

Processing of the "Causa Boll": questionable role of the former culture officer

While the culture officer's report meets with widespread approval, Wolfgang Dersch is still unable to answer one question.

Where does the pod of his predecessor Klemens Unger come from, according to whom the Nazi careerist Walter Boll "hid a Jew in a stone coffin in the Minorite Church from the Gestapo in 1943 and thus saved his life"?

In 2017, Unger told the city council about this story.

But Unger does not answer questions about where he gets his knowledge from, or any evidence or sources.

The former cultural officer from Regensburg did not answer a direct question from our editors either.

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Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-03-21

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