D. Walther (Friedrich Walther Paul) Wolff (1) (2), was born on 9 December 1870 in Neuwerk, later a district of Mönchengladbach, as the son of Friedrich Wolff, a teacher at the orphanage, and his wife Bertha. After attending Mönchengladbach grammar school, Wolff studied theology at the universities of Greifswald, Marburg and Halle from 1889 to 1893. He passed his theological examinations in Koblenz in April 1893 and October 1894. Wolff was vicar in Lobberich and did his auxiliary service in Mönchengladbach. In May 1895, he was ordained in Otzenrath and took up the pastorate in one of the oldest Reformed parishes on the Lower Rhine. In 1901, Wolff was elected to the 2nd pastorate of the Protestant parish of Aachen. This position, which he held until his death, gave him the opportunity to develop his theological and organisational skills and his literary ambitions. In 1901, Wolff founded the 'Evangelische Gemeindeblatt für Aachen und Burtscheid' (since 1916: 'Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt für Aachen und Umgebung') (3). Through his regular contributions, he provided his congregation with a wealth of spiritual inspiration and sharpened the Protestant conscience of the diaspora community through his many essays on the history and culture of Protestantism. On Wolff's initiative, a branch of the Evangelical Federation was founded in Aachen in 1904, which around 7% of the parishioners joined in 1906. From 1905 onwards, he endeavoured to found a Rhenish-Westphalian group of the Volkskirchliche Evangelische Vereinigung - the middle party - of which he became deputy chairman in 1906. He published the organ 'Die Evangelische Gemeinde' (4) from 1909 and edited it himself until issue 5 of vol. 11.1919/20. In each issue, he wrote the 'Chronicle' as a review of church life, and almost every issue contained a major article on a key issue of church work. At the 34th Rhenish Provincial Synod in Barmen, Wolff was elected President on 6 March 1919. Wolff initiated the election of a committee tasked with revising the Rhenish-Westphalian church constitution. In 1920, he was elected a member of the General Synodal Board at an extraordinary meeting of the Prussian General Synod. Wolff was particularly active in working on the draft constitution. He endeavoured to secure the presbyterial-synodal element the place and influence it deserved in the life of the constituted church. In 1921, the University of Bonn awarded him a doctorate (D. h.c.) on the occasion of the Worms anniversary celebrations. In 1922, Wolff was elected superintendent of the Aachen church district and inaugurated in 1923. Wolff had been a member of the Protestant Church Committee since 1922, and in 1925 the 1st Prussian General Synod of the new style elected him as its vice-president; as such he became deputy chairman of the Senate of the Protestant Church of the Old Prussian Union. In 1929, the General Synod confirmed Wolff in both offices. He had already been re-elected as President by the Rhenish Provincial Synod in 1925. Wolff was involved in all church congresses since 1919, most recently as Vice President. He had a particularly strong influence on the social message of the Bethel Church Congress of 1924. In 1924, he was the initiator of the first Rhenish Church Congress in Cologne, which was followed by others in Essen in 1926 and Saarbrücken in 1930. Shortly before his death, the Faculty of Law at the University of Berlin awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1931 for his services in bringing about the church treaty between the Protestant regional churches of Prussia and the Prussian state government, and President Wolff died in Aachen on 26 August 1931. His death also caused great consternation outside the Protestant Rhineland, which was reflected in obituaries in numerous newspapers (5). The estate was purchased in 1980 by Wolff's grandson, the pastor Paul-Gerhard van Spankeren, who worked in Westphalia. The documents were roughly pre-organised and placed in archive folders. The collection mainly contains an extensive collection of sermons, beginning during his studies in 1892 and ending in 1927. From Wolff's last years in office, only the sermons, devotions and sermons for special occasions have survived. The chronology of the sermons first had to be established. In the first few years, the sermons are written out in full, but from around 1900 onwards they are mostly written down as theses. Speeches on various occasions are documented; the imperial speeches and sermons show the national character of Wolff and his time. The second focus is on the lectures and manuscripts, which have been organised according to subject. Reference has already been made above to the collection of obituaries. The leather volume with Wolff's calligraphic sayings was given to the archive by Mr van Spankeren in 1994 (No. 49). Only fragments of Wolff's correspondence have survived (No. 46) The collection was catalogued in October 2006 and comprises 50 archive units. It covers the period from 1892 to 1931 as well as memorial contributions in 1941, 1956 and 1961. Only a few duplicates were collected. Some printed publications by and about Wolff are included in the holdings of the archive library, and reference should be made to fonds 8 SL 010 (Wolff Collection), which contains the collection of material relating to Hans Helmich's essay in the 'Monatsheften' 1987 (see References). Copies of Wolff's articles in the two church newspapers are also available here.Ulrich Dühr, 07.11.2006(1) The biographical outline in this introduction is a revised version of the text that Edgar Reitenbach prefixed to the Findbuch of fonds 8 SL 010 (Walther Wolff Collection) in 1987.(2) Walther Wolff's personal file is located in fonds 1 OB 009 (Personalakten der Pfarrer) W 062, 1892-1931(3) Vols. 1917 and 1919-1922 in the archive library under ZK 003(4) In the archive library under ZK 010(5) See nos. 47 and 48 of this fonds
