On the end of the Sponsoring Society in 1949 and its new beginning in 1991
Part 3 of the UJ series on the history of the Society of Friends and Sponsors of the TU Dresden e. V.
University Journal 12/2021
The sponsoring society continued its sponsoring activities even after the Allied bombing of the TH Dresden on February 13/14, 1945 and the closure of the university about two months later due to "enemy approach". Thus, members donated in connection with major measures to repair the severe war damage. They did not cease their contacts with the university even in the months after May 8, 1945, and tried to maintain their activities under the strict occupation regime - the university was temporarily controlled by a troop unit of the NKVD secret service.
Decline and end
Under the extremely difficult conditions of the chaotic post-war months, which were also marked by the struggle for bare existence for most members of the university, the bodies of the society agreed at the beginning of August 1945 on the short-term provision of a sum of 100,000 Marks for the "re-establishment" of the university. The treasurer and branch manager of the Deutsche Bank in Dresden, Carl H. Kersten, negotiated with the provisional rector, Karl Hahn, whose days at the university were numbered. In any case, in mid-August the now officially confirmed new rector, Enno Heidebroek, thanked the sponsoring society for the large sum it had promised. On June 30, 1945, the total assets of the sponsoring society were estimated at around 675,000 marks, 50 percent of which consisted of shares. The high proportion of securities favored by bankers as early as the 1920s was maintained after 1933, but, unlike similar organizations in the West, it could never be realized by the Dresden sponsoring society after the currency conversions in 1948.
It was obvious that the sponsoring society, as probably the most important link between Saxon business, the city of Dresden and the state actors, whether occupying power or state administration, continued to work actively in favor of the university. It proved to be extremely adaptable, so that until around 1947 further foundations and donations were received for the benefit of the sponsoring society or the university directly. Membership contributions also continued to flow in some cases, for example from the financially strong Philipp Holzmann AG, which was only nationalized a little later in the East Zone and had remained loyal to the society as a long-standing institutional supporting member. It must be taken into account that, especially in the first post-war years, sovereign action on the part of both the sponsoring society's actors and the university was out of the question. As late as the end of January 1949, the managing director of the sponsoring society, Max Hallfahrt, who was still working as director of the securities department of the Sächsische Landeskreditbank, endeavored to revitalize the sponsoring society and discussed the appropriate steps with Rector Enno Heidebroek and the university's accomplished Rentmeister (head of administration), Johannes Scheibner, who, in contrast to many other former NSDAP members, returned to his old position after only a brief interregnum. Scheibner had incurred the displeasure of Gauleiter Mutschmann by exposing embezzlement by an "old fighter."
After the collapse, Scheibner, an experienced university administrator, worked to rebuild a functioning university. But even with his internal knowledge of the university's diverse networks, he was unable to prevent the deletion of the Gesellschaft von Förderern und Freunden e. V., which was considered to be incriminated, from the register of associations. On February 2, 1949, he reported the execution of the order for dissolution to the state government. Thus, in the 28th year of its existence, the sponsoring society was history. The assets of the sponsoring society and the Century Foundation, which Johannes Scheibner valued at over one million Marks in 1953, were not yet fully assigned to history. He put the old assets of the sponsors and friends at around 600,000 marks. The revalued accounts went into the Collective Foundation of the later Dresden District, which from then on supported the Robert Sterl Museum and a home for the elderly, as well as awarding scholarships to the College of Fine Arts. In 1967, in the midst of the Cold War, the administration of the TU Dresden made a bold attempt to access the old assets with securities and asserted claims to these assets with the corresponding department of the Berliner Bank AG in Berlin-Charlottenburg. The bank rejected this request with reference to the transfer of the assets to the federal government. For this reason, no custody account statement could be issued. Presumably, this refusal led to considerable disappointment among the TUD management, which was interested in hard currency.
Fallout
On the one hand, the Friends Society was highly discredited due to the abandonment of Jewish and democratic leadership members after 1933 and its active support of the university for the armaments and war economy; on the other hand, it lost its social basis in the economy and society due to the deep political and economic cuts, especially from 1946 on. While a large part of the active members of the Society of Friends left for the West because of the anti-bourgeois development in the East Zone and the later GDR, some founding members or their children from the families of the Arnholds and the von Klemperers had built up new, often very successful existences in emigration. Friedrich Külz, who had also left the sponsoring society after the Nazis came to power, resumed his political activities and advanced to become chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPD) in the East Zone, which at the time was the second strongest party in the East after the SED. Interestingly, his then co-worker for youth issues and later important federal politician Wolfgang Mischnick (FDP) was one of the formative personalities of the sponsoring society that was re-established after reunification.
New beginning
When the sponsoring society was re-established in December 1991 as the Gesellschaft von Freunden und Förderern der TU Dresden e. V. (Society of Friends and Sponsors of the TU Dresden) on the occasion of its 70th birthday, a conscious continuation of the intentions of the founding generation took place with a close interlocking of the university with the city society and far beyond. The first president was the managing director of the Saxon Business Association, Klaus Osang, who was followed in 1994 by Paul G. Schaubert of Dresdner Bank. The management was in the hands of the long-time chancellor of the TU Dresden, Alfred Post, on whose initiative, for example, representatives of the companies and families were specifically asked to join the society who had already been members in 1921. For example, Richard Mollier's son-in-law and a graduate of the Dresden Technical University, Horst Neidhardt, a city architect, transferred the Mollier family's former home, located not far from the campus, to the Society. After its sale, the six-figure sum was donated to the Mollier Foundation. Also unforgotten is the commitment of Honorary Senator Henry Arnhold, whose family before 1933 and after 1990 was and still is one of the most important supporters of culture, science and popular sports in the city of Dresden and in particular of the TU Dresden.
Dr. Matthias Lienert,
Director University Archive