Otto Vollbehr
Otto Heinrich Friedrich Vollbehr (b. 24 April 1869 in Kiel, Province of Schleswig-Holstein, Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation; d. 18 May 1946 in Frankfurt-Höchst, Allied-occupied Germany) was a German industrial chemist, rare book dealer (antiquarian) and National Socialist propagandist.
Contents
Life
Otto Vollbehr was the eldest son of the Kiel merchant Emil Jakob Heinrich Vollbehr (1837–1913) and his wife Caroline Elisabeth, née Beckmann (1846–1927). His seven siblings included the painter Ernst Vollbehr. The art historian and Magdeburg museum director Theodor Volbehr was his cousin.
In 1901, he was listed on share certificates as managing director of the "Allgemeine Torfkohlenesellschaft m.b.H." (General Peat Coal Company) and in 1902 of the "Central-Torfkohlengesellschaft." In 1902, he received an Austrian patent for the production of coal from peat, which he transferred to the "Allgemeine Torfkohlengesellschaft" in 1904. In 1905, he invented a magnifying glass, the Mikrophotoskop, which made it possible to view greatly reduced photographic reproductions of the original sheets in the form of slides: "The main use of the invention will be military." That same year, he joined the Berlin Bookplate Association. In 1906, he received a U.S. patent for his "Micrographic Microscope."
Some time after the end of the First World War, Dr. Vollbehr was reportedly so severely injured in a railway accident on the Brussels-Paris line that he was hospitalized for several months and left paralyzed on one side. On medical advice, he gave up his profession to devote himself entirely to collecting books. He specialized in purchasing incunabula, particularly from monastic collections. The inflationary period made the market exceptionally favorable for buyers.
In October 1924, Otto Vollbehr traveled to Los Angeles, contacted Henry E. Huntington for the first time, and offered to purchase his incunabula collection. Between November 1924 and 1926, Huntington acquired a total of 2,385 volumes from Vollbehr for $1.2 million. The first purchase included 392 items, mostly of Spanish and Portuguese origin, for $177,000. In January 1925, Vollbehr offered him his complete collection of 4,000 incunabula. However, in March, Huntington purchased only 1,740 incunabula for $770,000, which he paid partly in cash and partly in Pacific Electric stock.
In June 1926, Vollbehr arrived in the United States with his collection of 3,000 incunabula to be exhibited at the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. In 1930 Dr. Vollbehr with the assistance of Colonel Edwin Emerson sold his collection of rare fifteenth century printed works including one of four remaining perfect vellum paper copies of the Gutenberg Bible to the Library of Congress for $1.5 million. The famous Bible--bounded in three volumes and at the time valued at $600,000--had belonged to the St. Blasius monastery in Austria for over 400 years. Dr. Vollbehr claimed to have purchased the Bible for a sum equivalent to more than $350,000.
While in America Vollbehr was a promoter of National Socialist Germany. From October 1931 to April 1936, Dr. Vollbehr issued "memoranda"--which others would label propaganda--on the situation in Germany and the rise of National Socialism. He was investigated by the House Special Committee on Nazi Propaganda and testified before the committee on 30 November 1934.[1] He was instrumental in arranging Reverend Gerald Winrod's visit to Germany in January 1935.[2]
Before the outbreak of World War II, Vollbehr returned to Germany. Towards the end of the war, he lived in Baden-Baden. After the war, American art protection officers from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section brought him to Frankfurt am Main. There, the Rothschild Library served as the first collection point for libraries and books obtained by the National Socialists. Vollbehr's task was to assist in the sorting, organization, and cataloging of the immense book holdings. He last lived in the western pavilion of the Bolongaropalast in Höchst. He was buried in the Höchst Main Cemetery.
Writings (excerpt)
- Gedächtnisrede am Sarge des kaiserlich türkischen Generalkonsuls Exzellenz Dr. Omer Lutfi Bey, 1918
- Bericht der freiwilligen Wirtschaftshilfe des Soldatenrats (Soldatenratshilfe), Berlin 1919
- The Destroyers of International Goodwill Unmasked (1933)
- Is Pacifism Possible? A Reply. (1934) 11 pages
- A Statement of Principals (1934)
- Message from Appomattox: Let’s Have Peace! (1936)
See also
References
- ↑ Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda, by Martin J. Manning, Herbert Romerstein, page 311
- ↑ Cross-Currents, by Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, page 35
