Gerhard Wolf

Gerhard Wolf ( born August 12, 1896 in Dresden, † March 23, 1971 in Munich) was consul in Florence, Italy. There, he managed to political persecution (eg, Bernard Berenson ) and cultural heritage (eg Ponte Vecchio) to protect.

Life

Gerhard Wolf was born in 1896, the seventh and youngest child of a family lawyer in Dresden. After his military service, he studied philosophy, art history and literature, and completed his studies with a doctorate in philosophy.

1927 Wolf joined under Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann in the diplomatic service, when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he worked in Rome. In that year he was first invited to join the party. Although he initially rejected, he resigned on March 1, 1939 for career reasons but then one after had been made ​​clear to him the consequences of further refusal: recall from his post abroad, no more dislocation abroad or immediate dismissal.

Between 1940 and 1944 Wolf was German consul in Florence. During the years of German occupation 1943/44, he saved it under the retention of Rudolf Rahn (Deputy German Ambassador and later Empire representative in Italy) many lives. This testified, among other things, 1946, the American art historian Bernard Berenson, who lived at this time as foreigners of Jewish descent in Florence to preserve art treasures and library. 1944 Wolf defeated together with Ludwig Heinrich Heyden Reich, director of the Institute of Art History, the planned removal of numerous Florentine art treasures to Germany.

Other anti-fascist eyewitnesses reported, Consul Wolf was known as " a moderate man and an opponent of all the excesses of the Nazi regime."

Ten years after his retirement Gerhard Wolf died on March 23, 1971 in Munich.

In gratitude, the Florentines "Il Console di Firenze " called him (consul of Florence) and bestowed on him in 1955 the honorary citizenship of the city. Since 2006, commemorated by a marble plaque at the Ponte Vecchio at him. It was revealed by Acting Mayor of the birthplace Wolf, Dresden. Florence is since 1978 the Italian twin city of Dresden.