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D. Walther (Friedrich Walther Paul) Wolff (1) (2), was born on 09 December 1870 in Neuwerk, a later district of Mönchengladbach, as the son of the teacher at the orphanage, Friedrich Wolff, and his wife Bertha. After attending the Gymnasium Mönchengladbach, Wolff studied theology at the universities of Greifswald, Marburg and Halle from 1889 to 1893. In April 1893 and October 1894 he passed his theological examinations in Koblenz. Wolff was vicar in Lobberich and performed his relief service in Mönchengladbach. In May 1895 he was ordained in Otzenrath and took over the rectorate in one of the oldest Reformed parishes on the Lower Rhine. In 1901 Wolff was elected 2nd pastor of the Evangelical Church of Aachen. This office, which he held until his death, gave him the opportunity to develop his theological and organisational strength and 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 gave his congregation a wealth of spiritual inspiration and sharpened the Protestant conscience of the diaspora community through numerous essays on the history and culture of Protestantism. On Wolff's initiative a branch association of the Protestant Federation was founded in Aachen in 1904, to which about 7 members of the congregation joined as early as 1906. Since 1905 he tried to found a Rhine-Westphalian group of the Volkskirchliche Evangelische Vereinigung - the Mittelpartei - which he took over as deputy chairman in 1906. He published the organ "Die Evangelische Gemeinde" (4) from 1909 onwards and headed it himself until issue 5 of vol. 11.1919/20. In each issue he wrote the "Chronicle" as a review of the life of the church, almost each issue contained a larger contribution on a major question of church work. At the 34th Rheinische Provinzialsynode in Barmen, Wolff was elected president on 6 March 1919. Wolff arranged for the election of a committee which was entrusted with the revision of the Rhenish-Westphalian Church Constitution. In 1920, at an extraordinary meeting of the Prussian General Synod, he was elected a member of the General Synod Executive Committee. Wolff was particularly actively involved in the drafting of the constitution. His endeavour was to ensure that the presbyterial-synodal element would have the place and influence it deserved in the life of the church. In 1921 he received his doctorate from Bonn University on the occasion of the Worms anniversary celebration. In 1922 Wolff was elected Superintendent of the Aachen church district and in 1923 he was appointed to his office. Since 1922 Wolff belonged to the Protestant Church Committee, in 1925 the 1st Prussian General Synod of New Style elected him vice-president; as such he became vice-chairman of the Senate of the Protestant Church of the Old Prussian Union. In 1929, the General Synod confirmed Wolff in both offices. Already in 1925 he had been re-elected as President by the Rhenish Provincial Synod. Wolff participated in all Church Days since 1919, most recently as Vice President. Especially the social message of the Betheler Kirchentag of 1924 is strongly influenced by him. In 1924 he was the initiator of the first Rheinischer Kirchentag in Cologne, followed by others in Essen in 1926 and in Saarbrücken in 1930. Shortly before his death in 1931, the Faculty of Law of the University of Berlin awarded him an honorary doctorate for his services to the conclusion of the Church Treaty between the Protestant State Churches of Prussia and the Prussian State Government. President Wolff died on 26 August 1931 in Aachen. His death also caused great consternation outside the Protestant Rhineland, which was reflected in the obituaries of numerous newspapers (5). The estate was purchased in 1980 by Wolff's grandson, the Westphalian pastor Paul-Gerhard van Spankeren. The written material had been roughly pre-arranged and placed in archive folders. The collection contains above all an extensive collection of sermons, beginning during his studies in 1892 to 1927. From Wolff's last years in office, only casualties, devotions and sermons on special occasions have survived. The chronology of the sermons had to be established first. The sermons are formulated in the first years, since about 1900 mostly written down as theses. Speeches are documented on various occasions; the imperial speeches and sermons show the national character of Wolff and his time. The second focus is on lectures and manuscripts, which are arranged according to subject matter. The collection of obituaries has already been referred to above. The leather volume with Wolff's calligraphic pronouncements was handed over to the archive by Mr van Spankeren in 1994 (No. 49). Wolff's correspondence is only preserved in fragments (No. 46). the collection was recorded in October 2006 and comprises 50 archive units. The duration covers 1892 to 1931 as well as memorial contributions 1941, 1956 and 1961. Only a few double copies were collected. Some publications by and about Wolff are included in the holdings of the archive library, e.g. the holdings 8 SL 010 (Wolff Collection), which contains the collection of materials for Hans Helmich's essay in the "Monatshefte" 1987 (see literature references). Ulrich Dühr, 07.11.2006(1) The biographical outline of this introduction is the revised version of the text which Edgar Reitenbach prefixed to the finding aid book of the holdings 8 SL 010 (Collection Walther Wolff) 1987(2) The personal file Walther Wolff is located in the holdings 1 OB 009 (Personalakte der Pfarrer) W 062, 1892-1931(3) Jg. 1917 and 1919-1922 in the archive library under ZK 003(4) In the archive library under ZK 010(5) See no. 47 and 48 of this collection