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General Superintendent Ernst Stoltenhoff The office of General Superintendent was created by cabinet order of 7 February 1828. It was attached to the Consistory of the Evangelical Church of the Rhine Province. As representative of the state church regiment and in contrast to the synodally elected president of the Provincial Synod, the Superintendent General exercised the spiritual direction as pastor pastorumaus.Ernst Stoltenhoff (1879-1953) was first parish priest in Mülheim/Ruhr and Essen. In 1923 he was appointed to the Evangelical High Council of the Church in Berlin as a consistorial head, where he worked as a personnel officer and established numerous ecumenical contacts. In 1928, as successor to D. Klingemann, he was appointed General Superintendent of the Rhineland with the then official seat in Koblenz. Imperial Bishop Ludwig Müller, in his capacity as Prussian State Bishop, ordered Stoltenhoff's dismissal on April 1, 1934. With the approval of the newly appointed Reich Minister Kerrl, he was recalled to his office. The second term of office lasted from 25 May 1936 until his retirement on 1 February 1949. The inventory documents all areas of the General Superintendent's business activities from the final phase of the Wimar Republic, e.g. material on the so-called Devaheim scandal. During the National Socialist era, Stoltenhoff washed his way between the Consistory, Church committees and the various groups of the Confessing Church. His memoirs were published under the title Die gute Hand Gottes in 1990.