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Lauterbach's mayor Rainer-Hans Vollmöller (CDU) is considered to be deeply rooted in his hometown, affable, humorous and thorough. On June 30th, the 69-year-old will retire after almost 39 years as the longest-serving town hall boss in Hesse – possibly also in Germany.
Lauterbach – cell phone – “I don’t know how I grew up without it” – PC and modern technology are part of his everyday life. But Vollmöller prefers to keep it the way it was half a century ago. Back then, he came to the town hall as a “pen” and learned the craft of city administration from scratch – with stacks of paper files. Main office manager Gliß and, last but not least, mayors Willi Fiedler and Rainer Visse, who “supported me and challenged me,” were his great role models.
At this point in time, the “15th generation Lauterbacher” whose ancestor Steffan had gone down in the city’s annals as mayor in 1707 had long been clear about his career choice. He says with a smile that he “wanted to be mayor when he was in kindergarten.” He chose Fiedler, “a fatherly type,” as his role model.
Lauterbach's mayor Vollmöller is retiring
It soon became apparent that Vollmöller could actually one day become one of his successors. The young man, active as a footballer for VfL Lauterbach and as a handball player for TVFrischborn, showed a wide range of interests. Evening meetings were not a compulsory exercise for him. He went there even when he didn't have to. “When I was on duty, the question never arose as to whether I was responsible,” is how he describes his curiosity and diverse interests. This quickly led to him becoming the mayor's “closest colleague” and “getting the tools at a young age.”
He has retained this curiosity, coupled with absolute thoroughness, even after 39 years in the executive chair. When a question about elections in the city council arises, he immediately looks for the relevant meeting documents, consults specialist magazines and legal commentaries: “I always have the latest regulations with me. There are always new nuances in such constituent meetings.”
People who answer very complex questions with simple solutions scare me. In this job you also have to be a rascal – that was me.
It is not surprising that Vollmöller also did volunteer work. At 19, he was elected to the board of the district fire brigade association and after the local elections in 1985, the district CDU sent the Lauterbach native to the district committee as the youngest district representative in Hesse. At the same time, he appeared on a list of talented young people – and came into contact with party friends in Gemünden/Wohra in northern Hesse, where the city council elected a new town hall boss on May 29, 1987. Vollmöller: “I applied at random. The evening was a cinematic crime thriller, from which I emerged as the winner with twelve to eleven votes. I was only inexperienced in terms of my age. As a close employee of the mayor, working in the main office and as secretary in the municipality and city council, I knew the political processes and had to do with all subject areas.”
His hometown was now “done” for his career. After all, the district town was an SPD stronghold at the time. But then direct voting was introduced in Hesse and “the cards were reshuffled”. In Gemünden he was confirmed in office by 90 percent of the citizens, but his party friends back home soon made contact with him. Successfully. In 1996 he returned to the Vogelsberg district as mayor and has now held his office for 30 years. This makes him not only “the last mayor still in office elected by the local parliament” in the country, but also the longest-serving. This probably applies to the whole of Germany in relation to full-time town hall bosses.
To person
Rainer-Hans Vollmöller was born in April 1957 and spent his entire working life in town halls. In 1973 he began an apprenticeship as an administrative assistant in his hometown, finally qualified for the senior civil service and in 1987 moved to Gemünden (Wohra) in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district as mayor. He has been mayor of the district town of Lauterbach since 1996.
The divorced father of two adult children was involved in the fire department, became a European champion as a footballer with the mayor's national team and dedicated himself to carnival. Today his hobbies include saunas, hiking and cycling.
A lot has happened in the four decades in the executive chair of an administration – in society, but also in the city of Lauterbach. In the past, “the sense of community was more in the foreground, there was a different social interaction. A lot of things were more intense, deeper and more lasting. Today a lot of things are superficial, everything is rushed – the only question is whether something is important.” He himself thinks “not in the short term, but in long-term units”. To this day, however, there are “challenging things. The financial resources of the municipalities have always been manageable. The great art is to find an answer to the question of where to get funding for the infrastructure. You have to be quick.” Here he benefits from his committee work at the Association of Cities or the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, where he is a member of the finance committee. One result of his “slyness,” which he naturally admits, was the renovation of the Hohhaus Museum. For the former city palace, he raised funds for the disabled-accessible development of public facilities in order to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Almost four decades of service
While one or two of his colleagues in the region tried to use the town hall as a career springboard to the state parliament or to the top of the district administration, this never really occurred to Vollmöller. However, in 2011 he ran for district administrator for the CDU, but was then defeated by the SPD man Manfred Görig – albeit by only a few votes. At that time he followed the call of his party.
Shortly before, he had been elected to the district council and moved up several places in the election, from 42nd place to 6th place. He is still a member of the district parliament. In March, the Vogelsbergers voted him up from 37th to 10th place. Will his party call for another office again?
In any case, he will have enough time from July onwards, because the 80-hour week will then be a thing of the past. “I want to enjoy my newfound freedom, without pressure and calendar, and go on a trip or two,” says Rainer-Hans Vollmöller.
