Hi John,
these specific sites are ServerAliases and thus need a SAN/Multi-domain ssl certificate, so no other cert would help. The redirection is exactly what I was asking and naturally we do that in the vhost file.
HAHA, EDIT: The good thing about writing publicly on a forum and answering somebody else’s questions/suggestions, is that you have to verify everything you write in order not to look stupid. And doing so sometimes shows you your own errors better than anybody else could 
I knew we have both redirects in the vhost file, http->https as well as www->non-www. But I placed the http->https way to high so that it was done first and then the www->non-www. I corrected that and now it works
John, thanks for listening and suggesting and putting me on the right path - again 
Cheers,
Michael