Wilhelm Guske

Wilhelm Guske (born November 25, 1880 in Oberhausen ; † January 5, 1957 in Pfronten ) was a Prussian civil servant and German politician ( SPD ) as well as chairman of the Iron Front in Koblenz and resistance fighter against National Socialism . In 1946 he was Lord Mayor of Koblenz for a short time.

Life and work

Guske was born as the son of Karl Guske. After elementary school he worked in a factory like his father before he became a soldier . In 1911 he joined the city of Essen as a military candidate and city secretary . In 1912 he married Friedel Jaenisch and in the following year his son Heinz Ulrich was born. In the First World War he was a soldier again and retired in 1917 because of a serious wound.

After Guske had made up his Abitur in 1919 and had become a member of the SPD, he was elected mayor of Berlin-Mahlsdorf . In 1921 he became district administrator in the district of Neustettin , the next year district administrator in the district of Merseburg . In the following years he studied law and political science at the University of Halle . He graduated in 1928 with the promotion of Dr. jur. from. In the same year Guske became managing director of the non-profit settlement company in Bad Dürrenberg , where the architect Alexander Klein built a settlement in the Bauhaus style. Guske took over the office of Vice President of the Rhine Province in Koblenz in 1930. There he became chairman of the Iron Front in the same year , and he was also active in the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold .

After the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler in 1933, the Iron Front was smashed in Koblenz. Guske was removed from his post as Vice President of the Rhine Province on March 7, 1933 and taken into " protective custody ". After the Prussian strike , he had been put into temporary retirement on October 4, 1932. Later he was in custody taken, they cast him infidelity during his work in Bad Dürrenberg ago, but came back to free editions. In 1936, after a long delay, the criminal proceedings were heard before the Erfurt Regional Court , where even Walter Gropius from London was summoned as a witness. The trial resulted in an infidelity conviction.

After a long period of unemployment, Guske managed to get employed again in Berlin as a company lawyer . In the Second World War in 1940 falls his only son. After the end of the war he became the syndic of the Bernau district .

After the sudden death of Koblenz's Lord Mayor Wilhelm Kurth , Guske was appointed as his successor on June 1, 1946 with the approval of the French military governor Marie-Pierre Kœnig . He set up a 15-point program to rebuild and supply the city. During his short term of office, the theater reopened on June 1, 1946. It was closed in August 1944 and was one of the few buildings in the city center that remained largely unscathed during the air raids . In the first free local elections on September 15, 1946, the CDU emerged as the strongest force in Koblenz. The previous mayor, Josef Schnorbach, took over the office of mayor of Koblenz on September 22, 1946. Guske went to Hesse as Ministerialrat in the Ministry for Political Liberation under Gottlob Binder before he retired in 1948. He spent the last years of his life in Pfronten in the Allgäu .

literature

• Wolfgang Schütz: Koblenz heads. People of the city's history. Namesake for streets and squares. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Publishing house for advertising papers GmbH Mülheim-Kärlich, Mülheim-Kärlich 2005.
• Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz. Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt. 2 volumes. Theiss, Stuttgart 1992-1993;
  • Vol. 1: From the beginning to the end of the electoral era. 1992, ISBN 3-8062-0876-X ;
  • Vol. 2: From the French city to the present. 1993, ISBN 3-8062-1036-5 .

Web links

• Portrait of Wilhelm Guske in: mahnmal-koblenz.de