Alfred Knobloch

Alfred Karl Ernst Knobloch (born February 9, 1859 in Wilhelmsfelde (today in Boxberg , Oberlausitz), † May 31, 1916 in Berlin ) was Lord Mayor of Bromberg from 1899 to 1910 .

family

Knobloch was the son of the royal surveyor Wilhelm Knobloch and his wife Ida, nee. Vitzthum from Eckstaedt . He was married to Clara Hoche, with whom he had a daughter and two sons.

Life

Knobloch attended high schools in Breslau (1866–1873) and Dresden. He then studied law at the University of Breslau (1878–1881). As an assessor (1887) he worked in district courts in Hirschberg , Habelschwerdt , Goldberg and Landeshut . In 1890 he moved to Poznan , where he worked in the Provincial Administration of the Poznan Province . There he was busy building up accident insurance in agriculture.

Knobloch was an advocate of the Germanization of the Polish areas, which was expressed, among other things, in the suppression of the Polish language in society and in schools. So he advocated allowances for German teachers. Knobloch also promoted the economic integration of the province of Poznan with the other parts of the empire as well as increased immigration and the raising of capital from the western provinces. He assumed that the region had lagged behind economically due to insufficient investment and that the reason for this was the German minority in the population.

In 1899, after the death of Mayor Hugo Braesicke , Knobloch tried to become mayor of Bromberg, to which the city council elected him on February 23, 1899. On April 17, 1899 he was introduced to the office, in 1900 he was appointed to the manor house as a representative of the city .

Knobloch's tenure fell at a time of rapid growth in the city of Bromberg. New suburbs emerged, roads and other infrastructure such as water supply and sewerage were created. Knobloch took particular care of the construction of educational institutions, in addition to a city library, numerous primary schools and a trade school. In 1902 an agricultural academy was established, which became a forerunner of today's University of Bromberg . The establishment of a university, for which Knobloch campaigned intensively with the Prussian government, he could not enforce.

At the end of his 12-year term in office, Knobloch did not run for office. He left Bromberg and settled in Berlin as a lawyer. He died on May 31, 1916 after a brief illness in a Berlin hospital.

In addition to his administrative and political activities, Knobloch was also active in the arts. He was the author of various novels and translations under his own name and under the pseudonym Benjamin Corda .

Works

• Paul. Drama in 5 acts. Berlin around 1912
• Lows. Drama in 5 acts. Berlin 1912
• The Master of Danzig and other short stories. Berlin 1914
• Glass walls. A novel. Berlin 1914
• Homeland. A novel. Edited by Peter Hamecher . Berlin 1918

literature

• Stanisław Błażejewski, Janusz Kutta, Marek Romaniuk: Bydgoski Słownik Biograficzny. T. 1. 1994, p. 64. (Polish)