Arnold Duckwitz

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Contemporary portrait by Arnold Duckwitz
Bust of Duckwitz from the Focke Museum

Arnold Duckwitz (born  January 27, 1802 in Bremen , † March 19, 1881 in Bremen) was a merchant and senator and mayor of the Hanseatic city of Bremen. As a Hanseatic statesman, he was Reich Minister of Commerce from 1848 to 1849 and responsible for the Navy in the provisional government of the then emerging German Empire .

Life

Merchant and Senator

Duckwitz grew up in Bremen and completed a commercial apprenticeship. He spent several years as a merchant in England and the Netherlands , where he imported animal hides from North America. In 1829 he settled in his hometown, where he made merits in particular by improving shipping on the Weser and introducing steam shipping . Together with Johannes Rösing, he was the spokesman for the liberal merchant class in Bremen, shaped by the July Revolution of 1830 .

In 1837 he stood up for the German customs unit with the publication On the Relationship of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen to the German Customs Union (Bremen). In 1840 he was elected to the college of parents of the merchant (head of merchants). Member of the Bremen Senate since 1841 , in 1845 he signed contracts with the Kingdom of Hanover to build a railway between Hanover and Bremen and to make the Weser below Bremen navigable for seagoing ships. At the same time, negotiations began on a connection between the Zollverein and the North Sea neighbors, which led to the conclusion of a trade and shipping alliance at the beginning of April 1847, which was not implemented. Duckwitz wrote the text Der deutsche Handels- und Schiffahrts-Bund .

At Duckwitz's suggestion, a German-American steamship line was set up. In the spring of 1847 he concluded a favorable contract with the American postal administration.

Reich Minister 1848/1849

In 1848 he was a member of the preliminary parliament . From the beginning to the middle of 1848 Duckwitz participated as an expert on the economic committee of the Frankfurt National Assembly . As Bremen's commissioner advising on German trade relations, he wrote a memorandum relating to Germany's customs and trade constitution . Thereupon he was appointed Reich Minister for Trade of the all-German government in July 1848 and later also took over the naval department (only after his resignation the naval ministry). He also campaigned for the establishment of a German imperial fleet , on which he published a memorandum in 1849. In the turmoil of the revolution and counter-revolution, Duckwitz managed to create a navy in a short time. After the suppression of the revolution in May 1849, he returned to Bremen. In 1850 he was a member of the State House of the Erfurt Union Parliament .

Again senator and mayor

Duckwitz was again a senator in Bremen. The trade agreement concluded between Bremen and the Zollverein in 1856 was primarily his work.

From 1857 to 1863 Duckwitz was the mayor of Bremen and thus the successor to the conservative, legendary Johann Smidt . He was the first businessman to hold this post in 200 years. From 1866 to 1869 he took over the office of mayor a second time.

After serving as head of the city, he remained in office as a senator until he retired in 1875. In 1877 he published his memoir. He welcomed the creation of the German Empire.

Duckwitz was buried in the Riensberger Friedhof in Bremen (grave location V 97/98/218/219, coordinates: 53 ° 5 ′ 37.4 ″  N , 8 ° 51 ′ 36.6 ″  E ).

Senator Richard Duckwitz (1886–1972) was a grandson of Arnold Duckwitz.

Honors

Works

  • About the relationship between the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and the German Customs Union. Bremen 1837.
  • Fragments from my life. Bremen 1842.
  • The German Trade and Shipping Association. Bremen 1847.
  • Memorandum concerning the customs and trade constitution of Germany. Bremen 1848 ( digitized )
  • About the establishment of the German Navy. Bremen 1849. ( digitized version )
  • Memories from my public life, 1841 to 1866. Bremen 1877.
  • Proposals for the establishment of a German shipping and trade association. Berlin 1847 ( digitized version )
  • The relationship between Bremen and the Zollverein in 1853. Bremen 1853 ( digitized version )

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Federal Archives: Members of the Pre-Parliament and the Fifties Committee (PDF file; 79 kB)
  2. online at the SuUB Bremen: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46:1-98