Arnold Edmund Pelzer

Arnold Edmund Pelzer (born August 3, 1801 in Aachen ; † April 29, 1874 there ) was a German politician of the German Progress Party , Lord Mayor of Aachen and a member of the Prussian House of Representatives .

Live and act

The son of Aachen syndic Matthias Goswin Pelzer (1754–1814) and Aloysia Johanna Gertrud Dauven (1761–1842), daughter of the multiple Aachen mayor Stefan Dominicus Dauven, who, during the time of Aachen complaint on the part of the "old conservatives" had played a major role, completed a law degree after leaving school . He then settled down as a lawyer and drew attention to himself as a defender, for example, of the judicial reformer Friedrich Gottfried Leue or the revolutionary Ludwig Mieroslawski in the great political trials of the 1840s.

In the times of great political unrest in connection with the German Revolution of 1848/49 , Pelzer was elected Lord Mayor of Aachen on March 30, 1848 as the successor to the resigned and ultimately hapless Edmund Emundt. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, the city of Aachen was also severely affected by a collapse in the trading and business world, especially in the cloth and needle industry, which led to massive dissatisfaction among factory employees and at the same time to a major financial crisis in the city due to the lack of taxes.

A few days after his election Pelzer was forced, a riot of war reservists, which should be convened for the stationed in Aachen 34th Infantry Regiment by the vigilantes to overthrow. On April 17, 1848, he also rejected several envoys from the Fifties Committee , who advertised participation in the planned Frankfurt National Assembly in Aachen , and tried to convince them of the "inappropriateness and possible complete ineffectiveness of their intended approach". In the further course of the same year, Pelzer urged the city council and the royal government to temporarily defer the hated "slaughter and meal tax" on cattle and grain products and, in return, to fight tax fraud with the help of the vigilante if necessary. Furthermore, he managed to requisition funds for job creation measures through financial restructuring in the city budget, whereby those who refused to work should be excluded from any subsidies. Finally, in November he obtained a general amnesty for the war reservists arrested during the March riots.

All in all, through all these measures and his level-headed balancing behavior, Pelzer managed to restore a certain order and calm in the city. For this, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia personally expressed his thanks on a visit in December 1849. In 1851 Pelzer renounced a re-election for the office of Lord Mayor in favor of his police president and provincial manager Johann Contzen . For this he joined the German Progressive Party, founded in 1861, after a long period as a privateer and accepted a mandate for it in the Prussian House of Representatives .

On April 29, 1874, Arnold Edmund Pelzer died unmarried and without descendants as a result of a stroke . His nephew Ludwig Pelzer , son of his brother and appellate judge Andreas Pelzer (1804-1859), was also elected Lord Mayor of Aachen and was a member of the German Center Party in the Prussian House of Representatives and a member of the Prussian Manor .

Literature and Sources

• Hermann Friedrich Macco : History and genealogy of the Peltzer families, contributions to the genealogy of Rhenish aristocratic and patrician families , Volume 3, p. 253 ff, Aachen, 1901.

Web links

• Hans-Joachim Ramm:  Mention in the article: Peltzer, family. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 168-170 ( digitized version ).