Arthur Johannes Gaitzsch

Arthur Johannes Gaitzsch (born July 13, 1879 in Santander , Spain , † November 10, 1951 in Dresden ) was a German lawyer and local politician . Gaitzsch worked as mayor in Taucha and as mayor and lord mayor in Pirna .

Live and act

Arthur Gaitzsch was born in Santander, Spain, in 1879, the son of a mine director. After attending the Kreuzgymnasium in Dresden , he began to study law in Jena , Heidelberg and Leipzig . During his studies he became a member of the Teutonia Jena fraternity in 1901 . The legal traineeship took him to Chemnitz , Waldenburg and Dresden . In 1909 the doctorate followed .

Then Gaitzsch worked as a council assessor in Chemnitz before he took up the mayoral election in Taucha in 1912 . He prevailed among 41 applicants and was initially elected for 6 years, but soon afterwards for life. In 1919 Gaitzsch moved to Pirna and took office as mayor on May 3, 1919. An intensive creative period began here for Gaitzsch, which was particularly reflected in a successful incorporation policy. As a reaction to the efforts to incorporate the neighboring state capital Dresden, which had incorporated twenty surrounding villages in 1921, Gaitzsch pursued a growth policy for Pirna in order to assert itself as an independent medium-sized center in the vicinity of Dresden. At the same time, Gaitzsch sought to increase the population of Pirna through incorporations in such a way that it was possible to leave the district association of the Pirna district administration and Pirna was directly subordinate to the Dresden district administration as the so-called " exemte city " ( district-free city ). Associated with this was the exemption from district taxes, independence in local taxation and greater decision-making powers as an administrative authority. Gaitzsch said of this request:

“It wasn't the power tickle that guided us in our project, not the urge to flaunt a large number of inhabitants, but only the fact that a larger community can create bigger things, and that with the larger number of inhabitants there is greater emphasis and more independence in the administration is justified. "

- Arthur Gaitzsch after the incorporation of Posta (1922)

In 1922/23 Pirna expanded through the incorporation of several suburbs and surrounding villages ( Posta , Niedervogelgesang , Obervogelgesang , Copitz , Hinterjessen , Neundorf , Beimendorf , Rottwerndorf ) to over 30,000 inhabitants and thus achieved the desired district freedom in 1924. During Gaitzsch's tenure, the construction of the new building for the Sparkasse (Gartenstrasse / Grohmannstrasse) and the vocational, commercial and secondary girls' school (today vocational school center on Thälmannplatz) included the construction of two prominent urban buildings in the city center. Although Arthur Gaitzsch was re-elected Lord Mayor for a six-year term in May 1931, he resigned from his post in April 1933 for health reasons.

Arthur Johannes Gaitzsch died in 1951.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 2: F-H. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0809-X , p. 101.
• Rene Misterek: Pirna the way it was. Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1996
• Rainer Rippich: Two men shape Pirna. in: Sächsische Zeitung (Pirna edition) from October 1, 2015