Berend Carsjen Zaayenga

Berend Carsjen Zaayenga (born August 5, 1890 in Larrelt ; † May 7, 1952 ibid) was a German politician.

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Berend Zaayenga came from a working-class family who had lived in Larrelt for a long time and can be found there from 1762. His father Berend C. Zaayenga worked as a straw merchant and boatman and was married to Hemke, née Nap. Zaayenga attended elementary school and from 1904 completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and carpenter at the company of the building contractor Pieper in Wolthusen . In 1907 he became a member of the SPD and gave several speeches about the party during his wanderings in the German Reich . In 1912 he went back to his birthplace and founded a local branch of the party there.

Zaayenga continued his wandering a little later. In Cologne he was called up for military service. As a trooper of the Diedenhofen battalion, he reached Warsaw . Here he made the acquaintance of the 21-year-old Wanda Latowitz. Both married Catholic on April 28, 1918 in Warsaw. The couple had two sons and a daughter. After the end of World War I , Zaayenga went back to Larrelt and soon got involved in politics again. He was initially a member of the USPD and then joined the SPD. In the elections of the municipality and the district assembly, he was the party's top candidate. From 1919 Since 1919 he has held the parliamentary group chairmanship in the district council of the district of Emden. From 1921 to 1929 he sat on the district committee several times. For the election of the Provincial Parliament in 1921 he stood in as a substitute for Josef Ernst in Hanover . He himself said that he was a member of the provincial parliament from 1923 to 1925.

In the first years after the First World War, Zaayenga was particularly committed to helping socially disadvantaged people. Upon request, he received higher funds, which were used for housing construction in the Emden district. On his initiative, agricultural buildings were confiscated and used as apartments. In addition, he advocated adequate help for war survivors. At the meetings of the district council he clearly declared himself in favor of the republic. In 1921 he triggered a resolution that criticized the "reactionary and monarchist efforts of the coast guards on Borkum".

From 1919 Zaayenga worked as a journeyman carpenter at the Prussian Hydraulic Engineering Office in 1919, where he became chairman of the works council. From 1930 he was also the chief works council chairman of the Ministry of Trade and Trade Union and the Ministry of Agriculture, Domains and Forests . He spoke for all workers and employees of the administration of the Prussian hydraulic engineering.

After the SPD was banned in 1933, Zaayenga immediately stopped all political activities. The Prussian water engineering authority dismissed him without notice in August 1933 on the grounds of alleged "subversive attitudes". Zaayenga had no work for several months after that. From 1934 to 1939 he worked as a representative for detergents and cleaning agents at Walter Bubert , who was also a member of the SPD and ran a wholesale business. He lost his traveling trade license and then worked as a carpenter. At the end of 1941 he joined the fire brigade of the North Sea Works . After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , the Gestapo arrested him . His imprisonment in the court prison in Emden only lasted a few days.

After the end of the war, the British military government dismissed Larrelter mayor Georg Menssen. The district administrator in the north gave Zaayenga on May 26, 1945 the offices of mayor and registrar of the city, which he only held a few months. During this time he was particularly concerned with the plan of Georg Frickenstein , who wanted to incorporate Larrelt as the Lord Mayor of Emden. As in the 1920s, Zaayenga insisted that Larrelt should remain an independent community. In September 1945 he stopped his protests and cooperated with Frickenstein. Both wrote a contract signed on September 21, 1945 for incorporation.

Zaayenga was able to negotiate that property and business taxes would remain frozen for the residents of Larrelt for twenty years. He also succeeded in rebuilding the primary school, repairing the road to Emden and building new apartments, connecting the place to the water and gas supply and creating a bus service. When Larrelt was incorporated into Emden, Zaayenga received a position at the city of Emden. After Mayor Frickenstein died in mid-1946, Zaayenga was first transferred to the municipal building department and in June 1948 as a measuring assistant to the land surveying office and was released a little later at the age of 58.

In his letters to the administration of the city of Emden, Zaayenga repeatedly showed himself to be the meritorious mayor of Larrelt, who arranged the incorporation into Emden quickly and easily. He still lost his job and became meaningless. The SPD and the city of Emden did not honor his work with obituaries.

literature

• Michael Hermann: Berend Carsjen Zaaxenga . in: Martin Tielke (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland. Ostfriesische Landschaftliche Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Aurich, Vol. 4 ISBN 3-932206-62-2 (2007). Pp. 447-449.