Berend Klasink

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Berend Klasink , occasionally also Bernhard Klasinck (born June 21, 1874 in Wilsum , † September 11, 1953 ibid) was an Evangelical Reformed farmer and politician in the county of Bentheim .

life and work

Bernd Klasink was born into a long-established and respected Grafschafter family. His parents were the farmer Gerd Klasink (1842-1894) and his wife Jenne, née Hölter (1844-1917). After attending the Wilsum elementary school, he continued his education through evening courses. In 1893 he was called up for military service and drafted after the outbreak of the First World War. He initially served in France until he was transferred to the Emsland to guard the border. As the firstborn he became heir to a 46 hectare estate of the family in Wilsum.

Klasink married Gerdken Woerthuis (1880–1921), a daughter of the farmer Jan Hindrik Woerthuis (1851–1918) and his wife Jenne, née Smit (1850), on April 8, 1910 (followed by the church wedding on June 21, 1910) -1923). From this marriage three daughters and three sons were born. Since his wife Gerdken died of “ consumption ” ( tuberculosis ) on March 23, 1921 , he married her younger sister Ale (1892–1956) on January 26, 1922. The marriage also had six children.

From 1907 to 1919 Klasink was deputy chairman of the Water and Soil Association of the Radewijker Lowlands. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Wilsum Fire Fund Association for 24 years. As the nephew of the German Conservative representative in the Prussian House of Representatives, Gerd Damink (1844–1915), his interest in politics was aroused early on and he became involved in local politics in his community of Wilsum. Around 1924 Klasink joined the anti-democratic right-wing German National People's Party (DNVP). When a cross-party list "Grafschaft Bentheim" was created for the election of the Hanoverian provincial parliament in 1925, Klasink campaigned for this electoral list. However, due to a lack of votes and the formal error of an allied list from East Hanover, these political ambitions of Grafschafter Landwirtschaft failed. At the same time, Klasink belonged in the spring of 1925 to the election committee for the promotion and propagation of the election of Karl Jarres (1874–1951), whom the DNVP and the German People's Party (DVP) had nominated as candidates of the right-wing camp for the presidential election. In 1928 Klasink left the party together with a number of party friends and supported the agrarian splinter party Christian National Peasant and Rural People's Party (CNBLP), which became the strongest party in the county, in the Reichstag and Prussian state elections in May 1928 . The DNVP regional association Osnabrück, which almost fell into insignificance after this election, offered the CNBLP to set up a representative from their ranks as DNVP top candidate if they waived further independent political action in the provincial state elections. The offer was accepted and Klasink was nominated. In the election the DNVP recovered and was only just beaten by the DVP in the county of Bentheim with 4,153 votes; Klasink won the only DNVP mandate in the Osnabrück administrative region. The success was short-lived, however; As a result, many voters, especially those who were reformed, switched to the new Christian Social People's Service (CSVD). Klasink ran for the Reichstag election of 1930 in the - hopeless - 7th place on the DNVP constituency list Weser-Ems.

From 1931 Klasink, especially together with the Gildehauser Mayor Ernst Buermeyer (1883-1945) and the Nordhorn book printer and newspaper publisher Engelbert Pötters (1882-1961), campaigned for an improvement of the traffic connections and the development of the neglected border region through extensive cultivation of wasteland . However, while he defended himself against, among others, Heuer people demanded expropriation of that wasteland areas for free settlement for people without land ownership, but advocated a "settlement of the court", where massive use State aid and large-scale drainage projects by the rural landowners a gradual cultivation of the surfaces should take place.

From the 1930s onwards, the National Socialists , who were becoming more and more influential, caused further significant emigration among the German Nationals. In 1933, the DNVP, which was now called the “ Black-White-Red Combat Front” (KFSWR), again presented Klasink as its top candidate for the provincial state election. Although the party lost many votes to the National Socialists, it was able to win two seats in the administrative district, one of which Klasink took.

As an open opponent of the local National Socialists, after he refused to join the NSDAP , Klasink had to give up all public offices in 1933 and withdraw from public political and association life. After the end of the war he was able to take on public responsibility again at an early stage, with no political burden. In the post-war years, for example, he was a member of the board of directors of the rural district association of Grafschaft Bentheim and was involved in various committees that dealt with the regulation of the Vechte , the spelled and the rabbit , was active in the Left-Semsian sewer cooperative and on the board of the Evangelical Reformed Niedergrafschafter Hospital Association. Together with church circles, he sought help and integration measures for the refugees from the east.

Klasink spoke Dutch and had close contacts to the neighboring country, which he successfully used to counter territorial claims by the Netherlands in the post-war period.

Honors

Due to his influence and his imposing appearance with a full beard, Klasink became a well-known figure of the post-war period as "Tsar of Wilsum". A " Der Spiegel " report from November 1949 showed Klasink's portrait as the cover picture and placed him at the center of a report on the situation in the county of Bentheim between oil discoveries and Dutch territorial claims.

After the Second World War he was made an honorary member of the Grafschafter Landwirtschaftliche Kreisverein and the Emsland rural people.

In May 1953 Berend Klasink was the first Grafschafter to be awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

literature

  • Beatrix Herlemann , Helga Schatz: Biographical Lexicon of Lower Saxony Parliamentarians 1919–1945 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen. Volume 222). Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 2004, ISBN 3-7752-6022-6 , pp. 190–191.
  • Erich Gövert: Landscape, game and hunting in Wilsum in the course of time , in: Bentheimer Jahrbuch 1992, pp. 153-163.
  • Helmut Lensing: The National Socialist Harmonization of Agriculture in Emsland and the County of Bentheim , in: in: Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte, Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 4, 1994. pp. 43–123.
  • Helmut Lensing: Art. Klasink, Berend, in: Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte (Ed.): Emsländische Geschichte, Vol. 8, Haselünne 2000, pp. 211–215.
  • Grafschafter Nachrichten of September 12, 1953: A man of old grist and grain. Berend Klasink went home.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Spiegel No. 48 of November 24, 1949: Beat days only on the oil
  2. ^ Grafschafter Nachrichten of May 9, 1953: Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit - old farmer Bernd Klasink-Wilsum .
personal data
SURNAME Klasink, Berend
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klasinck, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Evangelical Reformed farmer and politician in the county of Bentheim
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilsum
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1953
Place of death Wilsum