Charles Anthony Werner

Charles Anthony Werner (born March 18, 1838 in New Orleans , † October 18, 1891 in Hamburg ) was a German politician and administrator of Ritzebüttel .

Life

Memorial stone in the Wernerwald

Charles Anthony Werner was the son of German parents who lived in America and moved to Hamburg when he was six. After attending the Johanneum School of Academics , Werner studied law at the University of Heidelberg , where he received his doctorate. He then worked briefly as a lawyer in Hamburg and took over the post of official and court actuary for the Bergedorf office around 1864. After the first administrator, Samuel Samuelson, died, the Hamburg Senate entrusted Werner with the task of administering the Ritzebüttel office. The inauguration took place on March 15, 1868. He only had to take instructions from Gustav Heinrich Kirchenpauer and Charles Ami de Chapeaurouge , who, as members of the Senate, were landlords of Ritzebüttel.

During his 23-year service, Werner accompanied many important changes, including the newly introduced Hamburg municipal code in 1871 and the merger of Ritzebüttel and Cuxhaven into the rural community of Cuxhaven one year later . From 1872, Cuxhaven expanded the port facilities and from 1879 to 1881 received a rail connection to Harburg . He was particularly committed to the school system, which he wanted to modernize.

After the area of ​​the nasty Sahlenburg had been divided up, Werner and the forester Carl Hermann Philipp Leopoldt from Hamburg worked out plans to protect the hinterland from the strong winds coming from the sea. This is how the largest forest district in Hamburg, around 314 hectares, was created in the form of a pine forest. The heather and sand area is known today as Wernerwald .

At the beginning of 1891 Werner filed a criminal complaint against the SPD member Wilhelm Metzger , who had accused Werner of having said publicly that herring, potatoes and coffee were sufficient to feed working-class families. Since the Reichstag refused to pursue Werner's complaint for insulting officials, the incident had no consequences.

Charles Anthony Werner, who was married to Erminia Antonia († 1893), née Arnold, from Freiburg im Breisgau and had two children, died after a cancer operation in the Eppendorf General Hospital . His grave has been in the cemetery in Ritzebüttel since October 22, 1891, where his wife was also buried. On the grave there is a bronze relief portrait with the inscription “Dedicated by his fellow citizens”.

Since 1904 a street near the cemetery has been called "Wernerstraße". At the entrance to the Wernerwald there has been a memorial stone in honor of Werner since 1980.

literature

• Hans Walden: Werner, Charles Anthony . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 377-378 .