Eberhard Cronemeyer

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Eberhard Cronemeyer

Eberhard Cronemeyer (born July 24, 1842 at the Hovedissen manor , Principality of Lippe , † June 24, 1896 in Detmold ) was a German theologian. He founded Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf near Bremerhaven , a colony for the unemployed and homeless.

Life

Cronemeyer attended high school in Herford and Detmold . He then studied Protestant theology in Tübingen and Berlin . At the age of 25, he passed the exam and became rector of the high school in Oerlinghausen and early preacher in Lage (Lippe) and Detmold. In 1877, the father of three children was appointed as one of six applicants to the Great Church in Bremerhaven. There he founded several welfare facilities before 1883 in the German Empire , the Social Security was created.

Act

In 1879 Cronemeyer founded the women's association of the United Evangelical Congregation . In 1884 the "Association for the Promotion of the People's Welfare" was brought into being with his help. A soup kitchen and a Naturalverpflegestation (similar to today's panels ) in the Geestemünder Ankerstraße helped people who were dependent on social assistance. A workers' home was added on Schifferstrasse, and a day nursery in Deichstrasse , the station of the seaman's mission. With the support of the city, it was possible to create the first public facility in which bath tubs could also be taken.

“Work instead of alms” is the principle according to which Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the elder set up the Inner Mission institutions named after him near Bielefeld. The "Brothers from the Landstrasse", as Bodelschwingh called them, received help there. It was precisely this “vagabondness” that Cronemeyer felt close to in Bremerhaven. Non-sedentary, that is, journeyman craftsmen who had often become unemployed, often knocked at the pastor of the Great Church, who would have liked to give them a home and offer them work on which they could have subsisted. During a train ride on the route between Bremerhaven and Bremen, the idea came to him while looking out the window of the moor and heath near Düring : “A home and workers' colony could emerge here - inhabited by day laborers and settlers who cultivate and live fallow land Want to gain a livelihood from land yields. ".

Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf - a bog colony near Düring

Friedrich-Wilhelms-Dorf
Emperor Friedrich III. took over the protectorate for the home colony in Düring.
100 years of Friedrich-Wilhelms-Dorf

Around 1877 angry citizens founded the Northwest German Association against Moor Burning . Instead of fertilizing the nutrient-poor peat soils with ash, Cronemeyer wanted to use the sea mud from dredging work in the port. Such help for self-help could help many people, as the pastor presented in memoranda. Bodelschwingh arranged for Cronemeyer to have an audience with Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm , who agreed to help. The Minister of Agriculture Robert Lucius von Ballhausen made 3000 marks available. The same amount came from the Friedrich Wilhelm Victoria Foundation. Parishioners of the Great Church donated 2000 marks. Bremerhaven's city administration donated 1,000 marks. Bremen friends of the company raised 4,500 marks. The Bremen women's association granted 300 marks each for five years. After a long search, Cronemeyer found favorable terrain near Loxstedt train station . Düring's village director, Sasse, brokered the purchase of 30 acres of moorland on the embankment of the Bremen – Bremerhaven railway line . In addition, he won the right of first refusal for 500 acres, but only until January 1, 1888, for an average price of 35 marks per acre.

On September 22, 1886, the home colony "Friedrich-Wilhelms-Dorf" near Düring was inaugurated on 7.5 hectares of moorland.

On the opening day there was a barrack with space for 14 people. Two places were occupied by a deacon and a cook. The colonists received free accommodation and food as well as 50 pfennigs as wages. Sea silt was delivered by special trains to the border of the colony and then distributed on the colony floor. After a year, half of the area was cultivated. A profit of 700 marks remained. A second building, stables and a factory for peat litter could be built. Up to 34 men now had work and accommodation.

In 1892 a sponsoring association became active, no longer Eberhard Cronemeyer as a person. The association was later named "Association for Natural Resources and Settlement". In addition to Cronemeyer, the board of directors included the district administrator of the Geestemünde district, landowners and regional merchants. The products were sold at the weekly markets in the area. In difficult times, Cronemeyer took out a private loan.

In addition to day laborers, settlers also lived in Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf from 1890 onwards. Each settlement site consisted of 10,000 m 2 with a settlement house and cost 5,000 marks . The annual lease amounted to 250-300 marks. At the turn of the century, seven farms had been built, "namely the main house, which was also called Gut Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf, with a smithy and chapel and other buildings as well as six colonies". The first settlers were Wilhelm Bostelmann, Wilhelm Fischer, Hinrich Harling, Hermann Grotheer, Heinrich Mensing and Georg Zahnleuter. Later some private homes were added.

Around 100 of the just over 800 inhabitants of Düring live in the "colony" today. “So the colony is just part of it, like everything else,” explains Mayor Manfred Koppe. He thinks that what is special about life in the colony is “the vastness of the landscape, the nature that begins right next to the road and the size of the property, that is real quality of life”.

End of life

While Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf was doing well, Cronemeyer's health was weakening. Sick of heart and liver, he died at the age of 53 in Detmold - in his home country; but meanwhile the sponsoring association had 200 members. Every year 10,000 marks were collected from all over Germany. In 1898 a monument in honor of Eberhard Cronemeyer was unveiled in Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf.

Publications

Cronemeyer wrote sermons, a guide for religious instruction, writings on the home colony and the correctional colony Friedrich Wilhelmsdorf as well as 50 songs for communal and solitary prayer .

swell

Location of Friedrich-Wilhelmsdorf on the Geestemünde – Bremen railway line (1906)
  • 850 years of Düring, ed. from the working group 850 years of Düring, 1990, pp. 82–91
  • Stories of the churches, parishes, ecclesiastical foundations and clergy of the Lippe Land 1881/096, online version

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The old term "early preacher" refers to the distinction between early and evening services in the past. Today the early preachers are responsible for a total of twelve main divine services in the collegiate church. (from: Evangelical Church District Tübingen )
  2. a b Wilhelm Werner: Pastor Cronemeyer - the "Bodelschwingh" of the Great Church , in: Commemorative publication for the restoration of the Mayor Smidt Memorial Church in Bremerhaven (1960).
  3. a b Arne Krone, A big heart for the poor, Nordsee-Zeitung , July 16, 2009, p. 16
  4. a b Monument in Düring has not gone wild , Cuxhavener Kreisanzeiger of the Nordsee-Zeitung, 29 August 2009, p. 28
  5. 850 years of Düring, p. 83
  6. Eberhard Cronemeyer in the Lexicon of Westphalian authors see sources in the article