Emil von Rümelin

Emil von Rümelin, around 1895

Emil Rümelin , from 1893 by Rümelin , (born June 21, 1846 in Ulm ; † March 24, 1899 in Baden-Baden ) was the city ​​councilor of Stuttgart with the honorary title of mayor from 1893 to 1899 .

A financial officer from a good family

Emil Rümelin in 1846 in Ulm in a altwürttembergische , Protestant born family, the so-called respectability part of the country. His father was a Württemberg civil servant, his uncle Gustav von Rümelin was Minister of Culture of the Kingdom of Württemberg and Chancellor of the University of Tübingen . Emil Rümelin studied finance in Heidelberg and Tübingen . He later worked as a tax officer in Esslingen , Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance , Münster in Westphalia and Heilbronn . In 1889 he moved to the financial administration of Stuttgart.

Portrait of Emil von Rümelins on his grave

Social reformer with title of nobility

In addition to his work as a financial specialist, Rümelin also made a name for himself as a social reformer. In 1891, for example, he published a work that was highly regarded at the time with the title “Self-government in its significance for the social question”. On his initiative, a retirement and disability pension was introduced for municipal employees in Stuttgart. His work earned him respect not only from conservatives but also from social democrats .

The non-party Rümelin was supported by both the People's Party and the left-wing Social Democratic Party when the new election of the Stuttgart City School was due in 1892. The previous incumbent Theophil Friedrich von Hack had given up his office for health reasons. Rümelin was elected on November 18, 1892 with a clear majority of over 57 percent (5,410 to 4,031 votes) and sworn in on January 9, 1893. On September 24, 1893, the King of Württemberg awarded him the honorary title of Lord Mayor . In the same year he was awarded the Order of the Württemberg Crown by King Wilhelm II of Württemberg . Associated with this was the personal nobility, since then it also had the suffix "von".

Emil von Rümelin's grave in the Prague cemetery in Stuttgart in Department 16

City school hot of Stuttgart

During his six-year term in office, Emil von Rümelin mainly devoted himself to expanding social security and the infrastructure of the rapidly growing city. While Stuttgart still had 100,000 residents in 1875, the number grew to 250,000 by 1905. So he founded the municipal employment office and the citizens' hospital. On his initiative, the school fees for the town's primary schools were also abolished, which benefited poorer families with many children in particular.

During von Rümelin's term of office, the urban development was also systematically expanded - this included above all the inner-city districts of Stuttgart-West , -South and -East . Between 1894 and 1896, the 125 meter long Schwab Tunnel was built as a connection between Stuttgart West and South , which at the time was the widest road tunnel in Europe at 10.5 meters. In addition, the electrification of the Stuttgart trams began , which until then had been pulled by horses. In addition, von Rümelin founded the city's statistical office and was a founding member of the Württemberg Association of Cities.

Emil von Rümelin fell ill with cancer, was unable to work and most recently lived in Baden-Baden to relax. There he died on March 24, 1899 at the age of only 52 years. On March 28, 1899, his urn was buried in the Prague cemetery in Stuttgart with great sympathy among the citizens . Since the office of Stuttgart City School was assigned for life at that time, Heinrich von Gauß could not be elected as his successor until May 19, 1899 .

Fonts

• The right of supervision of the German Reich and its organizational structure , Leipzig 1882.
• The budget in its public legal meaning . In: Journal for the entire political science, vol. 45, 1889, issue 1/2, pp. 299–327.
• Self-government and its significance for the social question , Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1891.
• The Marxian dialectic and its influence on the tactics of social democracy . In: Journal for the entire political science, vol. 50, 1894, issue 1, pp. 33–59.

literature

• Heinrich Rettich .:  Rümelin, Emil von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 53, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1907, pp. 595-597.
• Frank Raberg : Biographical Lexicon for Ulm and Neu-Ulm 1802-2009 . Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft im Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-8040-3 , p. 342 f .

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