Ernst Eichhoff

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Ernst Eichhoff (with signature)
(drawn by Emil Stumpp )

Ernst Eichhoff (born January 14, 1873 in Essen , † June 1, 1941 in Kaeselow ) was a German politician ( NLP , DVP ) and Lord Mayor of Dortmund .

Life

Ernst Eichhoff was a nephew of Bertha Krupp geb. Eichhoff (1831–1888), the wife of Alfred Krupp . His father Ernst Otto Eichhoff (1820–1881) had been director and authorized signatory for the Krupp company since 1871 . Ernst attended the Royal High School on Burgplatz in Essen , where he graduated from high school in 1891. He did his military service as a one-year volunteer in Munich with the Royal Bavarian Artillery and became a reserve officer in the Bavarian 1st Field Artillery Regiment "Prince Regent Luitpold" (1905 first lieutenant ). He studied at the universities of Munich , Kiel and Berlin Jura and put his first state examination in Kiel from. He completed his legal clerkship from 1895 in Velbert , Elberfeld and Kiel. He put his second state examination also starting in Kiel and received his doctorate there in 1898 to Dr. jur. In 1901 he became court assessor , in 1902 magistrate assessor and in 1904 an alderman in the city ​​council of Kiel.

At the beginning of 1907 he went to Dortmund and took over the office of (2nd) mayor on January 7th . After the death of Dortmund's mayor Wilhelm Schmieding in October 1910, he was elected as his successor. On November 18, 1910, he was introduced as the Lord Mayor of Dortmund. He held this office for almost 23 years and ruled the city of Dortmund during the First World War and during the Weimar Republic .

With the November Revolution , in which the majority social democracy asserted itself in Dortmund , the balance of power in the city ​​council elected for the first time in 1919 according to the principle of equality was reversed as a result of the abolition of the three-class suffrage . Nevertheless, the evangelical administrative lawyer who was perceived as prudent and moderate and who was close to the DVP remained in his office. Even in the new election of the mayor at the end of his 12-year term of office in March 1922, despite the dramatic change in the local political majority and government relations for the bourgeois camp, he narrowly prevailed against the candidate of the social democracy , Ernst Mehlich . Together with Mehlich he supported shortly after the first Dortmunder Colonial Exhibition in October 1922 in the Kronenburg , the event hall of the Crown Brewery , an initiative of the traditionally strong in Dortmund and resurgent after the war defeat in 1920's revisionist and anti-French thrust colonial movement whose aim Eichhoff supported with the exclamation: "Germany needs colonies". During the French occupation of Dortmund , Eichhoff was arrested on February 16, 1923 for refusing to submit to the occupying power and expelled from the city. He was only able to return to Dortmund in July 1924. Since that time he and the new leader of the Dortmund Social Democrats, the city councilor Fritz Henßler , formed a pragmatic and popular team that shaped city politics well into the 1930s. As mayor Eichoff led, among other things, the Department General city council and led the supervision of municipal enterprises such as the port or airport. Despite the catastrophic effects of the global economic crisis from 1929 on the mining industry and increasing radicalization of public life, the Dortmund National Socialists did not manage to become a dominant local political factor until 1932. After the Nazi seizure of power in Germany , Eichhoff was practically disempowered on March 24, 1933 with the appointment of Bruno Schüler , a National Socialist director of the Dortmund Union Brewery , as State Commissioner . On April 3, he held the speech on the “seizure of power” act in Dortmund's town hall , as the still incumbent mayor , with which the new city ​​council assembly, which was dominated by the Nazis as a result of reprisals and election manipulation , was opened. Eichhoff was retired on August 1, 1933 at his own request, but under pressure from the NSDAP . Ludwig Malzbender was appointed as his successor on July 22, 1933 , as State Commissioner Schüler was not available as a full-time mayor. After Malzbender's escape at the end of 1933, Schüler continued the official business on a temporary basis. At the same time, the Dortmund magistrate constitution, which had existed since 1834, was replaced by a municipal constitution reformed according to the “ Führer principle ”, in which the mayor, unlike in Eichhoff's tenure, acted as the sole head of municipal administration. In August 1934, the National Socialist lawyer Willi Banike took over the business of the Lord Mayor of Dortmund.

Eichhoff's long term in office was shaped by decisive political events such as the war, the occupation of the Ruhr, the Great Depression and the rise of National Socialism, as well as the rapid development of Dortmund into one of the most important German industrial cities . Incorporations let the population of the city increase from 214,000 to 544,000 during his tenure; In particular, the incorporation of the city of Hörde and several municipalities from the districts of Dortmund and Hörde led to the emergence of the modern metropolis of Dortmund in just two years in 1928/29. Numerous new traffic routes, quarters and infrastructures were created in Dortmund during his tenure, including the Westfalendamm , the Garden City , the main cemetery , the Volkspark , the Rote Erde arena and the Westfalenhalle . The construction and commissioning of Dortmund Airport , which opened in 1926, has been driven by Eichhoff since 1918.

As Lord Mayor, Eichhoff was a member of the Prussian mansion from April 4, 1911 to November 1918 . He was ex officio on numerous supervisory boards, including those of the Ruhrtalsperrenverein and the United Electricity Works Westphalia (VEW). From 1930 to 1933 he was chairman of the supervisory board of VEW. In addition, he was from 1911 to 1932 for the constituency of Dortmund city member of the Westphalia Provincial Parliament , from 1916 to 1919 as its deputy chairman. He was temporarily chairman of the Westphalian provincial committee, chairman of the Westphalian city council, board member of the German and Prussian city council and chairman of the Westphalian transport association .

Ernst Eichhoff moved to Lübeck in 1933 , where he lived on Roeckstrasse . He died during the Second World War on Gut Kaeselow in Mecklenburg , which belonged to his son-in-law.

Honors

The University of Münster awarded Eichhoff an honorary doctorate in political science on October 5, 1927 .

The Ernst-Eichhoff-Strasse, named after him in Dortmund, near the Südwestfriedhof , was renamed to Wittekindstrasse on October 21, 1937 while he was still alive and is still called that today.

Eichhoffstrasse in Dortmund-Löttringhausen was later named after him.

Web links

literature

  • Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads: who was what? Bacht, Essen 1985, ISBN 3-87034-037-1 .
  • Dirk Buchholz, Hans-Wilhelm Bohrisch: Mayor portraits . In: Heimat Dortmund (magazine of the historical association for Dortmund and the county of Mark), No. 1/2001 (special issue: History of the Council in Dortmund ), p. 38–45 (on Eichhoff: p. 43).

Individual evidence

  1. Uwe Kessler: On the history of management at Krupp. From the beginning of the company to the dissolution of Fried. Krupp AG (1811–1943) (= supplement to the journal for corporate history , volume 87). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-515-06486-9 , pp. 49, 81.
  2. Harold James , Karl-Heinz Siber (transl.): Krupp. German legend and global company. CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62414-8 , p. 76.
  3. ^ Military weekly paper , vol. 90, issue 38 (March 28, 1905), column 888.
  4. ^ André Biederbeck: When red milieu managers became black-red-gold founders of the republic. Dortmund as the center of the majority social democracy in revolutionary Westphalia. In: Frank Bischoff , Guido Hinze, Wilfried Reininghaus (eds.): Departure into democracy. The 1918/19 revolution in the Rhineland and Westphalia (publications by the Historical Commission for Westphalia , New Series, Volume 51). Aschendorff, Münster 2020, ISBN 978-3-402-15135-8 (contributions to the conference Aufbruch in die Demokratie - 100 Years of Revolution in the Rhineland and Westphalia on November 8 and 9, 2018 in the Düsseldorf state parliament ), pp. 473–506 .
  5. Dortmund and Colonialism 1919–1924. In: Detlev Brum (Ed.): Dortmund postkolonial. Colonial traces in Dortmund. Local history internet project no year (2011/2012).
  6. ^ Günther Högl: From the struggle for electoral rights to democracy. Political leadership, municipal constitution and elections in Dortmund from 1919 to 1946. In: Heimat Dortmund (magazine of the historical association for Dortmund and the county of Mark), No. 1/2001 (special issue: History of the Council in Dortmund ), pp. 26–32 .
  7. ^ Günther Högl: From the struggle for electoral rights to democracy. In: Heimat Dortmund No. 1/2001, p. 27.
  8. ^ Günther Högl: From the struggle for electoral rights to democracy. In: Heimat Dortmund No. 1/2001, p. 28.
  9. VEW AG (Ed.): More than energy. The company history of VEW 1925–2000. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 978-3-884-74890-9 , p. 391.
  10. Official telephone book for the Reichspostdirektionsgebiet Hamburg. 1933 edition, p. 526; Like. Edition 1937, p. 600 (each with the indication: Eichhoff, Ernst, Oberbürgermeister a. D. ).
  11. Printed mentions after Eichhoff's resignation from office (exemplary): German Reich address book for industry, trade and commerce . Using official sources, published by the Deutsches Reichsadressbuch-Gesellschaft m. b. H., Berlin. Volume III (Rhine Province, Oldenburg with Birkenfeld, Westphalia, Lippe, Hesse-Nassau). Berlin 1934, p. 5672. - Alfred Zschiesche (Hrsg.): Address book for German veterinarians, veterinary authorities, academic educational institutions, etc. Edited using official material (completed as of May 20, 1935). Publishing house bookstore Richard Schoetz, Berlin 1935, p. 91. - Steel and iron. Journal for the German iron and steel industry. Vol. 57, Issue 22 (June 3, 1937), p. 648 (“Verein-Nachrichten”).
  12. Marcus Weidner : Widukind <Wittekind>. In: ders .: The street naming practice in Westphalia and Lippe during National Socialism. Database of street names 1933–1945. Münster 2013 ff. Internet portal "Westphalian History" of the LWL, as of April 11, 2019.
  13. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/23537748