Erwin Fuchs

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Erwin Fuchs (born May 22, 1914 in Böckingen ; † June 20, 2006 ) was a German local politician. He was a city councilor and mayor in Heilbronn . Responsible for the cultural and social area, he has u. a. for the construction of the Heilbronn City Theater and the Böckinger Bürgerhaus .

Life

He was the fifth of eight children of a railway employee, attended elementary school in Böckingen and from 1925 the Dammrealschule in Heilbronn, where he obtained secondary school leaving certificate in 1932. While still at school, he joined the SPD in 1930 . After they were banned, he joined forces with other former SAJ activists to form the so-called Guttempler Orden in Reisach , which during the NSDAP did not allow itself to be captured by the NSDAP and its supporters.

He completed a commercial apprenticeship at the NSU vehicle works in Neckarsulm by 1935 and continued to work there for a certain period of time after completing his training before doing military service in Kornwestheim and Freiburg im Breisgau from 1936 to 1938 . After his military service, he worked for a few months in the Berlin branch of the NSU works and in July 1939 switched to the Reibel forwarding company in Karlsruhe . Immediately after the beginning of the Second World War , he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and worked on locations on the Eastern Front until the end of the war. After a few days as a prisoner of war, he returned to his hometown Heilbronn in May 1945, which was in ruins after the devastating air raid on December 4, 1944 . The Böckingen district, where he was born, was also badly damaged by further air raids.

In the summer of 1945 he accepted a job in the city administration's construction department. He had two kitchens set up, which, with up to 1,800 meals served daily, formed the basis for the honorary service of the population in clearing up the debris. In 1946 he was elected to the local council, but decided against the mandate in favor of his professional position. From 1947 to 1951 he was the full-time works council chairman of the Heilbronn city administration. The ruling chamber classified him as unencumbered.

He was involved in setting up the local structures of the ÖTV trade union , where he was managing director of the ÖTV district administration from 1952 to 1964. From 1949 to 1950 he studied social sciences and law for three trimesters at the Academy of Labor in Frankfurt am Main . He was assessor at the Labor Court Heilbronn , the Sozialgericht Stuttgart and the Regional Labor Court Stuttgart . Later he was particularly committed to the educational work of the union and founded his own library in the Heilbronn union building.

He became chairman of the local SPD association in Heilbronn-Böckingen, and in 1954 he joined the Heilbronn municipal council, of which he was a member until 1964. From 1964 to 1979 he was mayor with the school and cultural office, city library, city archive, social welfare office, hospitals and local insurance authorities. Fuchs was of the opinion that the public utilities unconditionally serve the common good and have no profit to make. With this attitude he was often dubbed an ideologist by his political opponents. In 1968 he coined the term “cultural desert”, with which he criticized the not noticeable effect of the cultural policy of the state of Baden-Württemberg in Heilbronn. In 1975 he ran briefly for the office of First Mayor, but then withdrew his candidacy after internal party quarrels.

As mayor of culture, he set the course for the new building of the Heilbronn city archive in the Deutschhof and the organization of the city ​​museums in the Deutschhof . After quarrels about the city's art purchasing policy, Fuchs founded a purchasing commission, which also included library director Hans Ulrich Eberle , archive director Helmut Schmolz , museum director Werner Heim , cultural office director Kurt Herrlinger, a representative of the Heilbronner Künstlerbund and the artists Werner Baumann and Gerhard Binder . The commission existed until 1977 and moved the city's art policy away from the previously acquired “rubble pictures” towards the general “Unterländer Galerie”.

In the hospital sector, he drove the expansion of the Klinikum am Gesundbrunnen for years. In the social sphere, he strengthened relations with the Heilbronn twin cities of Béziers (1965) and Port Talbot (1966).

As one of the founders of the Heilbronner Volksbühne, which was founded in 1956, he was one of the key figures in the dispute over the decades in Heilbronn about the new theater building, whereby Fuchs implemented the later version of the demolition of the old city theater with a slightly offset new building (the Heilbronn Theater inaugurated in 1982 ) represented. As a sponsor of the theater, he has attended around 1,000 performances. Since the new theater building in Heilbronn was very controversial and also not supported by the mayor at the time, Hans Hoffmann , Fuchs' commitment to building the theater was only slightly rewarded during his lifetime. Among other things, he received the Volksbühne's Golden Badge of Honor for this. In 2007 there was an attempt to name the great hall of the theater after the late Fuchs, but this failed because of local political disputes.

He was particularly committed to the Böckingen district, where it is thanks to his initiative that the district with the Böckingen community center was given a cultural center and not just the multi-purpose hall desired by the clubs as in other districts. With the purchase of works of art by regional artists such as Dieter Läpple (pirate fountain at the community center) and Dieter E. Klumpp ( black courtiers sculpture ), he played a key role in promoting regional culture and in the artistic design of the center of Böckingen. In Böckingen he also became a chronicler of local history by making around 100 regional historical contributions a. a. for the local gazette as well as for the home book Böckingen am See , whereby he dedicated himself in particular to the time of the incorporation of Böckingen into Heilbronn, the Nazi era, the Böckingen art and culture as well as legends and customs.

Even after his professional retirement in 1979, Fuchs continued to be involved in the SPD and in numerous committees and associations. He was a member of numerous Böckingen clubs, the Free Gymnastics Federation Böckingen congratulated him on his 75th anniversary as a member.

In 2004, at the age of 90, his leg had to be amputated. He spent his last months in a nursing home in Böckingen.

In a posthumous tribute to the “upright Heilbronner”, almost 50 regional and national notables share their memories of Erwin Fuchs. Erhard Eppler calls Fuchs a “ray of hope”, Jürgen Frahm calls him a “fighter for the theater”, the CDU politician Paula Fuchs praises his integrity despite political differences, Dieter Spöri praises “humanity, charisma, serenity” and Klaus Zwickel characterizes Fuchs' Style with “intellect instead of intrigue”.

family

In 1947 he married Emilie "Emmy" Bleymeyer. The daughter Annette, born in 1954, died in a car accident in 1990 together with her partner and their eight-month-old son. Erwin Fuchs and his wife then decided to set up a foundation for seriously ill children. Shortly after Fuchs' death in 2006, his widow Emmy founded the Dr. Annette Fuchs Foundation .

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personal data
SURNAME Fuchs, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German local politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Boeckingen
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 2006