Ferdinand Emonds

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Ferdinand Emonds (born March 15, 1754 in Pfeddersheim , † November 19, 1813 in Oppenheim ) was town clerk (head of the chancellery) and mayor in Oppenheim and prefectural council in the Département du Mont-Tonnerre (Donnersberg).

Life

Shortly after the birth of Ferdinand Emond in Pfeddersheim, his father became a town clerk in Oppenheim and moved the family's residence to there. Ferdinand lost his father in 1759 when he was only 5 years old.

After attending school and studying law, he succeeded in acquiring the previous office of his father, city clerk (head of the office) in Oppenheim. In the politically difficult time of the occupation by the French revolutionary troops, he took a very dangerous and courageous critical position in his office towards the ruling political power by expressing his controversial opinion openly and clearly enough. Among other things, he did not see it as necessary to take part in a homage to General Bonaparte who was passing through for the city leaders of Oppenheim.

Nevertheless, he behaved loyally in an exemplary manner after the peace conditions at Lunéville had been established. The French administration gained confidence in Emonds' basic attitude and appointed him as prefectural councilor to the supreme body of the Département du Mont-Tonnerre (Donnersberg), one of the four departments on the left bank of the Rhine. From this period there is a letter from Empress Josephine to Prefect Jeanbon St. André in Mainz with words of praise from her husband Napoléon Bonaparte about Emonds.

The Lunéville Peace Treaty made the Rhine the border between France and the German states with the stroke of a bureaucratic pen. Places on the left bank of the Rhine such as Oppenheim and Nierstein lost their agricultural and wooded possessions on the right bank of the Rhine (Kornsand and Knoblochsaue) to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt overnight . In order to mitigate the economic losses for Oppenheim, Emonds had large poplars and oaks planted in the Rhine floodplains, which are still known today as "Oppenheimer or Emonds woods". The memory of the socially and economically wise decision is kept alive at Whitsun with the "Wäldcheskerb" and in the name of the Emondshalle, which is used for small events.

The drainage of the ditches and swamps in the Rhine lowlands below Oppenheim, initiated by Emonds, was intended to gain replacement areas for the agricultural areas on the right bank of the Rhine that had been lost for agriculture. In the medium term, however, the anopheles mosquito that lives there also lost its livelihood, which in turn made a decisive contribution to the containment of the malaria disease that was previously feared in Oppenheim in the summer .

It was Emond's lasting merit to have initiated the two promising measures; he could no longer experience the actual success himself.

Emonds died on November 19, 1813 with his wife and some children of the hospital plague, a dangerous disease that had been brought into the Oppenheim hospital by the soldiers of the Grande Armée who had fled across the Rhine in Leipzig and Hanau in 1813 . Like his superior in Mainz, Prefect Jeanbon St. André, Emonds had done a great job of organizing the care of the sick and wounded, and did not spare himself. St. André contracted the epidemic called Typhus de Mayence and passed away 21 days after Ferdinand Emonds as one of about 20,000 victims on December 10th.

literature

  • Ferdinand Emonds, Maire de Oppenheim . In: Dr. Hans Licht (ed.): Oppenheim, history of an old imperial city (on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the city elevation) . Oppenheim 1975 (Dr. Martin Held Foundation).
  • Wilhelm Franck: History of the former imperial city Oppenheim am Rhein , publishing house of the historical association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Darmstadt 1859 online excerpt from Google Books

Web links

  • Ernst Jungkenn: A remarkable letter from Bishop Colmar of Mainz to Maire Ferdinand Emonds in Oppenheim am Rhein. Reprint from: Yearbook for the Diocese of Mainz, 1953, Verlag des Bischöflichen Stuhles, Mainz 1954. Weblink
  • Peter Zschunke: Denomination and everyday life in Oppenheim Mentioned therein: FP Wundt: An attempt at a statistical topography of the Electoral Palatinate Oberamt Oppenheim. I. Enclosure: News of the drying up of the ditches and swamps near Oppenheim. From the town clerk Ferdinand Emonds. P. 142

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e see lit. Hans Licht: History of an old imperial city
  2. ^ Peter Zschunke: Denomination and everyday life in Oppenheim
  3. ↑ see Wikipedia article Friedrich Koch (pharmacist)
  4. ↑ see Wikipedia article on Jeanbon St. André
personal data
SURNAME Emonds, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION City clerk (head of the chancellery), mayor and prefectural council under French administration
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1754
PLACE OF BIRTH Pfeddersheim
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1813
Place of death Oppenheim