History of the city of Leer
The history of the city of Leer goes back over 1200 years. The city was originally on the Leda , but has expanded over time to the eastern bank of the Ems .
The city of Leer has played a decisive role in shaping the history of eastern Friesland over the centuries . In 1435, for example, the people of Hamburg built the fortress Leerort on a strategically located promontory between Ems and Leda , which was expanded from 1453 by the East Frisian counts and lords to form the strongest fortress in East Frisia. A battle took place here during the Saxon feud , in the course of which Duke Heinrich von Braunschweig was killed.
Over the centuries Leer - like East Friesland - was subject to changing rulers.
Early history
People were already present in the mouth of the Leda in the Middle Stone Age , this is proven by archaeological finds. From 3200 BC The nomadic people became settled in BC. There are also finds in Leer for this time period. A settlement in this area is also in the period up to 750 BC. Believed to be suggested by barrows.
The people in this area also came into contact with the Roman world. The general Drusus drove in the year 12 BC. Christ went up the Ems with a fleet and found allies for his campaign in the Frisians , which at that time still mainly lived west of the river. It can be assumed that the people from the area of today's city of Leer established trade relationships in the first centuries after the birth of Christ until the Roman Empire. Archaeologists found the fragments of a bronze bucket in Leer.
By the 5th century at the latest, the Frisians also settled east of the Ems.
middle Ages
An exact date of foundation of Leer is not known. It is however certain that the village existed well before the year 800. Artificially created heights from this time indicate that the Geestrücken near the confluence of the Ems and Leda was inhabited as a cohesive settlement even before Christianization . The nucleus of the village was probably in the area around the later church hill at Westerende and the Kaakspütte.
The name of today's town probably goes back to the Germanic word "Hleri", which denotes a fenced pasture and indicates the livelihood of the Leer people as cattle breeders. Furthermore, the inhabitants lived from fishing. Despite the strategically and economically favorable location, Leer did not initially make it very important.
Christianization
Towards the end of the 8th century, the Frisian apostle Liudger came to Friesland on behalf of Charlemagne to convert the Frisians to Christianity. According to legend, Liudger performed his so-called “fish miracle” in Leer and founded the first chapel in the East Frisian area on the western edge of the Leer settlement in 791. Of the initially wooden church, rebuilt with stones in the 12th century and expanded in the 15th century, only the crypt remains today. The dilapidated structure above was demolished in 1785. Leer is mentioned in writing for the first time in a vita of the missionary Liudger , which was written around the year 850.
With the missionary work, the Leeraner became part of Charles' Franconian Empire . Before Leer was subordinate to the Counts of the Franconian Emsgau, it was above all the provost appointed by the diocese of Münster in Leer who exerted a great influence on the village and its surroundings and placed the self-government of Leer under his patronage.
Chief seat
But in the course of the Middle Ages the diocese and the Franconian counts who were appointed lost their power in Friesland and the time of Frisian freedom began. But this did not last long, in the late Middle Ages the East Frisian chiefs gained more and more power. Leer now belonged to the Frisian state community Moormerland, which was ruled among other areas in the early 15th century by the chief Focko Ukena .
Ukena moved its headquarters from its headquarters in Neermoor to Leer, built the Fockenburg there and from then on bore the title of Chief of Leer . In 1426, Ukena finally defeated the chief family of tom Brok in the Battle of Detern and took control of most of East Frisia. For a short time, Leer was the most important political center in the country.
However, the other chiefs did not want to resign themselves to swapping the shaken yoke of tom Brok for that of Fokko Ukena. In 1430 a League of Freedom besieged Ukena in his castle in Leer and drove him out. The castle was razed . His heir Hayo Unken later built the Harderwykenburg, which still exists today . However, he came to terms with the supremacy of the Cirksena family .
Ukena had made common cause with pirates and so the Hanseatic League - especially the Hamburgers - used the opportunity after Ukena's expulsion and seized the most important East Frisian traffic routes. Not far from the village of Leer, the people of Hamburg built the fortress Leerort in 1435 at the confluence of the Ems and Leda rivers from the stones of the destroyed Focko Ukenas castle .
The chief Ulrich Cirksena , who was allied with the Hamburgers, received this fortress in 1453. It was also the same Ulrich who was enfeoffed by the emperor with the county of East Friesland in 1464 , to which Leer now also belonged. Leerort was developed into the most important fortress in the county and also became the administrative seat of the Leerort district . The empty spot was part of this office. The Leeraner had to do their duty in the fortress. Leerort was often the scene of armed conflicts, for example during the Saxon feud from 1514 to 1517. The nearby Leer was unprotected and was therefore looted several times.
Economic boom
In 1508, Edzard the Great granted the town of Leer, which from then on was to compete with the market in nearby Groningen , market rights. The Gallimarkt (named after St. Gallus Day on October 16) is still held every October. According to the chronicler Ubbo Emmius , Leer experienced a huge boom from then on.
The trade in agricultural products developed well. In the 16th century the Leeraner craftsmen were organized in guilds . The most important guild was that of linen weavers . The purchase of flax had been tied to Leer by Count Edzard and the farmers in the area around Leer produced this raw material for linen in abundance and cheaply.
Numerous Protestant religious refugees from the Netherlands settled in Leer and brought their knowledge of linen weaving with them to the city. In addition to the weavers, however, it was above all financially strong traders who also knew their way around the Dutch market. The linen from Leer was subsequently exported to large parts of Europe. By the year 1600, Leer already had between 3000 and 3500 inhabitants.
The construction of numerous buildings, such as today's Haneburg, bear witness to this heyday . In 1643 the "House of Samson" was built in the style of the Dutch early baroque . The coat of arms of the Vissering family will later be incorporated into the facade . Today the house is the seat of the nationally known Wolff wine shop.
The Reformation and the Development of the Church
The Reformation was introduced in East Friesland by Count Edzard the Great. Already between 1520 and 1530 the Protestant denomination almost completely displaced the Catholic denomination from Leer. The Calvinism inclined towards and Lutheran Christians lived harmoniously side by side and even used together the old Liudgeri Church near the Plytenbergs . However, there was not yet a clear definition of the new denominations.
Armed conflicts because of the faith did not take place in Leer. The village was looted twice by the troops of the Catholic Duke Karl von Geldern in the course of the Geldrian feud in 1533 . However, this war was more of a power-political character than a religious war.
In Leer, however - similar to Emden - the Reformed Confession finally prevailed against the Lutherans. Although this was not in the interests of the mostly Lutheran sovereigns, the Reformed in the area of Leer were not prevented from practicing their faith. The Council of the Reformed Congregation took over the rights of the former provost and had thus become something of a city council. The church performed much of the local administrative duties.
The Reformed church became very wealthy. This was not least due to income from the horizontal, which the community had. These were not disputed by the sovereigns. Countess Anna even explicitly confirmed it to the community in 1542. As the spot continued to develop towards the banks of the Leda, the community moved the scales to the water around 1570 and thus laid the foundation for the development of Leer into a port city.
The Reformed community was able to set up its own elementary school with its income from 1525 and also maintained the poor house. Under Count Johann , a Latin school was also founded in Leer in 1584, which Ubbo Emmius headed as rector from 1588 to 1594 . Thanks to the abolition of the primogeniture by his mother, the reformed Count Johann II was an equal ruler alongside his Lutheran brother Edzard , with whom he was constantly at odds. However, this mutual weakening of the two counts was also a reason why neither the Lutheran nor the Reformed creed could be enforced by the sovereign regiment in East Frisia.
At the end of the 16th century, the market town of Leer had surpassed East Frisian cities like Aurich , Norden and Esens in importance and size. The town charter was withheld from Leer. The Lutheran Count Enno III. Apparently was afraid of creating a "second Emden" with the granting of city rights.
The also predominantly Reformed port city of Emden had driven Enno's predecessor Edzard II from its walls and established itself as an almost autonomous city-state through the Emden Revolution . The sovereign could exert more influence on Leer if the place remained a market town, even if Leer with city rights could possibly have been built up to compete with Emden. The protective power of Emden was the Dutch States General , which from 1611 maintained a garrison not only in Emden but also in Leerort.
The Reformed Count Johann II had issued administrative regulations for Leer in 1585, which provided for four bulk masters elected by the Reformed community at the head of the administration. The Lutheran Count Ulrich II changed this order in 1637 to the extent that the Reformed Schüttmeister were now appointed by the sovereigns. Two years later he also enforced that two of the pouring masters of the Lutheran creed had to be.
This was due to the fact that meanwhile numerous Lutherans had moved to Leer again. Even if the Reformed remained predominant in Leer, the rights of the Lutherans were secured by the sovereigns. In 1675, the Lutheran church was built with the help of Princess Christine Charlotte . The foundation stone was laid on June 2nd. However, the Reformed continued to guard their privileges and tried for decades to deny the Lutheran congregation the right to its own church bell.
From the Thirty Years War to the end of the Cirksena
The East Frisian counts were powerless against the bloody hustle and bustle of the Thirty Years' War . So Enno III. Watch helplessly as the Dutch billeted their allied general Peter Ernst II von Mansfeld in East Friesland. The dreaded mercenary leader plundered all over the country and laid Leer in ruins in 1622 and 1623.
In September 1637 the Hessian Landgrave Wilhelm V , who had previously occupied Leer with his troops, was granted a six-month stay by the East Frisian estates. Landgrave Wilhelm died a week later in Leer, but his troops stayed for 13 years.
Count Ulrich II of East Frisia enfeoffed Colonel Erhard von Ehrentreuter with the newly created glory Loga in front of the gates of Leers in 1642 . The count owed the colonel which he could not repay. The colonel had a castle built there, which he named after his wife Eva von Ungnad Evenburg .
Even after the Thirty Years War, Leer had to endure occupations. The disputes between the East Frisian sovereigns from the House of Cirksena, who were now prince, and the East Frisian estates initially led to Münster troops allied with the prince taking up quarters in Leer from 1676 to 1678. From 1687 onwards, the emperor's troops, the "Salve Garde", were supposed to maintain peace in East Frisia. The imperial family were also quartered in the empty area. For the first time Catholic clergy came to town with them.
The imperial “Salve Garde” remained in Leer until the Cirksena died out in 1744, but could not prevent the roll call war between Prince Georg Albrecht and the unruly estates. In 1726 there were several heavy fights between princely and Emden troops in Leer.
But already in 1744 the last prince from the house of Cirksena died and the area of Leer and East Frisia became part of Prussia . The takeover of power by Frederick the Great led both to the withdrawal of the imperial “Salve Garde” and to the evacuation of Leerort fortress by the Dutch.
Empty in Prussia and France
Prussia's rule initially brought stability to East Frisia and Leer. The battles between the sovereigns and the estates were over, the administration, jurisdiction and promotion of the economy were modernized, the rights of the nobility in the glories like Loga curtailed. Furthermore, Frederick the Great hardly intervened in the traditional rights that prevailed in the country. The estates and the Prussian administration ruled stably and efficiently.
Religious tolerance
The new sovereign was enlightened and religiously quite tolerant of free churches like the Mennonites , which also existed in Leer. The Jews were tolerated, even if the Prussian legislation was less liberal in this regard than that of the last Cirksena lords. However, equality between these religious communities was a long time coming.
Frederick's rule also led to the disputes between Reformed and Lutherans in the city being reduced. From 1763, the Lutheran congregation was allowed to build its own church tower and ring the bells, which it had previously been denied. There were now as many Lutheran as Reformed Christians in Leer, and later even more. The Catholics also received their own church again in 1775.
The old reformed church was demolished in 1785. In the same year, on September 16, the foundation stone was laid for the successor building, in which the Lutherans also contributed with numerous donations. The official inauguration of the so-called Great Church , which had a taller tower than the Luther Church , took place exactly two years later on September 16, 1787. Preacher Johannes Eilshemius gave the festive sermon.
Economic boom
For Leer the Prussian period was an era of economic change. The spot was shaped by handicrafts, agriculture was mainly in the surrounding area. King Friedrich saw in Leer, however, an uncut diamond in terms of trade. The trade by sea was mainly hindered by the staple rights of the city of Emden, which it jealously guarded. The Emder had tried for a long time to hinder market activity in Leer.
With the help of the king, Leeraner ships (and also ships from other East Frisian places) were allowed to sail past Emden with special permits in 1749. As a result of the slow silting up of the Emden harbor, the Leeran sea trade outstripped the Emdens by the end of the century. However, the complete abolition of the stacking right did not occur until the time of the Dutch-French rule in 1808. In 1806 the Bünting company was founded, which continues to this day as a tea trading house and large trading company.
Frederick the Great was also a friend of linen weaving. This trade, once so successful in Leer, was in decline and the weavers' guild became the poorest in town. The linen from Leer was still considered to be of extremely high quality, but it was too expensive because of “sleepy” or even rejected modernizations. Many weavers had to learn another craft. In the 18th century, industrialization began slowly in Leer. Various factories and manufactories set up shop, such as the soap factory, the leather factory, the glue factory, schnapps distilleries and others.
French occupation
During the Napoleonic Wars , trade in Leer came to a standstill. The continental blockade and the English blockade only allowed smuggling activities, which, however, could not compensate for the loss of trade. In 1806 troops of the French vassal kingdom of Holland moved into Leer. In 1807 Prussia had to cede its western territories, and Leer and East Frisia officially became Dutch. When the Kingdom of Holland was annexed directly to France in 1810, Leer also became French until it was reconquered in 1813 by the Prussian troops of Count Carl von Wedel.
In 1808 the old Schüttmeister order in Leer was abolished and replaced by a French Mairie order. The Mairie also included Heisfelde , Leerort and Hohegaste . This meant that Leer still officially had no city rights, but was now on a par with Emden due to the new administrative regulations in the state. This administration certainly represented an improvement and modernization, even if the mayor and his adjutants were no longer elected, but appointed. Cramer von Baumgarten was appointed mayor by the French administration in 1812 and was thus in principle the first mayor of Leer.
Hanover and city rights
After another two-year rule by Prussia, East Friesland was added to the Kingdom of Hanover, to the disappointment of its residents, who had not forgotten the upswing under Frederick the Great . The old Mairie constitution from the French era was retained as a transitional arrangement until 1823. During this time, the Alsatian Abraham Ehrlenholtz was head of the market town. He had already worked in the administration of Leer during the French rule under Maire von Baumgarten. Ehrlenholtz now carried the officially Germanized title of "Mayor".
Only when at least some of the citizens voted in principle in 1821 for the preservation of city rights was a constitution drafted according to which the main administrative officials were to be appointed by the state, while the city councilors elected by the citizens only had advisory functions. The city's competencies were also not expanded, and Libra and schools should initially remain in the hands of the church. The only advantage was the rise to the rank of cities in the East Frisian assembly of estates. However, the East Frisian landscape in the Kingdom of Hanover had to give up almost all of its political power.
However, the state finally agreed to pay the full-time administrative officials it had appointed - mayors, two senators and two other officials. And so, on August 1, 1823, the city constitution awarded by King George IV came into force. Abraham Ehrlenholtz, who had previously held this office, was appointed mayor of the young city. The citizens of Leer did not allow themselves to be carried away to great enthusiasm for the new city rights for the reasons described. It was only decades later that it became apparent that the move to full-time administration was an important prerequisite for further development.
It was not until August 6, 1861, that King George V gave the city a coat of arms. It is described in the document as follows: "... in the red field a silver fort, over which a golden lion walks, further on a red shield leaning against the gate of the fort the white horse of our royal coat of arms ..."
The young city was only able to expand its jurisdiction slowly at the expense of the churches. The school system remained denominational for a long time, although the city took over the reformed Latin school in 1834 and turned it into a higher middle school. And it was not until 1865 that the city was able to abolish the reformed community's monopoly on scales under pressure from merchants.
The Leeran economy, which had been depressed since the French era, recovered quickly because it was very diverse. The markets flourished. Commerce, brewing and other industries flourished. The port was successfully expanded. The Emden stacking right was no longer valid and Emden's port, in contrast to Leer, experienced its low point. In 1856, Leer received its first railway connection with a station on the Hanover West Railway from Emden to Rheine. Printing companies also established themselves. The first daily newspaper, the Empty Gazette, appeared on April 15, 1848 in the Zopfs printing house.
The latter came about through the concessions of the Hanoverian government in the course of the revolution in 1848. The Leeraner - many citizens and the magistrate - were the first East Frisians to make numerous demands in the spirit of the revolution to the king on March 10, 1848. After the failed revolution, the city administration quickly became very loyal to the king under Julius Wilhelm Engelbrecht Pustau, who had been in office since 1857. Liberal approaches were suffocated at the latest when one looked at Emden, which was punished for its persistent liberal stance with an economic decline. The citizens of Leer initially preferred economic security to liberal ideas.
Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, the re-annexation to Prussia in 1866 was also very much welcomed in Leer. On June 22nd, a Prussian gunboat entered the port of Leer and after the capitulation of the King of Hanover, the people of Leer celebrated the annexation for days. However, Leer had to take a lot of criticism for the rapid change from the Hanoverian to the Prussian line, the Leeraner merchants were decried as turning necks, especially from the Hanoverian administrative town of Aurich. However, it did not take long before Aurich also raised the Prussian flag.
Prussia, the Empire and the First World War
With the return to Prussia, the Liberals regained influence in Leer. All Reichstag elections in Leer were initially won by the national liberal, and after their more conservative reorientation in 1879 by the left-wing liberal parties. Leer was also the first city in East Frisia in which social democrats organized and were able to achieve remarkable results after the turn of the century. Christian Social and extreme right-wing parties remained insignificant, as did the groups that were still Hanoverian-minded.
Jews and members of the free churches such as the Mennonites enjoyed equal civil rights under Prussian rule. The Jewish community first built a synagogue in Leer from 1883 to 1885 .
In the school system, the decoupling from the denominations that had begun in Hanover slowly continued. The former Latin school became a grammar school in 1874, the forerunner of today's Ubbo Emmius grammar school . After the state was responsible for this school, in 1877 the city was able to take over the girls’s school, founded in 1849 by Teletta Groß, as a secondary school for girls. It still exists today as the Teletta-Groß-Gymnasium . Further Prussian legislation slowly withdrew the church's influence from the other schools, but the elementary schools remained denominational for a long time.
The Catholic community had founded the Borromäushospital in the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1872 the Protestant parishes also founded a hospital association, which became the nucleus of today's district hospital.
In 1887, planning began for the construction of the town hall. The construction was made possible by the estate of a citizen of Leer amounting to around 160,000 gold marks. In a competition, the design by Aachen professor Henrici prevailed and was then implemented. After five years of construction, the town hall was inaugurated on October 29, 1894.
The further industrialization did not bring about as strong a change for Leer as it was the case elsewhere in the empire. As before, many residents made their living from crafts or trade. But the working class also grew steadily in Leer. During this time, companies such as the spirits factory Folts and Speulda and the Neemann bag-gluing company, later affectionately known as "Pütje Neemann", were founded.
Leer also took off from the ongoing expansion of the entire infrastructure. From 1900 to 1903 the port of Leer was rebuilt free of tides. The Leda loop was cut off from the river and connected to the Leda by a sea lock. At the same time, this and new dikes have improved protection against storm surges. At the time, the lock was the only electrically operated lock in Prussia and only had to be repaired in the 1970s. In 1896 a private waterworks was built, in 1898 the city received a telephone exchange, 1901–1903 the sewer system and in 1903 an electricity company.
During the time of Kaiser Wilhelm II , Leer was doing even better economically than in the Kingdom of Hanover. This time in Leer is mainly associated with the name of the mayor August Dieckmann, who headed the city from 1887 to 1913. Even if he was politically dependent primarily on conservative and liberal forces, he also tried to represent other layers of the urban population, as his involvement in the metal workers' strike in 1906 showed.
The outbreak of the First World War , which Dieckmann no longer had to experience, initially triggered the same enthusiasm for war in Leer as in the rest of the Reich. However, the war brought great economic damage, food shortages and population decline to the city, so the November Revolution was widely welcomed.
In the Weimar Republic
The revolution in Leer was mainly supported by soldiers and workers who were encouraged to do so by marines from Wilhelmshaven . The city administration under Mayor Emil Helms submitted to the workers 'and soldiers' council . There was neither class struggle nor great turmoil, order in the city was guaranteed. For Leeraner, the revolution in Leer and in the Reich led to the fact that in 1919, for the first time, a free and equal election for the city parliament could be held regardless of property and gender .
This was the first time that social democrats and communists were able to move into the city parliament, which in the following period usually received around a third of the votes. However, only the SPD was able to establish itself as the workers' representative in the long term. After the war, social conditions in the city changed only slowly, and the upswing of the 1920s developed late.
In 1920 Erich vom Bruch became the new mayor of the city. Von Bruch knew how to make politics beyond party lines. The mayor was strongly committed to the development of the Nesse peninsula. Extensive construction work was carried out in the city from 1925 to 1928. A new cattle market was built on the Nesse for what was at times the largest cattle market in Europe.
Von Bruch also endeavored in his office to find a balance between the workers and the factory owners. However, the global economic crisis in 1929 hit Leer severely and reduced the city's financial scope. The massive unemployment and low wages created a charged mood. Von Bruch tried to stay away from any party political clash and to keep the committees and administration capable of acting, but could not solve the pending economic problems.
The support in the population of Leer for the democratically minded politicians waned with the increasing general resignation. However, the NSDAP could not get a seat on the city council until 1933. They only succeeded in doing this after their breakthrough in the Reichstag election in 1933 . On April 13, 1932, an SA home of the NSDAP in the Wörde was closed by the police and numerous objects were confiscated. The NSDAP office in Brunnenstrasse had previously been searched and other items had been confiscated.
With massive propaganda measures and parades they secured their influence and also tried to terrorize the opponents of the SPD with their SA brown shirts. Mayor Erich vom Bruch was able to prevent the SA from blowing up the last election rally of the SPD on February 16, 1933 with the police who were still subordinate to him.
Period of National Socialism and World War II
Seizure of power
Immediately after the victory of the NSDAP in the Reichstag elections in 1933 and before the local elections, SA associations marched to the town hall in Leer on March 8 and hoisted swastika flags, which mayor von Bruch, however, had the mayor of Bruch brought in again. In the local elections on March 12, the National Socialists won half of the 24 seats in the Leer city council. The NSDAP also had partisans in the National Unit List.
The SPD won eight seats, but could do little and was also weakened by the Reich legislation. The only communist elected representative could no longer take his seat due to an imperial law against the communists. After the opposition had been forced out of the bodies, the SPD from Leer was only able to operate underground.
Now the NSDAP set out in Leer to get rid of the unpleasant city administration around Mayor Erich vom Bruch. The magistrate, who could hardly defend himself, was accused of corruption. The SA took vom Bruch and others in " protective custody " because of the "risk of cover-up ". Under this pressure, Mayor Erich vom Bruch committed suicide on May 7, 1933. However, the innocence of the Leer city administration was subsequently established in 1934 in a (much to the displeasure of the NSDAP) legally correct court hearing in Aurich.
With the party ban, since June 1933 only NSDAP members sat in the municipal bodies. The NSDAP district leader Erich Drescher was elected as the new mayor in August after the qualification hurdles for this office were lowered in his favor. The leader principle was introduced in 1935.
persecution
With the takeover of power in the town hall, the National Socialist terror began in Leer. Unions, workers' association, YMCA and Freemasons were among the victims of the Nazis. Communists, whether they really were such or had only been declared such, were sent to concentration camps. But the 300 or so Jews in Leer had to suffer in particular since 1933.
As early as March 1933, the Jews forced the slaughter knife to be handed over . The knives were then burned in public. On April 1st there were already calls for a boycott. In the period that followed, the Jewish cattle traders, who had been influential until then, were particularly hard hit and were no longer allowed to pursue their trade. There is no known resistance to these measures on the part of the population of Leer or non-Jewish traders.
On the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938, the rioting against the Jews, ordered by the Reich leadership of the National Socialists, took place in Leer, which were later referred to as "Reichskristallnacht" or November Pogroms 1938 . The SA gathered in the school yard of the lyceum on Gaswerkstrasse. There the men were then divided into various groups to set fire to the synagogue and to “catch up” with the Jews. The synagogue on Heisfelder Strasse was set on fire with the help of gasoline. The fire brigade present in Leer limited their activities, as instructed, to protecting neighboring houses. Almost without exception, the Jews were rounded up in the city cattle yard on the Nesse site. In the course of the next morning, the women, children and men who were unable to work were released, the rest were taken to camps and were not released until December 1938 or early 1939.
In the course of 1938 the Jewish property in Leer was “ Aryanized ”. In 1939 the city's Jews were forced to live in so-called “ Jewish houses ”. Many Jews had emigrated since 1933, and this intensified after the November pogroms. But from December 1939 the Jews could no longer leave Germany. The 106 Jews remaining in the Leer area were forced to leave East Frisia by April 1, 1940. From their new homes they were gradually deported to the extermination camps . Almost 90 percent of the Jewish Leeraner were murdered in the Holocaust. Only about 20 to 30 people survived.
Most of the citizens of Leer ignored the measures taken against Jews and dissidents. The churches did not do well either. The small Catholic community, however, held its ground almost unanimously against the influence of the National Socialists, and the Lutherans were also largely able to keep the German Christian movement away from them. For this, the German Christians found great popularity in the Reformed community.
The city of Leer was initially doing better economically, with numerous buildings being renovated or rebuilt. The city leaders around Mayor Drescher were hardly involved, however, with the weakening of the cattle market they had actually achieved the opposite.
Second World War
The city of Leer survived the Second World War without major damage. While Emden was in ruins after heavy bomber raids, Leer was only damaged in April 1945 during the already nonsensical city defense. After the bridges over Ems and Leda were blown up on April 24th, more than 200 residential buildings and some company buildings fell victim to the following attacks. Whereas the previous six years of the war had claimed around 300 deaths due to the individual attacks, around 400 Leeraner fell in the last days of the war as a result of the senseless defensive battle. Canadian troops captured the city on April 28th and 29th. The city was sacked by Allied soldiers and local residents for three days.
Empty since 1945
Gradually the Allied occupation forces established a new order. Georg Albrecht Graf von Wedel was appointed the city's first post-war mayor on May 1st, but removed from office on January 4th of the following year and replaced ten days later by Johann Epkes.
On March 4th, Mayor Johann Epkes left his office and became city director. At the same time Hermann Uebel became the new mayor. This set the course for the administration for the next 50 years: the elected mayor only had a representative office, while an official - the city director - became head of administration.
The relevant interest groups came together before the British had officially approved political parties. In March 1946 a local SPD association was founded, followed by the CDU, FDP and KPD. The first free municipal elections took place on September 15, 1946 and ended with a clear victory for the SPD. On September 29th, Louis Thelemann replaced the previous mayor Hermann Uebel.
Epkes died in 1948 and Hermann Bakker succeeded the deceased as city director. On November 28th there was another council election, which this time the CDU could decide for itself. Ernst Stendel became mayor, Thelemann his deputy.
The city decided early on to adopt a new coat of arms instead of the overloaded city arms from the Hanover era. In 1950, the Lower Saxony Minister of the Interior granted the city of Leer the right to officially use the new coat of arms. It is based on a seal from 1639. On October 1, 1955, Leer was granted the status of an independent town. This gave her back some of the tasks that had fallen to the Leer district after the establishment of the state of Lower Saxony .
Leer had many tasks to shoulder after the war. The largest was the integration of the numerous expellees from the former eastern regions of Germany, because the new citizens had to be accommodated, cared for and integrated. Between 1945 and 1950 the population of Leer rose from 14,200 to 20,700 people. With Horst Milde , a native of Silesia , the displaced persons even provided the mayor from 1968 to 1973.
Leer increased its urban area through incorporations. In 1968 Heisfelde and Loga became districts of Leer , Leerort followed in 1971, Bingum , Hohegaste , Logabirum , Nettelburg and Nüttermoor finally in 1972. The city of Leer had well over 30,000 inhabitants.
From 1948 to 1968, the CDU provided the mayor of the city with the support of smaller parties. After that, the SPD began to dominate the city council and the office of mayor. The social democrat Günther Boekhoff held the office the longest . He was mayor from 1973 to 2001. Boekhoff held his last term of office from 1997 to 2001 as the first directly elected full-time mayor of the city, now also head of administration. The office of city director was abolished again. After Boekhoff, the SPD retained a majority in the council, but Beatrix Kuhl (CDU) has been mayor since November 2014.
See also
literature
- Enno Eimers: Small history of the city of Leer , Verlag Schuster, Leer 1993, ISBN 3-7963-0293-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ From «Hleri» to Leer. Retrieved August 27, 2013 . - Chronicle data on the history of Leer.