Gottfried Gurland

Gottfried Gurland (* 28. January 1918 in Ugahlen in Ventspils , Latvia , † 31 October 2002 in Wuppertal ) was a German politician of the SPD .

Life

Gottfried Gurland, son of the Protestant pastor Rudolf Gurland (1886–1947), who was persecuted under National Socialism, and grandson of the former rabbi and later missionary and Protestant pastor Rudolf Hermann Gurland (1836–1905), originally came from the Baltic States and initially lived in after the Second World War Bremen, where he joined Gustav Heinemann 's All-German People's Party , for which he ran unsuccessfully on the Bremen state list in the 1953 federal election. After the failure of the GVP, he joined the SPD like many of his party friends. He lived in the Bergisches Land since the mid-1950s . In 1964 he was elected to the city council of Wuppertal for the first time and in 1970 succeeded Johannes Rau as mayor . With a term of office of 14 years until he resigned in 1984, he was the longest-serving Lord Mayor in the city's history. Until his retirement he was the managing director of the church college .

Honors and death

In 1979 he received the Cross of Merit 1st Class , in 1980 he was awarded the Ring of Honor of the City of Wuppertal and in 1982 the Church University and the Bergische University honored him as an honorary citizen. He was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1983. On his 80th birthday (1998) he was awarded the honorary citizenship of his city. Since 1988 he has held the honorary title of former mayor .

Gurland died on October 31, 2002 at the age of 84 after a brief, serious illness. In his honor, on September 12, 2006, a section of Missionsstrasse , where he lived until 1980, was renamed Gottfried-Gurland-Strasse .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ O. von Harling "Rudolf Hermann Gurland a loyal witness from Israel" in: "Der Friedensbote - ecclesiastical people's paper for Protestant communities in the Augsburg Confession, Volume XI. No. 3 of December 22, 1905, pages 31–33