Hans Reschke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans Reschke (born March 22, 1904 in Posen ; † October 17, 1995 in Mannheim ) was a German lawyer and politician . From 1956 to 1972 he was Lord Mayor of Mannheim.

Life

Reschke, whose father was the district president Franz Hermann Reschke , passed the Abitur in 1922 after attending school in Syke , Bremen and Berlin . He then studied law and political science at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg . In Heidelberg in 1922, like his father, he became a member of the Corps Rhenania . After completing his studies and his doctorate (1927), he worked in various municipalities as a government trainee and government assessor.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , Reschke became a member of the NSDAP in the spring of 1933 and was also a member of the National Socialist Legal Guardians' Association (NSRB). He was also a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV).

From 1934 Reschke was district administrator in the Höxter district and from 1939 to 1945 in the Recklinghausen district . From 1937 to 1943 he was an honorary member of the SS security service and from 1940 was authorized to wear the uniform of an SS-Untersturmführer .

After the Second World War , he was interned for two years and in 1947 classified in group V "Unoccupied" in the court proceedings . Because of his membership in the SD, he was fined 2,000 RM , which was deemed to have been served by imprisonment.

After his release from prison, Reschke worked from 1947 as a "special representative at the Evangelical Relief Organization Westphalia for the settlement of refugee companies" in Espelkamp and from 1948 to 1951 as managing director of the American Institute for the Promotion of Public Affairs in Frankfurt am Main . The Lord Mayor of Mannheim, Hermann Heimerich , won him over in 1951 as managing director of the Rhein-Neckar municipal working group , an amalgamation of the cities of Mannheim, Ludwigshafen am Rhein , Frankenthal and Heidelberg and several districts. Three years later he was elected Managing Director of the Mannheim Chamber of Commerce and Industry .

In 1955, a non-partisan bloc, consisting of CDU , DP , FDP and BHE , put the non-party Hans Reschke up as a candidate for Mannheim's mayoral election. Reschke won the election against Werner Jacobi with 51.1 percent. Because of objections and lawsuits from Mannheim citizens, he was only able to take up office after more than a year and a judgment by the Federal Administrative Court on December 10, 1956. In the re-election in 1964, Reschke was able to prevail with an overwhelming 99.8 percent of the vote.

From 1961 to 1967 he was chairman of the Baden-Wuerttemberg city council, then until 1969 deputy president of the German city council. From 1966 to 1972 he was chairman of the commission for the reform of the state administration of Baden-Württemberg ( Reschke commission ) and 1970/71 a member of the expert commission for the reorganization of the federal territory at the Federal Minister of the Interior . In 1972 Reschke retired.

Reschke was a member of the main committee from 1949 to 1980 and of the board of directors of the German Association for Public and Private Welfare from 1962 to 1980, where he was chairman from 1964 to 1970. From 1966 to 1972 he was Senator of the Max Planck Society and in 1976 became Vice President of the Humboldt Society for Science, Art and Education . From 1977 to 1982 he was chairman of the Mannheim Antiquities Association .

Appreciation of political activity

university
National Theater

Reschke did not hide his NS membership in the Mayor election in 1955, but did not comment on his membership of the SD. The general public only became aware of this through an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau one day before the election. Five citizens therefore brought an action to challenge the election. Reschke was exonerated by several reports - including those from the US deputy chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trial, Robert Kempner . They emphasized that he was only active on a voluntary basis in the context of his position as district administrator and that he had left the SD at his own request in 1943. The election was therefore declared lawful before the Federal Administrative Court.

During his tenure he worked closely with the First Mayor Ludwig Ratzel . The new districts of Waldhof-Ost and Vogelstang were built. The Friesenheimer Insel was developed for industry and district heating in the city area was expanded. The city ​​hospital was expanded to become the faculty clinic of the University of Heidelberg and the business school was elevated to the University of Mannheim in 1967 . Art and culture were also promoted by Reschke. In 1957 he was able to open the new building of the National Theater . In 1963 he welcomed the first gallery for contemporary art by Margarete Lauter in Mannheim as patron and benevolently accompanied its further development.

Despite the quarrels about his first choice, Reschke quickly became popular with most Mannheim residents. When it became known in 1962 that the German Association of Cities in Cologne offered him the position of General Manager, thousands of Mannheim residents marched through the city in a torchlight procession to demonstrate that he would remain. In 1964 the SPD therefore immediately renounced an opposing candidate and he was re-elected with 99.8 percent of the vote.

Honors

Hans Reschke received numerous awards for his life's work. Reschke received the honorary citizenship of the city of Mannheim and was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany with a star in 1972. In 1973 he became an honorary member of the German Association of Cities and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences , the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg awarded him an honorary doctorate . In 1975 Reschke received the Bloomaulorden and in 1985 the constitutional medal of the state of Baden-Württemberg in gold. After his death in 1996, a street in Mannheim was renamed Hans-Reschke-Ufer .

Publications

  • Mannheim perspectives: essays, lectures, speeches . Mannheim 1974.

literature

  • Gabriele Mark: Hans Reschke - "My way remains Mannheim". A Lord Mayor between reconstruction, a new beginning and shaping the future . ( Sources and representations on Mannheim's city history ; 12). Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7995-0909-1 ; also dissertation, University of Mannheim 2010.
  • Christian Peters: "Fortunately we are an exception". Mannheim in the fifties. Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7995-0905-4 ( Sources and representations on Mannheim city history 7), (At the same time: Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 1998: Mannheim in the 50s .)
  • Walter Spannagel: Hans Reschke. In: Ulrich Nieß, Michael Caroli (ed.): The highest award in the city. 42 Mannheim honorary citizens in portrait. von Brandt, Mannheim 2002, ISBN 3-926260-55-6 , pp. 153–156 ( Small writings of the Mannheim City Archives 18).
  • Jürgen Kocka , Wolfgang Neugebauer (Ed.): The protocols of the Prussian State Ministry 1817–1934 / 38. Volume 12: Reinhold Zilch, Bärbel Holtz: April 4, 1925 to May 10, 1938. Volume 2. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim et al. 2004, ISBN 3-487-12704-0 ( Acta Borussica . Series 1).
  • Joachim Lilla : Senior administrative officials and functionaries in Westphalia and Lippe (1918–1945 / 46). Biographical manual. Aschendorff, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-402-06799-4 , p. 249 ( Publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia. 22, A, 16 = historical work on Westphalian regional research. Economic and social history group. 16).
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 131 , 646.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 492.
  3. ↑ a b SD versus concentration camp . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1955, pp. 18 ( Online - Oct. 12, 1955 ).
  4. ^ German Association for Public and Private Welfare - Exhibition (PDF; 14.8 MB).
  5. ↑ New art gallery in Mannheim | Video | ARD media library. Accessed February 16, 2020 .
  6. ↑ MARCHIVUM: street names, Hans-Reschke-Ufer. Retrieved August 27, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Reschke, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician (NSDAP, later non-party)
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH October 17, 1995
Place of death Mannheim