Heinrich Theodor Behn

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Heinrich Theodor Behn
Heinrich Theodor Behn in his office

Heinrich Theodor Behn (born February 15, 1819 in Lübeck ; † February 28, 1906 there ) was a mayor of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck.

Life

origin

His parents were the doctor Georg Heinrich Behn (1773–1855) and Johanna Elisabeth Stintzing (1786–1850), daughter of the wine merchant Georg Friedrich Stintzing († 1800) and older sister of the Lübeck councilor Georg Friedrich Stintzing of the same name .

career

Behn was the son of a doctor in Lübeck. He attended the Katharineum until graduation at Easter 1838 (together with Christian Theodor Overbeck ), studied law and obtained his doctorate in Göttingen in 1841.

From 1842 he practiced as a lawyer in Lübeck. At first he belonged to the group of liberal-conservative reformers, now known as Jung-Lübeck , who turned against the reaction and rigidification that had prevailed since the Lübeck French era from the mid-1830s . Due to his own balanced opinion expressed from within this group, he achieved high fame in the city and was elected to the citizenry at a very young age in the revolutionary year of 1848 . There he quickly took the initiative and rose to the top in their committees. In 1848 he was a member of the preliminary parliament . In 1858 he was elected to the city's senate . In contrast to Theodor Curtius , he focused his work on the internal affairs of the politics of the Lübeck state, so that both complemented each other perfectly in their activities because of their contradictions. He was mayor of the city seven times from 1871/72 to 1895/96.

As mayor, on May 31, 1895, he and others were invited to the laying of the foundation stone for the Elbe-Trave Canal . The silver hammer presented by the hydraulic engineering director Peter Rehder was presented to the presiding mayor with the words: “This stone made of Nordic granite is prepared to form the cornerstone of the building. On behalf of the authority entrusted with the management of the building, I hand over to Ew. Magnificence the hammer to announce the beginning of the construction with the blow of the same. "

The mayor then performed the first hammer blows before he passed the hammer on to the royal Prussian ambassador , Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter .

On December 9, 1901, the Senate granted his 42-year-old senator, who had served him over 42 years, the retirement he had sought in accordance with the provisions of the law of April 7, 1875.

In 1900 the St. Gertrud Association built the Behnturm in his honor in the Trave fir trees on the Breitling of the Trave . The 9-meter-high observation tower , built from natural stone, was accidentally blown up in 1963 because it was dilapidated, although after violent public protests, donations for the maintenance of the tower had already been confirmed. The Behn-Kai in Lübeck harbor is also named after him.

family

His grandson was the sculptor Fritz Behn . After the First World War, the family home in Königstrasse , which the doctor Georg Heinrich Behn bought in 1823 , became the Behnhaus Museum through a foundation from Lübeck citizens .

literature

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Theodor Behn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Genzken: The Abitur graduates of the Katharineum in Lübeck (grammar school and secondary school) from Easter 1807 to 1907. Borchers, Lübeck 1907. (Supplement to the school program 1907, digitized version ), No. 351
  2. ↑ Federal Archives: Members of the Pre-Parliament and the Fifties Committee (PDF file; 79 kB)
  3. ^ The laying of the foundation stone for the Elbe-Trave Canal. In: Lübeckische Blätter ; Volume 37, number 44, edition of June 2, 1895, pp. 297–301.
  4. ↑ Weekly chronicle from Lübeck and the surrounding area. , In: Vaterstädtische Blätter , year 1901, No. 47, edition of December 15, 1901
  5. ↑ Behnturm in the district newspaper Kompass 2-2016, page 2, local history (PDF, 720 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Behn, Heinrich Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mayor of Lübeck
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1906
Place of death Lübeck