Hermann Wetken

Hermann Wetken (* 1522 in Hamburg ; † October 13, 1595 ibid) was a Hamburg mayor .

Live and act

Wetken was the son of the first evangelically oriented Hamburg mayor Johann Wetken and Margarethe von Spreckelsen, grew up and educated in the time of the foundation and spread of the Reformation in Hamburg. Due to the attitude of his family, he did not study law at the University of Rostock, as was customary for Hamburgers at the time, but at the University of Wittenberg . After graduating, he was elected councilor in 1554 and mayor of Hamburg in 1564.

But one year after joining the city council, Wetken and his Syndicus Trotsinger were forced to settle another dispute with the cathedral chapter , which did not want to adhere to the agreements of the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555, and with a lawsuit at the Imperial Court of Justice for special privileges as well as a declaration of eighth declaration . Since Augsburg there has been a compromise that whoever ruled the country could also determine the faith, which meant that the princes chose the religion and citizens who did not want to convert should have the right to emigrate to a country of their faith. In what is now a multi-year process Wetken and defiance Inger was instrumental in the negotiations and they had both the Osnabrück Episcopal their views Johann II. Hoya , and in 1557 the Reichstag in Regensburg and at the court of the king and later Emperor Ferdinand I in Prague recite . This was followed by a clarifying letter from Ferdinand to the complaining cathedral chapter, in which he seriously admonished it to comply with the Augsburg peace agreements but also confirmed the chapter's immunity in relation to the city. Finally, in 1559, Hamburg was officially fully accepted into the religious peace at the Reichstag in Augsburg , to which Wetken and his secretary Schröder had been delegated, and the process was declared over. This process ultimately served as a sample process for a settlement on May 2, 1561 in a similar situation in Bremen , in whose conclusion Wetken was again significantly involved as an external mediator.

But two years later, the Hamburg cathedral chapter now found itself exposed to hostility and ridicule as well as papal ban and excommunication bulls from its own ranks and therefore now called on the council for support. Wetken expressed concerns about interfering in such internal matters, but still granted the cathedral chapter the necessary protection. Among other things, this led to a consolidation of the Reformation in Hamburg, as more and more members of the cathedral chapter now joined this new religious doctrine and they also entered into marriages.

In the meantime Wetken was involved in negotiations of all Elbe bank states with King Ferdinand about the Elbe shipping and Elbe tariffs as well as in the settlement of a serious crisis with Duke Adolf I. von Gottorf , when he was mistakenly attacked by Hamburg boatmen on a trip to Antwerp . Duke Adolph, represented at the negotiations by his general Johann Rantzau , was only appeased with precious gifts and gold-plated cups filled with Spanish and Hungarian gold pieces.

Hermann Wetken was also involved in democratic reforms of the city constitution, for example in the resolution of April 5, 1563. This stated that two citizens from each parish should manage the public funds as treasury citizens and in return two council members as builders Builders would have to oversee all of the city's construction . At this meeting, Wetken was ultimately named one of the two builders. Finally, in 1580, Wetken once again had to settle a church dispute, this time from within his own ranks, in which he vehemently protested against the fact that crypto-Calvinist currents could spread in Hamburg.

In 1592 Hermann Wetken founded a place of worship for all widows and virgins, comparable to a homeless and old people's home, where all the elderly and those in need could make their old age more bearable. A year later, Wetken resigned from his office exhausted and finally died on October 13, 1595.

family

Hermann Wetken was married to Gesche Nigel († 1587), with whom he had four children. Two children had died during his lifetime. His son Joachim founded the Lübeck branch of the family and married Margarethe von Stiten, daughter of the Lübeck bailiff and councilor Franz von Stiten († 1590). As a result, he became the owner of the Trenthorst estate near Reinfeld, which was part of the Lübschen estates .

His second son Johann († 1616) studied again in Rostock, first became a businessman, before he was finally elected to the council in 1603 and also mayor of Hamburg in 1614, but could not move much due to his early death. He was married to Elisabeth von Eitzen (1578–1649), daughter of the Hamburg mayor Dietrich von Eitzen. After the death of her husband, Elisabeth also took over the house of her father-in-law Hermann Wetken on Deichstrasse in Hamburg.

In Hamburg's St Nicholas Church , a monumental reminds Epitaph of sandstone to the family Wetken on which in a niche, the two deceased children and beside kneeling parents are depicted with the two surviving children.

literature

• Wilhelm Sillem:  Wetken . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, pp. 231-238. (Family item)