Hubert Lesaar

Hubert Lesaar (born January 17, 1888 in Rheinberg , † March 19, 1963 in Ahlen ; full name: Hubert Franz Anton Lesaar ) was mayor of the legal predecessor of Kamp-Lintfort from 1920 to 1945 .

Life and work

The later municipal official Hubert Lesaar came from a Catholic family of craftsmen who immigrated from Emmerich to Rheinberg in the mid-19th century . His parents were the Rheinberg cooper and small trader Hubert Lesaar sen. (1851–1918) and his wife Henriette geb. Böhm (1851–1927), whose marriage resulted in a total of seven children.

School attendance and vocational training

Born as the third son, Hubert Lesaar jun. from 1894 to 1902 the elementary school in Rheinberg and then until 1905 the Episcopal Collegium Augustinianum Gaesdonck in Goch , which he left with the certificate of secondary school leaving certificate . After a subsequent commercial activity in his father's business, he worked from 1907 to 1911 for training purposes as a trainee or office assistant at the mayor's office in Rheinberg, at the district treasury in Kempen and at the district office and district committee in Moers .

Career as an administrative officer

On August 1, 1911, Lesaar joined the former mayors' association of Kamp, Hoerstgen and Vierquartieren as administrative secretary and office director , whose development at that time was already significantly influenced by the Friedrich Heinrich colliery, which was under construction and the associated population growth. After the resignation of Mayor Wilhelm Liermann, Lesaar, who was close to the center and meanwhile senior secretary with "exemplary performance" and "far-sighted view", was initially appointed provisional mayor on March 24, 1920 by decree of the Upper President of the Rhine Province .

Lesaar had "not yet emerged politically", but as mayor was politically controversial from the start. In 1921/22 the local SPD repeatedly accused him of treating motions from the social democratic faction "undemocratically" and "not on the basis of the republic and the constitution". In 1922, a majority of the Lintfort municipal council even demanded that he be “immediately recalled” and that the position be filled with an official “who also has the courage to protect the republic and the constitution (...)”. It was not until January 9, 1923 that Lesaar was finally appointed mayor. An application as mayor of the city of Kevelaer was unsuccessful in September of the same year.

On May 1, 1933, Lesaar joined the NSDAP . He will later state that his entry into the party only came about under threat of loss of office and that he was under political observation by his office managers in the following period. On December 1, 1934, he was appointed full-time mayor of the municipality of Kamp-Lintfort for a period of twelve years, which was created with effect from April 1, 1934 through the merger of the previous offices of Kamp, Hoerstgen and Vierquartieren. In 1937 Lesaar gave up the function of local group head of the National Socialist People's Welfare, which he had assumed four years earlier . The staff of the Kamp-Lintfort municipal administration, including the municipal savings bank, was on September 1, 1939, when there were a good 23,000 inhabitants, with 107 "followers", including 41 civil servants, 44 employees and 22 workers. There were also 25 police officers. Under Mayor Lesaar since 1933 - as elsewhere - the political will of the Nazi regime was put into administrative action.

Awards

During his service in Kamp-Lintfort, Hubert Lesaar, according to his own statements, was only decorated with the Cross of Merit for War Aid , the Medal Column of the Red Cross and the Fire Brigade Medal of Honor 2nd Class until September 1936 .

Dismissal, retirement and denazification

Lesaar's behavior during the time of National Socialism was judged very differently in 1945/48. From the point of view of his political opponents, he was unable to meet "the demands of the new era" in the summer of 1945. On October 2, 1945, he applied for his retirement because his state of health "suffered severely from the war and the post-war period (...)". On October 31, 1945, Lesaar was dismissed by the British military government for political reasons and "honorable" farewell on the same day. However, he was able to obtain his retirement on January 1, 1946 from the local government.

In the course of denazification in 1947, a 33 percent cut in pension payments was ordered, particularly with a view to “early entry” into the NSDAP. The main denazification committee for the district of Moers overturned this decision on September 22, 1948, because Lesaar, despite the political burdens identified, etc. a. was not an active National Socialist because of the "support of Jewish people seeking help" as evidenced by testimony .

marriage and family

Hubert Lesaar had been married to Margarethe Justus (1892–1962), daughter of an innkeeper in Moers , since October 2, 1914 . Three of the six sons died as soldiers in Romania or Russia in 1943/44 during the Second World War . In the mid-1950s, the Lesaar couple moved from Kamp-Lintfort to Ahlen, where a son was living as a chaplain at the time . Hubert Lesaar rests next to his wife in the Catholic cemetery in the Kamp-Lintfort district of Kamp.

literature

• E. Günter Piecha: Kamp-Lintfort in the mirror of history. The emergence and development of a young city. 2nd edition, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1983, pp. 303 ff. And 331
• Albert Spitzner-Jahn: "So far not politically prominent". Hubert Lesaar, Mayor of Kamp-Lintfort. In: Jahrbuch Kreis Wesel 2013, p. 104 ff. ISBN 978-3-87463-514-1