Hugo Roeloffs

Roeloffs 1905

Hugo Amandus Roeloffs (* May 2, 1844 in Hamburg ; † May 25, 1928 there ) was a Senate syndicate .

Life

Roeloffs grew up in Hamburg and had to leave school at the age of 13 to contribute to the family's livelihood. During the economic crisis of 1857 he became a clerk at the law firm Dres. Albrecht & G. Hertz . In 1861 Roeoffs became a clerk at the Hamburg Commercial Court under Johannes Versmann . Versmann, who had been elected to the Hamburg Senate in 1861 , offered Roeloffs, when he was President of the Deputation for Indirect Taxes and Duties in 1864 , the position of interim second-class customs and accounts guard that Roeloffs accepted. Roeloffs was a member of the deputation until he retired in 1913. Roeloffs quickly developed into an expert on tax issues in the Hamburg state administration. During the constitutional negotiations of the North German Confederation , Roeloffs was named as an advisor to Senator Kirchenpauer on the free port question. Roeloffs was considered to be economically educated, since he was a listener of the public lectures of Adolf Soetbeer and Ludwig Aegidi in Hamburg from 1864 to 1868 . In 1870 Roeloff's Hamburg civil servant gradually became one of Versmann's closest collaborators. He accompanied Versmann in all negotiations regarding customs issues. Because of his outstanding achievements, he was appointed first secretary of the Deputation for Indirect Taxes in 1880 and Senate Secretary in 1882 - both positions that required a degree in political science. In the hot negotiation phase of the customs union from November 1881 to January 1882, Roeloffs was a participant in the negotiations as commissioner of the Federal Council from Hamburg. Versmann negotiated the political issues, while Roeloffs dealt with the technical issues. The result of the negotiations, which largely fulfilled the wishes of Hamburg, was largely thanks to Roeloff. After the successful customs connection and the construction of the free port and the Speicherstadt , Roeloffs was appointed Hamburg Senate Syndicate in 1889. In the 1990s, he became one of the leading men in the Senate in terms of influence and knowledge. Several mayors discussed difficult questions with him alone in the morning. Several times there were plans to elect Roeloffs as senator. This would only have been possible as a commercial senator, since he did not have a degree; he would have suffered a substantial loss of salary, so he never became a senator.

literature

• Adolf Buehl : From the old council chamber: Memories 1905–1918. Hamburg 1973, pp. 46-51