Johann Karl Martin Mauerer

Johann Karl Martin Mauerer (born January 1, 1783 in Sulzbürg ; † August 14, 1828 in Kreuth ) was the first legally qualified mayor of Regensburg from 1818 to 1828 .

Life and situation in Regensburg

The lawyer was a district judge at Stadtamhof . After Regensburg had regained self-government in urban affairs through the Bavarian municipal edict of May 17, 1818 , Johann Karl Martin Mauerer was elected the first legally qualified mayor of the city of Regensburg in September 1818. During his entire term of office, the Catholic Mayor Mauerer was confronted with the very special confessional conditions in Regensburg. After three centuries as a Protestant imperial city and after the years as a principality under the Catholic Prince-Bishop Karl Theodor von Dalberg , after its incorporation into the Catholic Kingdom of Bavaria in May 1810 there was a large Catholic population, but the upper class of the bourgeoisie was strongly Protestant embossed. The municipal edict that came into force made it possible to maintain this state of affairs, although the constitution provided for parity.

After 10 years as mayor, Mauerer died on August 14, 1828 at the age of 45.

Mauerer wrote poems, some of which were published posthumously. He belonged to the influential, Catholic Regensburg romantic circle around Johann Michael Sailer .

Political conditions in Regensburg during the term of office of Mayor Mauerer

According to the electoral law provided for in the municipal edict , the Catholic population, to whom parity was granted under the new Bavarian constitution, had little chance of receiving adequate consideration in the election and filling of municipal self-government bodies and offices. The right to vote was linked to citizenship and citizenship was only granted to landowners and self-employed traders. Only holders of civil rights were actively eligible to vote in the election of municipal representatives and only the highest taxed third of those holding civil rights had the active right to vote for the magistrate and the right to stand for both committees. Citizenship was the central problem of local politics in Regensburg at that time for the predominantly numerical and still growing Catholic population. The social situation of the Catholic population aggravated the situation, because while the Protestant residents belonged to the wealthy class, the Catholic residents predominantly belonged to the middle and lower dependent working classes.

During the entire term of office of Mayor Maurer, the Catholic population remained clearly underrepresented among the holders of civil rights and especially among the representatives and officials elected by them. 5 years after the end of Maurer's term of office, in 1833 Regensburg had a population of around 19,000 and only 511 Catholics had citizenship compared to 993 Protestants. The differences were even clearer among the particularly privileged, highly taxed holders of civil rights, for the heads of industrial companies and the influential wholesalers were almost exclusively Protestants. The situation was reversed in the case of poor relief, where in 1846 out of a total of 302 people, 246 were Catholic and only 56 were Protestant.

The non-equal representation of Catholics in the community bodies put a considerable strain on the political work during the term of office of Mayor Mauerer and his successor Sigmund Maria von Eggelkraut . The Catholics felt permanently disadvantaged in setting up businesses and acquiring land, in police orders and punishments. The district government reported to Munich that the "tension between the Protestant and Catholic parishioners has reached a very high level and there are significant bitterness against each other".

The tense situation made it particularly difficult to find a solution to the question of how the many denominational charitable foundations should be administered. In addition to the undisputed Catholic Hospital Foundation , which for a long time operated the only hospital in the city, and the undisputed Protestant alumni foundation, which organized the accommodation for the pupils of the Poeticum Gymnasium, there were charity and school foundations, in addition to the equal St. Katharinenspital Foundation, which in part reached back to the Middle Ages. Of these, 28 foundations were parity, 30 Catholic and 8 Protestant, whereby the Evangelical Charity Foundation with its sub-foundations is counted as one foundation. With this foundation, the issue of foundation supervision was particularly controversial. The greater part of the individual foundations had already been transferred to the municipal administration before the introduction of the Reformation in 1542 and thus became a communal civic institution under the sole responsibility of the city administration. After Regensburg had already been organized on an equal footing in the Dalberg era and in the Bavarian constitution, income from these foundations should also have benefited the Catholics. However, this had only happened sporadically in the past and was continued under Mayor Mauerer, as the Catholics were not represented equally in the community bodies. Therefore, a use of the money for poor Catholics was called for or compensation through the payment of a foundation share under exclusively Catholic administration and use only for Catholics. The dispute was decided on the instructions of the king only after long negotiations under the leadership of the district director Ignaz von Rudhart in July 1833. A share of 95,400 guilders was paid out to the Catholics to run a Catholic old people's home (Yellow House) on Herrenplatz / Weitholdstrasse. (In 1893, through donations, it was expanded to become today's St. Michael community center).

See also

List of the Lord Mayors of Regensburg

literature

Werner Chrobak: Politics and society in Regensburg between 1810 and 1848 , in: Hans Jürgen Becker, Konrad Maria Färber (Hrsg.): Regensburg becomes Bavarian . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7917-2218-4 , p. 57 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mayor's Gallery City of Regensburg
2. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Chrobak: Politics and society in Regensburg between 1810 and 1848 , in: Hans Jürgen Becker, Konrad Maria Färber (ed.): Regensburg becomes Bavarian . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7917-2218-4 , pp. 59-64
3. ↑ Works by and about Johann Karl Martin Mauerer  in the German Digital Library
4. ↑ Dieter Albrecht: Regensburg im Wandel, studies on the history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Museums and Archives of the City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): Studies and sources on the history of Regensburg . tape 2 . Mittelbayerische Druckerei und Verlags-Gesellschaft mbH, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-921114-11-X , p. 76 ff .
5. ^ ^{A b} Dieter Albrecht: Regensburg im Wandel, studies on the history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Museums and Archives of the City of Regensburg (Hrsg.): Studies and sources on the history of Regensburg . tape 2 . Mittelbayerische Druckerei und Verlags-Gesellschaft mbH, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-921114-11-X , p. 52 ff., 79 f .
6. ^ Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . 6th edition. MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 439 .