Johann Smidt

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Mayor Johann Smidt, around 1848

Johann Smidt (born November 5, 1773 in Bremen ; † May 7, 1857 ibid) was a German politician and theologian who worked primarily in the Hanseatic city of Bremen. He was the founder of Bremerhaven and is considered one of the most important statesmen of Bremen. As a delegate at the Congress of Vienna , he successfully advocated maintaining the independence of the Hanseatic cities. In recent times, however, his anti-Semitic stance and corresponding political action have been viewed increasingly critically.

Life

Family, youth and education

Smidt was the son of the eponymous, also Johannes Smith (1712–1796) pastor of St. Stephen's Church in Bremen. He graduated from Illustre high school . After graduating from high school, he studied theology in Jena from 1792 . There he was a founding member of the Society of Free Men . In 1794 he passed his "candidate exam" in Bremen and then continued his studies in Jena. In 1797 he was ordained to the preaching office in Zurich .

In 1798 Smidt married Wilhelmine Rhode (1777–1848), daughter of Johann Conrad Rhode, the owner of the sun pharmacy at Sögestrasse No. 37 (now 18). Both lived here from 1804 to 1821. They had ten children, six of whom they survived. Her son Heinrich Smidt (1806–1878) was a senator in Bremen.

Early rise

Smidt then became professor of philosophy and history at the illustrious grammar school in Bremen. He was then the syndic of the parents in Bremen . In 1799 he founded the Hanseatic Magazine . He became a member of the Bremen Citizens ' Convention as a forerunner of the Bremen citizenship . At the age of only 27, he was surprisingly elected councilor of Bremen in 1800 . From 1806 he was increasingly active in foreign policy for Bremen. 1811 - Bremen was part of the French Empire - he represented Bremen's interests in Paris and at the same time paid homage to Napoleon . He influenced the development of the Hanseatic cities in governmental and commercial terms. In 1811 he briefly gave up his senatorial office to work as a notary.

Smidt as a senator

After the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig in 1813, he negotiated with the Russian Major General Freiherr Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn - who had just occupied Bremen - about the establishment of a new state in Bremen. Tettenborn set up a provisional senate with seven senators in Bremen in 1813. Smidt was now Senator for Bremen's Foreign Affairs. He negotiated in Frankfurt from 1814, then at the headquarters in France and in 1814/15 at the Congress of Vienna and achieved the preservation of the independence of the Hanseatic cities and their acceptance into the German Confederation . In the final editing of the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna on the rights of the Jews, Smidt had - without authorization and without a vote - the text "Confessors of the Jewish faith will receive the same rights already granted in the individual federal states", changed slightly but with serious consequences to: "The confessors of the Jewish faith will receive the same rights already granted by the individual states". Since the French and not the Bremen state had emancipated the Jews of Bremen, Bremen - like many other federal states - revoked the emancipation of the Jews. In 1815 he worked with other German personalities to create the German Federal Act for the German Confederation.

From November 1815, Smidt was Bremen's envoy to the Federal Assembly in Frankfurt am Main . Here he fought Metternich's policy. Until 1820 he was active in the negotiations that established free shipping on the Weser and the associated abolition of the Elsfleth Weser customs levied by the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg .

Smidt as mayor

Smidt's house on the Contrescarpe in 1848
Bremerhaven 1849

In 1821 Smidt became mayor of Bremen and he remained in this office until his death, with the exception of the revolution from 1849 to 1852. However, he initially also remained the representative of Bremen in the Frankfurt Federal Assembly. In 1848 the pre-parliament met under his leadership as senior president .

He gave the trade in Bremen important impulses. Since the current conditions of the Lower Weser prevented the seagoing ships from reaching Bremen, Oldenburg planned to expand the port of Brake . Smidt bought a piece of land at the mouth of the Geeste from the Kingdom of Hanover and Bremerhaven was founded in 1827. The " Old Harbor " was completed in 1830 as an artificial harbor basin.

By concluding advantageous trade agreements with foreign countries, he was able to expand consular representation. In 1849 the very conservative Smidt could not prevent Bremen from adopting a more democratic and liberal constitution. So he resigned from his mayor's office until 1852. After the restoration and with the help of the German Confederation, the democratic achievements were also abolished in Bremen and the strong right of the Senate remained. In 1854 he participated in the new constitution, with his eight-class suffrage and the strong position of the Bremen merchants (see also: History of the City of Bremen ). In 1850, 1853, 1855 and 1857 he was President of the Senate.

Smidt's rejection of Jews and Lutherans in Bremen is inglorious. After he had falsified the legal basis for the revocation of the emancipation of the Jews of Bremen (see above), he operated since 1821 the “complete expulsion of the children of Israel” as an “important state concern”. In his anti-Judaism he saw the Jews as "foreign bodies in a Christian state". In 1826 he had achieved his goal with the exception of two protective Jews who were taken over from Hanover. The Lutheran cathedral parish, which had fallen to the then Calvinist state of Bremen with the freedom of the cathedral in 1803, Smidt denied the status of a parish and its assets of developed and undeveloped land until 1830.

Smidt died in 1857 and was buried in the Herdentorsfriedhof and reburied in the Riensberg cemetery in 1891 . Smidt was one of the most important statesmen in Bremen. However, his anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic attitudes have tarnished his image in history.

Honors

Monument by Johann Smidt in Bremerhaven
Mayor Smidt Memorial Church (2017)
The traditional ship named after Smidt, Johann Smidt
  • In 1819, as a thank you for his commitment to maintaining the close cooperation and independence of the Hanseatic cities, he received a large silver lidded cup from the Senate of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck , which Smidt's descendants donated to the Mayor Smidt Memorial Church in Bremerhaven in the early 20th century and which is now in the historical area Bremerhaven Museum is on display.
  • In 1829 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Jena .
  • In 1841 he received the third Bene Merenti commemorative coin , the highest award of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck.
  • In Bremen he was awarded the first Bremen Medal of Honor in gold in 1843 .
  • In "recognition of the help after the great Hamburg fire " he was made eighth honorary citizen of Hamburg in 1843 .
  • A street in Hamburg-Hamm was named after him.
  • The Smidt memorial, made in 1848 by the sculptor Carl Steinhäuser and inaugurated in 1860, is located on the first floor of the Bremen town hall .
  • In 1864 the former Leher Heerstraße in Bremerhaven was renamed to Bürgermeister-Smidt-Straße .
  • From 1870 there was a sandstone statue of him on the facade of Bürgermeister-Smidt-Straße No. 79 in Bremerhaven.
  • The bronze Smidt monument by the Leipzig sculptor Werner Stein has been located on Theodor-Heuss-Platz in Bremerhaven since 1888 . It is now a symbol of the city.
  • From 1890 (until?) There was a Bürgermeister-Smidt-Straße in Bremen-Schwachhausen .
  • The church of the United Protestant Congregation in Bremerhaven , generally known as the Great Church , which he consecrated in 1855, was named Mayor Smidt Memorial Church in 1927 .
  • In 1945 the Bürgermeister-Smidt-Strasse (formerly Georgstrasse or Kaiserstrasse) in Bremen was named after him.
  • In 1952 the Mayor Smidt Bridge in Bremen was named after him.
  • The gaff schooner Johann Smidt was named after him in 1989 .

literature

  • His presidential speeches ( Patriotic warnings and retrospectives . Bremen 1873, edited by Heinrich Smidt) and his biography (Bremen 1873) were published for the secular celebration of his birthday .
  • B. Schulze-Smidt offers an insight into Smidt's private life from his letters : Mayor Johann Smidt, the life picture of a Hanseatic man . Bremen: Verlag Franz Leuwer 1914.
  • Monika M. Schulte, Nicola Wurthmann (editing): Estate of Johann Smidt (1773–1857), Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (Bremen State Archives, holdings 7.20) . Bremen 2004 (= Small Fonts of the State Archives Bremen, Issue 34)
  • A detailed description of Smidt's work during the revolution can be found in Werner Biebusch: Revolution and coup d'état. Constitutional struggles in Bremen from 1848 to 1854. Schünemann, Bremen 1973 (publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. 40.)
  • Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
  • Articles (excerpt) in: Bremisches Jahrbuch . Bremen State Archives , Volume 87, Bremen 2008, ISSN  0341-9622 .
    • Andreas Schulz: Johann Smidt, Bremen and the German Confederation (1848–1866) .
    • Nicola Wurthmann: Johann Smidt and Bremen politics at the German Bundestag .
    • Frank Hatje: Ferdinand Beneke, Johann Smidt and the relations between Hamburg and Bremen .
    • Andreas Lennert: Johann Smidt and the expulsion of the Jews from Bremen .
  • Wilhelm von Bippen :  Smidt, Johann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 488-494.
  • Frank Eisermann: Johann Smidt and the "barbarian states" (1814-1820) . In: Workers' Movement and Social History 19 (2007), pp. 5–34.
  • Monika M. Schulte:  Smidt, Johann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 511 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Johann Smidt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Johann Smidt  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kunder Adrianus Gort: Peroden uit het leven van dominee John John Smith , editor and publisher: Putten 2016
  2. ^ Edith Laudowicz : Smidt, Johanne Wilhelmine, b. Rhode . In: Frauen Geschichte (n) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
  3. ^ Hans Hermann Meyer: The Bremen old town . Edition Temmen , Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-686-7 , p. 118 f.
  4. ^ Heinrich Graetz : History of the Jews from the earliest times to the present . 11 volumes. Leiner, Leipzig 1900. Volume 11: History of the Jews from the beginning of Mendelssohn's time (1750) to the most recent time (1848) , p. 317. It is not emphasized in the original. Reprint of the last edition: arani, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-7605-8673-2 .
  5. ^ Wilhelm Bleek : The pre-March. Germany's departure into the modern age. CH Beck, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-73533-2 .
  6. ^ The Jewish community in the state of Bremen
  7. ^ Johann Christian Bosse, Hans Henry Lamotte : The cathedral to Bremen . 6th edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1990, p. 12 f. (Major architectural monuments; No. 340)
  8. ↑ What do I care about the legal situation? We'll solve that in Bremen! ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Radio Bremen .de, March 15, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.radiobremen.de
personal data
SURNAME Smidt, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician and theologian, mayor of Bremen and founder of Bremerhaven
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1857
Place of death Bremen