John's children

Johann (Johannes) Christian Kinder (born March 23, 1843 in Lunden ; † August 23, 1914 in Plön ) was a German lawyer, mayor and local researcher.

Life and work as mayor

Johannes Kinder was a son of Klaus Hinrich Kinder (* December 26, 1809 in Lunden; † November 8, 1870 ibid) and his wife Anna Katharina, born compatriot (* December 6, 1813 in Lunden; † May 25, 1882 ibid). The father worked as a painter, glazier and businessman.

After attending the Lunden Citizens' School with the Rector's School, Kinder moved to the quarters of the Plön School of Academics in 1857 . From the summer semester of 1863 he studied law and history at the University of Heidelberg . In winter he went back to Schleswig-Holstein, where he worked to ensure that the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein broke away from Denmark. From 1864 to 1867 he studied law at the University of Kiel . Because of an eye infection he could not read and worked as a farmer for some time. From 1868 to 1870 he worked on the Silesian estate of Peruschen in the district of Wohlau , and from 1871/72 on Zyrowa .

With improved eyesight, Kinder worked from 1873 to 1875 as private secretary for Prince Karl Maria von Lichnowksky in Glatz, Upper Austria -Silesian . In 1876 he went back to Schleswig-Holstein and was private secretary of the district administrator of the Pinneberg district Emil Voerster for two years .

In 1880 the residents of Plön elected him mayor. In Plön, children worked under difficult circumstances. In 1867 the magistrate separated the judiciary and administration and rented the town hall to the district court. Kinder built two houses of his own in 1884 and 1895, which he used as the official residence until 1899. He supported culture, business people and especially tourism. Within a few years he was able to financially rehabilitate the city. During his tenure, two new elementary schools were built in 1881 and 1909 and a grammar school in 1899. He successfully got involved in a prince school, which was built in 1895 for the sons of Wilhelm II in the prince's house in the garden of Plön Castle . Together with Otto Zacharias , he campaigned from 1888 to create a biological station for researching freshwater lakes. So in 1892 a facility was created that later became the Max Planck Institute for Limnology . He was also able to get the city to pay for the construction.

Kinder commissioned a power station, in 1884 a building for the savings bank and in 1898 the expansion of the city hospital. At an early point in time, he acquired land to be built for Plön, which he was later able to sell at low prices. He took on many honorary posts and was a member of the district council from 1880 and of the district committee from 1889. His service ended voluntarily at the end of 1908. At this point in time, he also ended all honorary positions.

The city of Plön said goodbye to children in early 1909 and made him the first honorary citizen of Plön. In his retirement, Kinder wrote several newspaper articles, with which he bought objects for a local museum. The publicly accessible museum existed from 1911, but only for a few years.

Working as a local researcher

Child's work as a local researcher was significant beyond Plön. From 1880 he wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, for which he used many archival sources. He was particularly concerned with the history of Lunden and Plön. He used parts of this for the volumes "Old Dithmarian Stories" (1885), "Old Plön Stories" (1893) and "Plön. Contributions to the history of the city ”(1904). He did not state the sources he used and did not create any overall representations from them.

Particularly noteworthy is Kinder's "Document Book for the Chronicle of the City of Plön", which he created from 1881 to 1883 and expanded in 1890. It includes documents and files and comments from the author. The contributions made in this way to research on the history and cultural history of Plön and the Prince's court were still considered fundamental more than 100 years later.

Honors

• 1899: Royal Crown Order (Prussia) , 4th class
• 1908: Order of the Red Eagle , 4th class

family

Kinder married Anna Gude Charlotte Clausen on July 3, 1883 in Bruges (* December 25, 1861 in Glückstadt; † August 9, 1940 in Plön). Her father Friedrich Otto Clausen (1823-1896) worked in Bruges as pastor and consistorial councilor and was married to Anna Therese Friederike, née Sörensen.

The couple had five daughters and four sons. The son Johann Christian (born June 8, 1890, † December 24, 1969) worked in Plön as a stonemason and sculptor. The son Christian Kinder became famous as a lawyer, president of the regional church office and curator of the University of Kiel .

literature

• Friedrich Stender: Children, Johannes . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 10. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1994, pp. 203-205.