Josef Krämer (politician, 1901)

Josef Krämer (born October 11, 1901 in Reilingen ; † November 2, 1991 in Mosbach ) was a German theologian and politician ( CDU ). His commitment to social housing in Mosbach, where he was the pastor of St. Cäcilia from 1946 , earned him the nickname "Baudekan".

Life

Josef Krämer was born the son of a farmer. He attended the elementary school in Reilingen until 1914 , then the Catholic home school Lender in Sasbach . From 1918 to 1922 he attended the Humanist High School in Rastatt , after which he studied Catholic theology at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg , during which he joined the Catholic student union Unitas Rheno-Danubia in 1923. In the time of inflation he was one of the founders of student self-help and worked for the Caritas Association in Freiburg im Breisgau . On March 19, 1927, he was ordained a priest by Archbishop Karl Fritz . Among other things , he worked as a vicar in Oberkirch and Heidelberg , worked as a vicar and parish administrator in various parishes on the building land and became a pastor in Oeffingen in 1941 .

After the Second World War , he applied for a pastor's position in Mosbach , because he wanted to live in Baden again after his time in Oeffingen in Württemberg. From 1946 he was the parish priest at St. Cäcilia in Mosbach, where he was soon appointed dean . Due to the influx of many expellees , there was a great housing shortage in Mosbach after the Second World War, so that Krämer did not limit himself to his church duties and religious instruction at schools, but saw the creation of living space as one of his most urgent tasks. In 1947 he founded the building cooperative Neue Heimat for the district of Mosbach with around 100 families . By October 1949, the building cooperative had built the first 88 houses on the Marienhöhe .

After joining the CDU in the post-war period, he was a member of the state constitutional assembly from 1952 to 1953 and of the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg from 1953 to 1960 . There he campaigned in various committees and in the plenary for the new building of a basic moral order in Baden-Württemberg and was considered a fiery speaker who raised his voice especially for social issues and Christian values. He also used his relationships as a member of parliament to raise state funds for social housing and business promotion in Mosbach. In the building committee, he also advocated subsidies for building projects in the districts of Buchen, Mosbach, Sinsheim and Tauberbischofsheim. At the end of his parliamentary term, he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the then Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Kurt Georg Kiesinger .

By the end of 1954 he had completed a total of 887 apartments with the Neue Heimat . Under Mayor Werner Tarun , urban housing projects in Mosbach increased again significantly from 1954. The largest building project was the development of the Mosbacher Waldstadt , where the building cooperative alone built 628 apartments. For the parish , Krämer also pushed ahead with the construction of the Church of St. Joseph . For health reasons, Krämer gave up the pastor's post at St. Cäcilia in 1967, but remained the first chairman of the building cooperative until 1972, which by then had built a total of 3,160 apartments, the majority of them private homes. Other building projects by Krämer include the construction of three churches, a hospital chapel, four kindergartens and three community centers. The large number of his building projects earned him the nickname "Baudekan". In 1972 he transferred his own property and buildings in Lohrtalweg to the Caritas Association of the Mosbach district.

Although he gave up active pastoral service in 1967 for health reasons, he continued to work in pastoral care for the elderly and in the pastoral care of the deanery, where he founded an entertainment program and an elderly gymnastics group. The last time he appeared in public was in 1985 on the 50th anniversary of the parish of St. Cäcilia, after which he rarely left his apartment due to his deteriorating health. He died on November 2, 1991.

Honors

• 1952: Spiritual Council of the Church Authority of Freiburg
• 1960: Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1964: Honorary Dean of the Freiburg Church Authority
• 1971: Decoration of honor in gold from the German Caritas Association
• 1972: Honorary citizen of the city of Mosbach

In Mosbach, the Dekan-Krämer-Weg is also named after him.

literature

• Erich Schneider: Josef Krämer. Pastor, Caritasmann, client, social politician , Buchen 1987.
• Josef Müller: In Memoriam Honorary Dean Josef Müller . In: Mosbacher Jahresheft 2001, pp. 81-104.
• Landtag of Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): MdL, The Members of the Landtag in Baden-Württemberg 1946–1978 . Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-12-911930-2 , p. 143.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Burr (ed.): Unitas manual . tape 5 . Verlag Franz Schmitt, Siegburg 2005, ISBN 3-87710-502-5 , p. 250 .