Josef Lenders

Karl Josef Lenders (also Karl Joseph Lenders ; * 1755 ; † 1855 in Bonn ) was electoral Cologne bailiff as well as canton commissioner and Maire von Neersen during the French period .

Life

He came from a patrician family in Neuss . His father, Johann Andreas Lenders, was temporarily mayor of the city of Neuss. After completing a law degree at the University of Cologne, he entered the administration of the Electorate of Cologne. In 1780 he acquired the successor to the Cologne court councilor Johann Gottfried von Mastiaux in exchange for 5000 Reichstaler compensation in his place as administrator or bailiff of the Neersen winery (including Anrath and Clörath ) and took his official residence in Neersen Castle . As a bailiff he had a wide range of administrative and minor judicial duties. The broad allocation of functions and the relatively weak central authority control over the lower administrative areas allowed him to make extensive use of his competencies. There are complaints of the Neersener on record with the Cologne elector that he interprets the subordinate duties of the residents excessively to their disadvantage and acts as a kind of local tyrant.

In the course of the First Coalition War , French revolutionary troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine in 1794, including Neersen on October 9, 1794. Lenders then revealed himself to be friendly to the revolution and subsequently worked with the occupiers. He recommended himself for the position as cantonal commissioner ( commissaire du directoire exécutif près les administrations municipaux ), which was entrusted to him after the formation of the cantons by the French administration on February 19, 1798. In addition to his official duties, he also worked as a notary from 1798 . As cantonal commissioner, he was responsible for ensuring that government directives were implemented. He stood out among his superiors in particular by bringing together an above-average number of so-called Reunion addresses in his canton. With these petitions from the citizens of the canton, who asked for the canton to join France, the directorate originally wanted to support its claims to the left Rhine area at the Rastatt peace congress . At the outbreak of the Second Coalition War , he was obliged to recruit soldiers from the population, which aroused their displeasure as well as his measures against the public practice of the Catholic religion, such as the removal of all publicly displayed crosses. In front of the Neersen Castle, he had the usual " freedom tree" planted, which gave the people around him cause for ridicule and contempt. For example, in defending against robber gangs, he also vigorously advocated the interests of his canton. He evidently had his own interests in mind when, following his preference for Neersen and the castle there, he arbitrarily moved the seat of the canton from Osterath, which was planned by the central administration in January 1798, to Neersen. Lenders prevailed against the displeasure of the Osteraths and the higher authorities, and Neersen became the seat of the canton on May 12, 1798, despite its relatively small size and importance. In September 1798 he campaigned for Neersen to be separated from the parish of Anrath and raised to an independent parish with the monastery church of the Neersen Minorite Monastery as a parish church.

Lenders' work as commissioner soon ended when Napoleon Bonaparte centralized the entire administrative system after his coup against the Directory in Paris on November 9, 1799. The functional level of the cantonal commissioners was abolished and the lower level of the maires and councilors upgraded. The canton of Neersen was divided into 11 Mairien and 25 municipalities. In 1799 Lenders changed to the office of the first Maire of Mairie Neersen, which consisted of Neersen, Anrath, Clörath and Kehn . Lenders' authoritarian behavior and his preference for Neersen earned him the displeasure of the Anrath citizens, who protested against him in 1801 at the prefect of the Rur department and unsuccessfully demanded an independent Mairie Anrath. However, the protest prompted the prefect to decide to exchange Lenders in 1801 for Johann Gottfried Spennes, who was born in Anrath.

Relieved of his public office, he was left with his work as a notary, which, however, did not keep him busy. He then distinguished himself by buying national goods. In the autumn of 1803 he bought Neersen Castle, including its land and buildings, for 24,100 francs (a multiple of the original estimate). For a not much smaller amount, he also acquired the castle mill in Neersen and the manor Haus Hülsdonk . In addition, until 1811 he leased eight arable estates in Willich and two each in Clörath and Kleinkempen in the same canton , which should have elevated him to the rank of the locally leading agricultural producer. In 1810 he resolutely advocated the transfer of ownership of the former monastery and church, which had been confiscated by the French state in the course of secularization , to the community of Neersen; the donation was made in 1812.

In his old age, in 1827, Lenders moved to Godesberg and later to Bonn. He died there in 1855, a good three weeks after his 100th birthday.

From his marriage to Helena Godula Lenders, née Pfeiffer, he had several children who lived in Neersen Castle until 1850 and leased it from 1852. His grandson Hugo Lenders finally sold the castle in 1894.

literature

• Peter Vander: Josef Lenders. The last bailiff at Neersen Castle. In: Heimatbuch des Grenzkreis Kempen-Krefeld. 6th edition, 1954, pp. 45-48.
• Stephan Laux: The patronage "Saint Napoleon" in Neersen (1803-1856). A contribution to the reception of Napoleonic propaganda in the Rhineland. In: Jörg Engelbrecht, Stephan Laux (Hrsg.): Landes und Reichsgeschichte. Festschrift for Hansgeorg Molitor for his 65th birthday (= studies on regional history. Volume 18). Bielefeld 2004, pp. 351-381.
• Johann Peter Lentzen, Franz Verres: History of glory Neersen and Anrath. Lentzen, Fischeln 1883.

Web links

• Sibille Jäger: The work of the bailiff Karl Josef Lenders at buergerverein-anrath.de