Karl Heinrich Hünersdorf

Hünersdorf with his wife Sophie on the day of the golden wedding, September 4, 1894

Karl (also Carl) Heinrich Hünersdorf (born September 21, 1817 in Zierenberg , † February 21, 1897 in Gotha ) was a German liberal local politician .

Life

Hünersdorf was born on September 21, 1817 in Zierenberg near Kassel and grew up in Kassel. His parents were the Hessian civil servant and later district administrator Friedrich Ludwig Hünersdorf and Katharine Wilhelmine Piton from a Huguenot family. At the age of 17, he first moved to the Hessian State University of Marburg for one semester to study law and political science , then to Heidelberg University .

Hanau

Hünersdorf did the preparatory service for the judge's office in Hanau and on May 1, 1844 he became a judge in Fulda , and in 1846 a judge in the criminal senate of the Hanau Higher Court.

In the years 1848 to 1850 Hanau became one of the centers of the “ March Revolution ” in Germany. This revolution was essentially supported and shaped by the liberal bourgeoisie; “Democratic” circles were what one would call extremist today. The judiciary, especially at the higher court, had a share in it. Friedrich Mackeldey (1793-1865), a co-author of the liberal constitution of the Electorate of Hesse from 1831 and from 1837 to 1846 Minister of Justice for the Electorate of Hesse, was director of the Hanau Higher Court in these years, also since 1846 . In March 1848 he took over the leadership of a delegation, which had the task of handing over to the elector a liberal-democratically founded petition by the Hanau city council. The elector did not receive the delegation.

In 1850 there was a trial of strength in Kurhessen. The Elector gave the impetus with the provocative disregard of a state parliament decision. In September the government fled into exile in Wilhelmsbad near Hanau before the steadily increasing riots in Kassel . In October the army went over to the revolution: 229 officers (out of a total of 257) submitted their resignation (only 48 were approved). The federal execution followed at the beginning of November: At the request of the Elector, the German Confederation sent Bavarian military to Hanau to protect the government. Farewell requests as a protest against the reactionary politics were also made by numerous officials and judges. Hünersdorf's request was one of those that the elector “graciously deigned to grant”. At the end of November 1850 he resigned from civil service.

In the following years, Hünersdorf worked as a lawyer in various positions. But his interest now turned to local politics. In 1852 he applied for the vacancy of the mayor of Hanau. He presented his thoughts on a planned development of the city to the city council after it had just been connected to the railway network and was elected mayor by a large majority on October 21, 1852, but was rejected by the elector. In November 1853, the city of Kassel hired Hünersdorf as city secretary - certainly with the intention of supporting his search for a suitable management position.

Gotha

In Gotha , one of the two residential cities of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a mayoral election was due in the summer of 1854 after the predecessor, Thankmar Bieber, returned to judicial service. Hünersdorf applied at very short notice (5.9.), On 8.9. elected on 12.9. confirmed by the duke and moved on 9/26. with his family from Kassel to Gotha. He was mayor of Gotha until he retired in 1890; on his 65th birthday (September 21, 1882), Duke Ernst II awarded him the title of "Lord Mayor". He died on February 21, 1897 in Gotha.

Local political activity

When he took office, Hünersdorf was primarily faced with two challenges that he was expected to overcome as a liberal politician: The city of Gotha had to be systematically adapted to the needs of the industrial age, as a business location and as a residential community. He had to reckon with the fact that the number of inhabitants would double during his term of office and the space requirement would multiply compared to the size of the old town. And secondly: the city of Gotha had to emancipate itself as a municipality from state leadership and direction. Urban development was a communal task, and it had to include the large land holdings of the ducal court and also be able to cross communal boundaries, if possible without conflict with the state and court.

Hünersdorf has been successful in both respects. He was able to rely on a few circumstances: As mayor of the royal seat, he had a seat and vote in the state parliament. For example, he was able to influence the school policy of the duchy. He was also able to rely on some influential upper-class business families - Arnoldi , Becker, Perthes - from pre-industrial times. And he was able to rely in particular on the fact that, unlike in Hessen-Kassel, there were liberal-minded men at the head of the state: Duke Ernst II and his Minister of State Camillo von Seebach .

Important development steps in the Hünersdorf administrative area were:

• 1855 Introduction of gas lighting in the streets and in the theater.
• 1858 Determination of street names and introduction of street-related house numbering (instead of the previous numbering of houses).
• 1859 and 1863 school reform laws of the state parliament: 1859 merging of the Ducal Realgymnasium and Gymnasium Illustre to the Gymnasium Ernestinum , 1863 a - widely observed - elementary school law. Occasionally Hünersdorf is referred to as his "father".
• 1863 Appointment of the German-Russian architect Ludwig Bohnstedt as "building senator".
• 1864 formation of a fire brigade.
• In 1865, 1870 and 1881 modern, spacious primary schools were built.
• 1870 The Gotha – Langensalza railway line opens . Creation of spacious industrial areas around Gotha Ost train station.
• 1871 to 1873 Creation of a public water supply with connection and use compulsory for all properties. Until then, it was hardly possible to enjoy unboiled water.
• From 1874 to 1885 an underground sewer system was created, which was also a prerequisite for the construction of apartment buildings.
• In the same years reforestation of forests near the city (Galberg, Kleiner Seeberg).
• 1877/78 construction of an urban - later nationalized - hospital next to the old infirmary on Erfurter Landstrasse. Until then, nursing was a matter of private charity. The hospital could accept up to 80 patients for inpatient care. In the years to come, additional buildings with a growing number of patients, doctors and nurses were built on the site. Subsequently, the so-called Seebergviertel with numerous single-family and rental houses was built in the neighboring district of the village of Siebleben.
• 1878 Construction of the new, spacious "Cemetery V" north of the city. The crematorium built on it was the first in Germany and the second in Europe after Milan.
• 1881 to 1890 paving of all streets in the old town.

From 1857 he was also a member of the Gotha state parliament .

family

Karl Heinrich Hünersdorf had been married to Sophie Breidenbach (1822–1905) since September 4, 1844. In 1845 their only son Ludwig Adolph was born. He died on January 13, 1857 in Gotha as a victim of a typhus epidemic. The couple then adopted a boy of about the same age, Carl. He became a bookseller and died in Stuttgart after 1928. Hünersdorf died in 1897 and was buried in cemetery IV on Galbergstrasse in Gotha. The grave furnishings have been lost since the cemetery was cleared and closed.

Honors

When he left office in 1890, Hünersdorf became an honorary citizen of Gotha. In 1894 the Fleischgasse in the old town of Gotha was named after him.

literature

• Max Berbig: Hünersdorf, in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB), Vol. 50, Leipzig 1905, page 513.
• Rolf Hohmann: Who was Karl Heinrich Hünersdorf ?, in: Hanauer Anzeiger, March 1991.
• Matthias Wenzel: "... so right a man after the heart of Gotha", in: Gothaer Allgemeine from February 15, 1997.
• Philipp Losch: History of the Electorate of Hesse 1803–1866, 1922.
• Alfred Tapp: Hanau in the Vormärz and in the revolution from 1848–1849, Hanau 1976.
• Kurt Schmidt: Gotha. The Book of a German City, Vol. 1: 1927; Vol. 2: 1938.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For this and the next paragraph, see the detailed descriptions in Losch and Tapp.
2. ↑ Hanau was bound to the approval of the sovereign because it had the status of a “royal seat”. From 1850 to 1855, the elector rejected all Hanau candidates ("Hanau Lord Mayor Roulette"). More at Hohmann.
3. ↑ See Wenceslaus. Apparently, Hünersdorf had an influential advocate in Gotha who is not yet known.
4. ↑ More details in Schmidt, Volume 1.
5. ↑ Berbig.
6. ↑ The first European crematorium was inaugurated on January 22nd, 1876 on the Cimiterio Monumentale in Milan (architect: Celeste Clericetti). See Werner Keyl: Reflections on the 100th anniversary of the crematorium in Gotha, in: Ernestinum, NF 64, Dec. 1978, page 218 f.
7. ↑ "Nerve fever" was the common name for typhoid at the time. See also Wenzel.