Karl Rothe (politician, 1865)

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Karl Rothe around 1920

Karl Wilhelm August Rothe (born February 20, 1865 in Leipzig ; † January 20, 1953 there ) was a German lawyer and local politician in Leipzig.

Live and act

Pfandbrief from Leipziger Hypothekenbank with Rothes signature
Rothe at the former Petershof exhibition center (2014)

Karl Rothe was the fifth of seven children of a grocer . After he first attended the First Citizens' School on the Moritzbastei , he later became a student at the Nikolaischule . From 1883 he studied alongside law as a major economy , art and archeology , first in Munich , then at the University of Leipzig , where he in 1888 to Dr. jur. received his doctorate. After legal activities in Wolkenstein and Leipzig, he was a city councilor in Meißen from 1893 to 1896 and, when he was only 30 years old, temporarily managing mayor there. From 1896 to 1901 Rothe was director of Leipziger Hypothekenbank , later chairman of the supervisory board. Since his job at the bank did not fill him, he ran as a city councilor in Leipzig in 1899 and became head of the city council's assembly in 1909.

On January 2, 1918, after nearly twenty years of experience in local politics, he became mayor of the city of Leipzig and thus ex officio member of the first chamber of the Saxon state parliament until its dissolution in November 1918 . He held the office of Lord Mayor until he reached retirement age and left on April 4, 1930. He led the city through the difficult years of the end of the First World War , the November Revolution , inflation and the beginning world economic crisis and was able to boast considerable success.

During his tenure, especially through the expansion of the technical fair grounds , the Leipziger Messe developed into an internationally leading trade fair. The tobacco shop on the Brühl also continued to flourish. In 1918 the Leipzig tram was taken over by the city and in 1920 the zoo too . There were built cityscape formative buildings such as the Kroch skyscraper and the European House on Augustusplatz, the first underground exhibition hall in the world, the Grassi Museum and the wholesale market with the largest at their time of massive domes in the world. Rothe was immortalized as a balustrade figure at the Petershof exhibition center, which was built from 1927 to 1929 .

Member of the German People's Party since 1918 , Rothe criticized the National Socialists' party program in 1932. In 1933 he was declared a non-person and removed from all honorary posts. He spent the following years withdrawn. After 1945 he put his strength back into the service of the city. He became a city councilor for the LDPD and resigned from his seat in 1948 after conflicts with the SED.

Karl Rothe grave (2011)

On January 20, 1953, Karl Rothe died after a long illness at the age of 87 in Leipzig. He was buried in the Leipzig South Cemetery (XVII. Department).

family

In 1893 Rothe had married Elisabeth Gehricke, the daughter of a private scholar in Meissen. The couple had four children, a son and three daughters.

Son Hans (1894–1977) was a writer, dramaturge and translator. In 1934 he fell out of favor with the National Socialists, left Germany and lived abroad until his death, from 1952 with US citizenship.

Daughter Edith (born November 11, 1897 in Leipzig, † January 29, 1989 in Heidelberg ) worked as a librarian on the manuscript catalog of the Moritzburg Palace Library from 1928 (lost during the war), was the director of the Leipzig City Library from 1945 to 1951 and moved after she was sick Father had cared for until his death, 1965 to Heidelberg.

Honors

In 1909, the University of Leipzig awarded Karl Rothe an honorary doctorate (Dr. phil. Hc) on the occasion of its 500th anniversary.

In 1923 he campaigned for the Dresden University of Veterinary Medicine to be transferred to the University of Leipzig, for which the University of Leipzig's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine awarded him an honorary doctorate.

While still alive, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, the Leipziger Prendelstrasse, where he lived at No. 1, was renamed Karl-Rothe-Strasse. The renaming was reversed by the National Socialists in 1933, but reintroduced in 1945.

On the 40th anniversary of his death in 1993, a memorial plaque with his portrait, donated by a friend of Rothe's grandchildren and designed by Harald Alff and Karsten Kunert, was attached to his former home - since 1997 on the successor building.

literature

  • Karin Kühling and Doris Mundus: Leipzig's ruling mayors from the 13th century to the present. Sax-Verlag, Beucha 2000. pp. 66-67
  • Katrin Löffler, Iris Schöpa and Heidrun Sprinz: The Leipziger Südfriedhof. Edition Leipzig 2000. p. 154
  • Doris Mundus: City father in the "golden" twenties. Lord Mayor Karl Wilhelm August Rothe. In: Leipziger Blätter 41 (2002), pp. 81–82
  • Horst Riedel, Thomas Nabert (ed.): Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z . 1st edition. Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , pp. 511-512 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The history of the LVB ( Memento of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Christian Mannschatz: "... always in the potatoes, out of the potatoes ..." - The life path of the Leipzig librarian Edith Rothe (1897–1989) . In: BIS - the magazine of the libraries in Saxony . tape 2 , 2009, p. 108-111 ( PDF ).
  3. ↑ Gina Klank, Gernoth Griebsch: Encyclopedia Leipziger street names . Ed .: City Archives Leipzig. 1st edition. Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 118 .
  4. ^ Image of the Rothe memorial plaque. Retrieved February 13, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Rothe, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rothe, Karl Wilhelm August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and local politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1953
Place of death Leipzig