List of honorary citizens of Görlitz
The city of Görlitz has granted the following people honorary citizenship.
In addition, Adolf Hitler was made an honorary citizen in 1933. This honor was revoked again in 1990.
Note: The list may not be complete. They are listed chronologically according to the date of award.
The honorary citizens of the city of Görlitz
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Friedrich Georg Henning von Oertzen
- District Administrator
- Awarded in 1849
- Awarded for services to the community.
-
Rösler
- Senior teacher
- Awarded in 1855
- Awarded for his services to the school system.
-
king
- District Court Director
- Awarded in 1857
- Awarded for its longstanding effectiveness.
-
Guisehardt
- Tax council
- Awarded in 1857
- Awarded for services to the community.
-
Count Helmuth von Moltke (born October 26, 1800 in Parchim; † April 24, 1891 in Berlin)
- Chief of the General Staff of the Prussian Army
- Awarded in 1871
- Awarded on the occasion of Siege u. a. in the Franco-German War 1870–1871.
-
Otto von Bismarck (born April 1, 1815 in Schönhausen; † July 30, 1898 in Friedrichsruh)
- Chancellor
- Awarded in 1871
- Awarded on the occasion of the founding of the German Empire.
-
Eduard Bethe
- Judicial Councilor, Bank Director and State Syndic
- Awarded in 1901
-
Otto Müller (born June 3, 1829 in Chemnitz, † April 26, 1908 in Görlitz)
- Secret Commerce Council
- Awarded in 1905
- Founded the city library and the Oberlausitz memorial hall.
-
Bolko Graf von Hochberg (born January 23, 1843 at Fürstenstein Castle, † December 1, 1926 in Bad Salzbrunn)
- Diplomat, artistic director and composer
- Awarded in 1910
- Initiated the Silesian Music Festival and the construction of the town hall of Görlitz.
-
Otto von Below (born January 18, 1857 in Danzig; † March 9, 1944 there)
- Commanding General of the Central Powers
- Awarded in 1917
- Commander of the 19 Görlitzer Courbiere. Von Below won a decisive victory over the Italians in the Battle of Karfreit in 1917.
-
Georg Snay
- Lord Mayor of Görlitz
- Awarded in 1927
- Adolf Hitler (born April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, † April 30, 1945 in Berlin)
- "Führer" and Reich Chancellor
- Awarded in 1933; revoked in 1990
- Adolf Hitler was hailed as the leader of the National Socialist movement, which had set itself the goal of making Germany the dominant power in Europe at the expense of other states. The National Socialists murdered at least 6 million people in the Holocaust on the basis of their racial ideology. Over 50 million people continued to die as a result of the Second World War, triggered by Hitler.
-
Paul von Hindenburg (born October 2, 1847 in Posen, † August 2, 1934 at Gut Neudeck)
- Field Marshal General of the German Army, Reich President
- Awarded in 1933
- Awarded on the occasion of Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor . Paul von Hindenburg was considered a legendary military man who had been an officer since the 1860s. During the First World War he was celebrated as the "Held von Tannenberg" who prevented the occupation of East Prussia by Russian troops. During his time as Reich President, he particularly embodied the conservative forces in the country. By appointing Hitler as Chancellor, he contributed - unknowingly - to the downfall of the Weimar Republic.
-
Richard Jecht
- Council archivist
- Awarded in 1933
- Richard Jecht was considered the most important historian of Upper Lusatia in the first half of the 20th century. His book The Topography of the City of Görlitz is still regarded today as irreplaceable.
-
Dorothea deserts
- Art ceramist
- Awarded in 1971
- Second wife of the resistance fighter Johannes Wüsten.
-
Hans Nathan (* in Görlitz)
- jurist
- Awarded in 1971
- From 1952 to 1966, Hans Nathan was Dean of the Law Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin.
-
Kurt Prenzel
- Lord Mayor of Görlitz
- Awarded in 1971
- Kurt Prenzel was Lord Mayor from 1946 to 1950. He then worked in the GDR Foreign Ministry until 1965.
-
Richard Rösner
- City councilor and resistance fighter
- Awarded in 1971
- Richard Rösner was a KPD member on the city council when the National Socialists came to power. He then became an active resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.
-
Lisbeth Rösner
- Resistance fighter
- Awarded in 1971
- Lisbeth Rösner was active as a member of the Horstmann group and with Johannes Wüsten against the National Socialists.
-
Wilhelm Senftleben (born January 23, 1905 in Görlitz; † May 11, 1992 in Großenhain)
- Mayor of Görlitz and resistance fighter
- Awarded on September 6, 1973
- Awarded on the occasion of the Day of the Victims of Fascism. Senftleben was active in the resistance group around Johannes Wüsten and spent several years in concentration camps.
-
Karl Wuerzburg
- 2. District Secretary of the SED in Görlitz
- Awarded in 1973
- Würzburg was a co-founder of Rot-Sport .
-
Max Reetz
- Head of the People's Police in Görlitz
- Awarded in 1974
- Max Reetz built the German People's Police in Görlitz from 1945 to 1951.
-
Elsa Puschmann
- City councilors
- Awarded in 1974
- Elsa Puschmann was a city councilor in Görlitz from 1919 to 1933 and from 1945 to 1950. Then she headed the People's Solidarity until 1961.
-
Hans Boettger
- Member of the SED district leadership and resistance fighter
- Awarded in 1974
- Hans Böttger was a member of the Red Front Fighters Association in the Weimar Republic . In the time of National Socialism he was active in the resistance. From 1946 to 1947 he worked in the Saxon SED district leadership.
-
Günter Hain (1916–1997)
- Draftsman and caricaturist
- Awarded in 1987
-
Heinz Funke
- Mediciners
- Awarded in 1987
- Heinz Funke was the medical director of the district hospital in Görlitz from 1955 to 1980.
-
Georg Klammt
- dentist
- Awarded in 1989
- Awarded for services in the field of orthodontics
-
Elisabeth New
- Plant manager of the Zittau textile combine, Görlitz branch
- Awarded in 1989
- Elisabeth Neu headed the plant for 31 years. In 1970, under her leadership, the classic weaving technology was replaced by nozzle technology.
-
Martha Jakob
- Director of VEB Nordstern
- Awarded in 1989
- Martha Jakob worked on the product council of the GDR wine industry and the Chamber of Technology .
-
Ernst-Heinz Lemper
- Art historian
- Awarded in 1989
- Lemper was director of the municipal art collections in Görlitz for many years.
-
Felix Wuttke
- engineer
- Awarded in 1989
- Felix Wuttke continued to develop welding technology. Contributions written by him in his field have been published several times.
-
Franz Scholz (born December 10, 1909 in Breslau, † September 1, 1998 in Groß-Umstadt)
- Priest and theologian
- Awarded in 1991
- Franz Scholz was pastor at the Görlitz Bonifatius Church east of the Neisse (today in Zgorzelec). As a theologian he was awarded the papal honorary title, among other things.
-
Else Levi-Mühsam (* May 8, 1910 in Görlitz; † June 3, 2004 in Jerusalem)
- librarian
- Awarded in 1992
- Else Levi-Mühsam lived in Israel for thirty years from 1934. After her return to Germany, she tried to make the work of her father, the writer Paul Mühsam, known again here.
-
Hans-Joachim Fränkel (born August 31, 1909 in Liegnitz; † December 21, 1996 in Marburg)
- Bishop and human rights activist
- Awarded in 1993
- Fränkel was a member of the Confessing Church. 1964 to 1979 he was bishop of the Evangelical Church of Silesia (from 1968 called the Evangelical Church of the Görlitz Church Area). After the Helsinki Final Act, he openly expressed the opinion that it was the task of the Church to defend human rights - also against the SED regime.
-
Gottfried Kiesow (born August 7, 1931 in Alt Gennin; † November 7, 2011 in Wiesbaden)
- Conservationist
- Awarded in 1995
- Kiesow was chairman of the German Foundation for Monument Protection. He initiated the Görlitz training center for handicrafts and monument preservation.
-
Hans Nadler (born July 1, 1910 in Dresden; † October 8, 2005 there)
- Architect and preservationist
- Awarded in 1995
- In his many years of work at the Institute for Monument Preservation, he saved numerous architectural monuments in Dresden and Görlitz; among them the ruins of the Dresden Frauenkirche.
-
Bernhard Huhn (born August 4, 1921 in Liegnitz; † September 14, 2007 in Görlitz)
- bishop
- Awarded in 1996
- Bernhard Huhn became auxiliary bishop in Görlitz in 1971. A year later he became the Bishop Administrator of the Apostolic Administration of Görlitz, which included the remainder of the Archdiocese of Breslau that remained in Germany and which today forms the Diocese of Görlitz. In 1994 he retired.
-
Wolfram Dunger (born October 9, 1929 in Zittau; † January 24, 2019)
- Director of the Natural History Museum
- Awarded in 1999
- Dunger made the Görlitz Natural History Museum an internationally recognized research institution. His research on post-mining landscapes is particularly well known .
-
Hildebrand Diehl (born July 2, 1939 in Wiesbaden)
- Lord Mayor of Wiesbaden 1997 to 2007
-
Achim Exner (born December 1, 1944 in Breslau)
- Lord Mayor of Wiesbaden 1985 to 1997
- Awarded in 2000
- Wiesbaden is the twin city of Görlitz. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Diehl and Exner organized emergency aid for the city and continued to work for the city partnership between Görlitz and Wiesbaden.
-
Horst Wenzel (born August 16, 1927 in Görlitz, † September 28, 2009)
- Author of books for young people, educator, author of regional cultural-historical works, leading representative of the Evangelical Church
- Awarded in 2008