Louis guest

Louis Gast (born August 17, 1819 in Wittenberg , † April 18, 1882 in Dresden ) was a merchant and honorary citizen of Wittenberg .

Life

Louis Gast was born on August 17, 1819 in Wittenberg . Gast initially founded a cutlery shop in Wittenberg. As this business was bad, Gast dissolved it in August 1847. Instead, he took over the main agency of the Magdeburg Fire Insurance Company from his brother. In the thirty-seventh year of his life, Gast switched to Dresden as a businessman in 1856 , where he died on April 18, 1882.

After the wars from 1864 to 1871, Prussia focused on stabilizing its power and used all means to achieve this, thereby neglecting educational opportunities, especially for the poorer population. Gast knew the misery, so on May 10, 1871, he donated 500 thalers to the Wittenberg advanced training school "to give poor children free education". Later this school received another 300 marks. The high school, at that time a state school, could not be attended by the poor pupils. Here he intervened and transferred 3,000 marks to the council of the city of Wittenberg so that the less well off could enjoy a higher education. For the “Kinderbewahranstalt” of the former municipality of Kleinwittenberg , Gast handed over 200 thalers for the construction itself, and another 100 thalers were intended to be used to purchase teaching material. Gast's basic attitude is particularly evident in the transfer of 5,000 marks in capital when he decided on August 17, 1880 that the interest of 200 marks a year should reward male or female capable workers, but he deliberately included “state and city officials , Military personnel, people of noble origin and those who receive a pension ”assume.

On July 11, 1871, Gast agreed to establish a library in his hometown by purchasing and donating a number of books. The basis of the public library in Wittenberg, which opened on January 1, 1872, consisted of 136 books of “instructive and useful” content. Gast also contributed 100 thalers for new acquisitions. Initially, the library was in a classroom at the boys' school on Jüdenstrasse and was only open one hour a week. In 1873 he again donated 100 thalers, stipulating that the interest on this capital should be used to supplement and expand the library. Gradually the number of readers increased and the number of books grew, through further voluntary donations, in 1875 to 568 volumes and in 1882 to 1250 volumes. In 1881 Louis Gast had once again given the library a sum of 3,000 marks. In 1916 the public library moved to the bourgeois girls' school, on August 1 the location moved to the Gröting bank on Markt (formerly Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 39) and since April 30, 1964, it has been located in Schlossstrasse 7 as the city library the Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

On November 8, 1875, Gast donated a considerable amount of money to the city ​​of Wittenberg , which was to be used for charitable purposes. The then mayor Dr. Schild therefore called a meeting for November 26th with the boards of the charities in the city at the time. The boards of directors of the Luther Foundation, the Fatherland Women's Association, the Evangelical Youth Association, the infant care facility and the boys' rescue center jointly decided to pool the existing and not yet committed capital of all charity foundations in the city and to aim at building a retirement home. As a result of this initiative, the Kaiser Wilhelm Augusta Hospital was founded. As an urban retirement home in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, it is still on the corner of Berliner Strasse and Breitscheidstrasse.

"Because of the warm interest shown in his hometown, in particular also because of the public library he founded and donated a capital," Louis Gast was granted honorary citizenship on December 23, 1874 . The Gaststraße in the Friedrichstadt district of Wittenberg bears his name today.

literature

• Wittenberger Kreisblatt from 1847
• Erhardt Mauersberger: One hundred and ten years of public library work in Lutherstadt Wittenberg (1872–1982). In: Studies on book and library science. Volume 3 Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1983, p. 49
• Jens Hüttmann, Peer Pasternack: Traces of knowledge, education and science in Wittenberg after 1945. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, 2004
• Heinrich Kühne : Stories about Wittenberg from old and new times. In: Series of publications by the Wittenberg City History Museum. City History Museum Lutherstadt Wittenberg, 1988, part 12,
• Wolfgang Böhmer : On the history of the Wittenberg health and social system part III - the 19th century. In: Series of publications by the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Wittenberg Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, 1984, part 7,
• Richard Thomas: An (almost) forgotten Wittenberger-Louis guest. Merchant, patron and honorary citizen. In: Heimatkalender 2020. The Heimatbuch for the city and district of Wittenberg. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, 2020, ISBN 978-3-942005-75-3 , 23rd year, p. 84 ff.,