Ludwig Hammers

Ludwig Hammers (born March 4, 1822 in Wassenberg , Heinsberg district , † June 3, 1902 in Düsseldorf ) was Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf for 27 years - from 1850 to 1876. During his term of office, Düsseldorf developed from a medium-sized civil servant city to an industrial city.

Life

Ludwig Hammers was born as the seventh child of a Prussian chief customs inspector and a French mother in Wassenberg in the Heinsberg district. The family moved to Uerdingen around 1834 , where the young Ludwig attended the local Progymnasium. From 1836 he was a student at the Royal High School in Düsseldorf , where he graduated from high school on August 31, 1841. He studied camera science in Bonn and Berlin . After completing his studies, the twenty-five year old volunteered for the military in Berlin for a year. He then quickly passed his auscultation exam and became a trainee lawyer with the Düsseldorf government . In August 1849, just 27 years old, Ludwig Hammers was appointed acting Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf. In 1862 he married Luise Hellweg, 19 years his junior, daughter of the Düsseldorf district court president. The couple had five children. Hammers resigned from the office of Lord Mayor in 1876. After that he worked for a short time at the Rhenish provincial administration and then withdrew into private life. Until his death on June 3, 1902, he still carried out numerous voluntary activities in the city, where he had been mayor for 27 years. A square located south of the Düsseldorf-Bilk S-Bahn station was named after Hammers.

Politics and Governance

As part of the new municipal code issued in 1850 , Hammers was elected mayor by the city council on August 6, 1850 for a twelve-year term. Industrialization in Düsseldorf had started only a few years earlier. In 1852 Hammers organized the first industrial exhibition in the Ständehaus in the old castle with the support of Masonic lodges . In 1862 Ludwig Hammers was unanimously re-elected.

In 1870, Hammers came under suspicion of corruption in connection with the municipal gas works . The allegations were ultimately refuted, but a certain amount of suspicion remained. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 he was accused of treating the French prisoners of war too well. In the context of the Kulturkampf he grew up with other opponents who accused the devout Catholic of " ultramontane endeavors ". Nevertheless, Hammers was again unanimously re-elected by the city council in January 1874. The opponents remained in the background, but caused a certain mistrust in Berlin, so that the confirmation of Kaiser Wilhelm I did not initially take place. It was only after several delegations from the city council, who traveled to the Interior Minister in Berlin, and Hammers' personal audience with the Kaiser, that the long-time mayor was confirmed again in November 1874. Nevertheless, the rumors about the gasworks affair flared up again. Hammers' demonstrative absence from an important council meeting on school policy caused a crisis of confidence. On April 23, 1875, the liberal majority of city councilors distrusted the mayor. In the gasworks matter, the government stated that the mayor "showed a lack of care and caution". There were violent arguments in the Düsseldorf press. On December 12, 1875, Ludwig Hammers announced his resignation "for health reasons". On August 1, 1876, he resigned from the service of the city of Düsseldorf.

literature

• Hugo Weidenhaupt : From Düsseldorf's past . Verlag der Goethe-Buchhandlung, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-924-331-17-0 , pp. 358–366.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Roland Emrich, Andreas Stephainski: time travel. 1200 years of life in Düsseldorf. AST Medien, Göttingen 2009. ISBN 978-3-9812527-3-6 . P. 64