Matthias Deckers

Matthias Deckers (born September 16, 1802 in Deutz , † June 30, 1875 in Eschweiler ; also written Mathias Deckers) was a German Roman Catholic pastor. The dean was the founder of a rectorate school and a hospital in Eschweiler.

Life

Matthias Deckers was ordained a priest on April 14, 1830 , and on September 1, 1840 he was appointed pastor of Eschweiler. Since April 29, 1853 he was the country dean and school inspector for the parishes in the Deanery Eschweiler. During his term of office, among other things, the founding of the church building association on Pump-Stich and the reconstruction of the disused “Friedrich-Wilhelm-Schacht” there of the Grube Centrum of the EBV into a church as well as the benediction of the Mariadorfer church for the “Immaculate Conception”. His time was marked by the industrial boom in the Eschweiler ( Inderevier ) area and by new churches due to the rapidly increasing population. In 1845, the Röher Church , built in 1843, was consecrated and raised to a parish church, in 1900 the Bergrath Church, in 1908 the Röthgener Church.

In March 1848, when Decker founded the church school and the hospital, broke revolutionary turmoil and a Eschweiler vigilante was established that on the Dürwißer road to a battalion joined the Infantry Regiment 34 from Aachen.

After his death, the pastoral position remained vacant for several years as a result of the Kulturkampf in Prussia and is administered by chaplain Leopold Neuhöfer.

In the mid-1930s , the street west of Eschweiler Burg was named Dechant-Deckers-Straße in his honor.

Establishment of schools

Grabenstrasse 11 (2006)

In 1848 Dechant Deckers founded a rectorate school for boys in Eschweiler, which he called the private school Eschweiler Bürger with mainly church support and mainly church management . The municipal council, on the other hand, showed a wait-and-see and sometimes negative attitude. It was the first rectorate school in the Aachen district . Classes began on March 8, 1848. Deckers was also the school inspector.

The school was financed by school fees and donations and was initially located in two rooms in the rented " Reuleaux 's house", a residential building at Grabenstrasse 11 . In the first few years the rooms are sufficient for 40 to 45 boys.

In 1853, the Prussian administration recognized it as a higher rectorate school , and in 1858 Eschweiler, which had just received Prussian town charter, took over the school as a school authority and rented an outbuilding for the rectorate school in the castle which the parish had recently acquired for 12 years. In 1862 (in other sources 1879) the school was converted into a Progymnasium , the oldest in the Aachen district and the only one in the 19th century. Head was Rector Peter Joseph Liesen. In 1905 the school was a full high school (today: Städtisches Gymnasium), and the first Abitur was taken, also the first in the Aachen district.

In 1870 a Catholic secondary school for girls was founded under the direction of Dean Deckers. In 1872 she moved to the Kirschenhof , and in 1873 the sisters of the poor child Jesus took over the management.

Foundation of the hospital

From 1821 to 1840 Anton Ackermann was pastor of St. Peter and Paul . Matthias Deckers was his successor. In 1846 the "Kappertz'sche Haus" at Hauptstrasse 324 (today: Dürener Strasse 93 , later demolished for road expansion) was largely acquired from Ackermann's estate and inherited on March 12, 1848 by the parish for the purpose of a hospital with a grant of 1,650 thalers. In honor of Anton Ackermann, it is called St. Antonius Hospital . After the hospital license was granted, Dechant Deckers became chairman of the administrative commission in 1853. In the period up to his death, a plan for a new building was drawn up, the Eschweiler Castle was bought for this purpose, a provision contract was signed with the "poor sisters of St. Francis" and the hospital was rebuilt and expanded.

literature

• 150 years of St. Antonius Hospital. Festschrift, Eschweiler 2003.
• Leo Braun: street names in Eschweiler. Eschweiler 2005, p. 43.
• Series of publications by the Eschweiler History Association , vol. 14.

Web links

• The school was founded in the revolutionary year of 1848. Homepage of the municipal high school in Eschweiler, accessed on July 15, 2016

Remarks

1. ↑ The mix-up of the years 1862 and 1879 when converting to a Progymnasium may be due to the fact that another school started teaching in Eschweiler in 1879, namely the private secondary girls' school licensed by the Royal Government.