Michael Poeschke

Michael Georg Poeschke (born March 27, 1901 in Erlangen , † May 10, 1959 in Langenzenn ) was a German politician ( SPD ). He was Lord Mayor of Erlangen from 1946 to 1959 .

Life until 1933

Michael Poeschke was born the ninth child of a master tailor. From 1915 he completed an apprenticeship as a technical draftsman. In the same year he joined the socialist youth workers , whose Erlangen group he led from 1919 to 1923. In 1919 he joined the SPD. From 1923 he was editor of the Erlanger Volksblatt . In 1924 he was elected 1st chairman of the Erlangen SPD.

During the time of National Socialism

Poeschke was arrested in March 1933 and later taken to the Dachau concentration camp . At the end of April he was briefly dismissed for the opening of the Bavarian State Parliament , of which he had become a member after the new composition. He was unable to take part in the vote on the Bavarian Enabling Act on April 29, 1933, in which the SPD parliamentary group voted “No”; he had to be hospitalized for injuries sustained in detention.

On June 30, 1933, Poeschke was imprisoned again in the Dachau concentration camp. On June 20, 1934 he was dismissed, but banned from practicing his profession; he was also not allowed to return to Erlangen and therefore went to Upper Silesia as head of an insurance branch. In 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht .

After the Second World War

At the end of July 1945 Poeschke was released from captivity and returned to Erlangen. On August 6, 1945 he was appointed second mayor of the city of Erlangen. A good year later, on September 4, 1946, the Erlangen city council elected him to succeed Anton Hammerbacher as mayor of Erlangen. In this office he was confirmed in 1948 by the Erlangen city council and in direct elections in 1952 (92.4 percent of the votes against a candidate of the KPD ) and 1958 (57.8 percent against Heinrich Lades , CSU ). From 1945 Poeschke also belonged to the Central Franconian district assembly , of which he was president from 1954 to 1959.

During Michael Poeschke's term of office as Lord Mayor, the headquarters of Siemens-Schuckert-Werke were established in Erlangen, which later became part of Siemens AG . This made Erlangen a modern industrial city.

Poeschke was also involved in social housing, initially with the establishment of the “Social Housing Savings Campaign” in 1948, which was transferred to the municipal housing association GeWoBau in 1950. By 1956, GeWoBau had built 6,000 apartments.

Poeschke also supported the University of Erlangen , among other things as a re-founder of the University Association.

Grave of Michael and Frida Poeschke in the central cemetery in Erlangen

Michael Poeschke died on May 10, 1959 of a heart attack. Heinrich Lades (CSU) was elected as his successor. Michael Poeschke's wife Frida was Shlomo Lewin's partner after the death of her husband and murdered with him in December 1980 in Erlangen.

literature

• Walter Schweigert, Klaus Treuheit (Ed.): "... that man is a helper to man". 120 years of social democracy in Erlangen ; Erlangen 1990.
• H. Hedayati: Famous personalities born in Erlangen . Keyword Poeschke, Michael Georg; [2]

swell

1. ↑ On Poeschke's election results cf. Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium Erlangen: The last 50 years of Erlangen (archive version) ( Memento from March 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Erlanger Nachrichten: 1000 Years of Erlangen . Section “The way to the present, 03 Important milestones set”; quoted from [1]

predecessor	Office	successor
Ernst Koerner	District assembly president of Middle Franconia 1954–1959	Andreas Urschlechter