Otto Bender (politician, 1847)

Otto Edmund Bender (born November 5, 1847 in Düsseldorf ; † May 6, 1904 in Gerresheim ) was mayor of the then independent city of Gerresheim near Düsseldorf for 26 years. During his tenure, Gerresheim developed from a small country town to an industrial suburb of Düsseldorf.

Life

Otto Edmund Bender was born as the seventh child of the Protestant teacher Johann Gottfried Bender and his wife Emma on November 5, 1847 in Düsseldorf. Bender attended the municipal high school on Klosterstrasse in his hometown , which he left in 1865 with the upper secondary qualification . Otto Bender then began a military career and took part in the Franco-German War as an officer in the 16th Infantry Regiment. He received several awards. After being injured, he retired from military service and became a civil servant. In 1875 Bender was appointed managing mayor of Voerde .

Otto Bender was confirmed as Mayor of Gerresheim on January 30, 1878, and took office on February 15, 1878. After two terms of office of twelve years each, the city council elected him unanimously as mayor for life on October 26, 1901. Soon afterwards, Bender's health deteriorated and when he announced that he wanted to retire, the city council decided to continue to grant the long-serving mayor the full salary even in retirement. While still in office, Otto Bender died on May 6, 1904 of the consequences of arteriosclerosis .

Act

Gerresheimer Rathaus in the former Katharinenberg monastery

One of the most important upheavals in Gerresheim's history spanning over a thousand years occurred during Otto Bender's term of office. The until then small and for over 300 years insignificant little Catholic country town developed in a quarter of a century into one of the most important industrial suburbs of the new city of Düsseldorf. Between 1871 and 1907 Gerresheim's population more than quintupled from 2971 to 15,314.

When Bender took office in 1878, he found numerous unfinished business, not least of which resulted from the municipal constitution. Gerresheim was designed as an integrated community . The three parts, including the city of Gerresheim, various honors , but especially the community of Erkrath , strived for independence. The different structures and the separate asset management of the individual municipalities made matters even more difficult.

When, shortly after Bender took office, the peace court was to be relocated from Gerresheim to Düsseldorf, Bender traveled to Berlin with the former judge Anton Fahne and the industrialist and alderman Ignaz Dreher. Due to Bender's relationships in Berlin, the decision that had already been made was reversed and Gerresheim kept his court, now in the form of a district court . Another of his early official acts was the relocation of the town hall to the former Katharinenberg monastery. Before that, the town hall was in rented rooms. Bender provided the city with a representative and spacious seat and at the same time saved 300 marks a year in costs, with a budget that had amounted to 15,000 marks in 1871. The town hall of Düsseldorf district 7 is still located here today . The expansion of the schools was impressive. Despite the strong population growth, the number of students per class could be kept the same. A total of five new school buildings were built, which are still in operation today.

The financial situation in Gerresheim had been precarious for a long time. In some emergencies, the city representative and richest citizen of the city, Ferdinand Heye , helped with generous donations. In return, the Heye family “allowed” certain freedoms, which Bender tacitly tolerated. Ferdinand Heye took part in just eight out of 58 city council meetings in three years. Mostly he was absent without excuse. In 1899 the Heye family moved their residence from Gerresheim to Holthausen , which at that time belonged to Benrath . With that, Gerresheim had lost its most important taxpayer. Some city council members were happy that the confident Heyes had left town. Meanwhile, Bender succeeded in persuading Hermann Heye to move back to Gerresheim. Bender prematurely granted Heye civil rights with a creative interpretation of the regulations.

Due to the constant quarrels with the Erkrath community, Bender supported their efforts to become independent. On April 1, 1900, Erkrath left the municipality of Gerresheim when it was raised to the status of an independent municipality.

Honors

As part of the incorporation of Gerresheim into Düsseldorf, the Neusser Strasse leading to Düsseldorf was renamed Benderstrasse on May 12, 1909. On August 17, 1909, the section on the Ludenberg area, Gerresheimer Strasse, was named after Otto Bender.

Otto Bender was given an honorary grave at the Gerresheimer Waldfriedhof .

literature

• Hugo Weidenhaupt : From Düsseldorf's past . Verlag der Goethe-Buchhandlung, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-924331-17-0 , pp. 72-78.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann Kleinfeld: Dusseldorf's streets and their names . Grupello, Düsseldorf 1996. ISBN 3-928234-36-6 . P. 70.