Paul Kempa

Paul Kempa was a businessman and politician ( CDU ) and from 1946 to 1948 the first freely elected mayor of Dorsten after the end of National Socialism .

Merchant and Mayor

Paul Kempa owned a textile shop in Dorsten. After the end of the Second World War he was a member of the provisional council that the British military government had appointed based on the last free election result of 1929. By taking over the seats of the former center , Kempas' newly founded CDU had an absolute majority in this body .

In this constellation, Kempa clearly prevailed in the municipal council's election as mayor on May 22, 1946, against the previous mayor Philipp Desoi , who was still appointed by the Allies and who was not partisan . In addition, Kempa was also chairman of the Dorstener Retail Association and, as councilor, a member of the city's economic committee. After the particularly harsh winter of 1946/47, the local SPD criticized him for holding back 100 blankets financially subsidized by the city in order to increase his personal profit as the operator of his textile business.

After the Dorsten businessmen had achieved the abolition of the previously applicable general shop building ban, Kempa was one of the first merchants to start rebuilding his textile business, which had been destroyed in the war, in September 1948. In the same month, his CDU party friend Paul Schürholz Kempas succeeded the mayor of Dorsten.

literature

• Frank Gläßner: At first they wanted to rebuild Dorsten elsewhere In: Wolf Stegemann (Ed.): Dorsten after zero hour. The years after 1945–1950 (Dorsten under the Hakenkreuz, Vol. 4), Dorsten 1986, pp. 100–108.
• Wolf Stegemann: The hardship of the early years . In the S. (Ed.): Dorsten after zero hour. The years after 1945–1950 (Dorsten under the Hakenkreuz, Vol. 4), Dorsten 1986, pp. 48–53.
• Wolf Stegemann: Practice in democracy. The first free elections took place in September 1946 . In the S. (Ed.): Dorsten after zero hour. The years after 1945-1950 (Dorsten under the Hakenkreuz, vol. 4), Dorsten 1986, pp. 86–89.

predecessor	Office	successor
Philipp Desoi	Mayor of the city of Dorsten 1946–1948	Paul Schürholz