Paul Kretschmer (Mayor)

Paul Kretschmer (born October 28, 1910 in Rabishau ; † March 29, 1999 in Holzminden ) was a German local politician ( SPD ).

Career

Paul Kretschmer was born on October 28, 1910 in Rabishau district of Löwenberg in Silesia . From 1919 he attended grammar school in nearby Liebenthal , where he graduated from high school in 1927 . During the Weimar Republic , Kretschmer was involved in the SPD, of which he was a member until his death. He studied law in Breslau and Kiel until 1933 , where he passed the second state examination in law , returned to Rabishau and subsequently worked as an assessor at court. Paul Kretschmer married in 1939 and the marriage resulted in two daughters.

During the Second World War Kretschmer worked in the military administration in occupied Poland near Krakow . At the end of the war he was in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , but was able to evade capture and for the most part get to his native Rabishau on foot.

On July 16, 1946, he and his family were deported to Holzminden (Lower Saxony), together with most of the other rabish farmers, with the first wave of expulsions , where he accepted a position in the British city administration. In April 1948 Kretschmer was appointed city director. After his resignation as city director on March 31, 1972, he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Lower Saxony Minister of the Interior . He was then mayor of Holzminden from 1973 to 1981 and was a member of the city council until October 31, 1991. During this time, he played a decisive role in the successful integration of the approximately 10,000 East displaced persons into the long-established population as well as the economic and other development of the city to its present-day state. On his 75th birthday on October 28, 1985, he was awarded the Haarmann plaque for his services to the city, and on October 28, 1996 he was made an honorary citizen of Holzminden.

Paul Kretschmer was active as a writer and wrote a large number of poems, stories and speeches, the majority of which are related to his old and new homeland. Most famous is his work on the history of the city of Holzminden, which was published in 1981 under the title The Weser-Solling-City of Holzminden: how it became what it is .

Honors

• 1972: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1985: Haarmann badge from the city of Holzminden
• 1996: Honorary citizen of the city of Holzminden

Fonts

• The Weser-Solling-Stadt Holzminden: how it became what it is - Holzminden: Hüpke, 1981

literature

• The City Council , 1949

swell

• Daily Gazette from October 28, 2010: A Holzmindener with Silesian roots: Paul Kretschmer would have been 100 years old today