Paul Meyle

Paul Meyle (1955)

Paul Meyle (born September 13, 1900 in Ludwigsburg , † June 21, 1977 in Stuttgart ) was Lord Mayor of Heilbronn from 1948 to 1967 . The reconstruction of the city, which was completely destroyed in World War II, is considered to be his life's work .

Life

Paul Meyle was the son of an innkeeper and completed a commercial apprenticeship after school. In 1919 he joined the German Young Democrats . From 1929 to 1945 he was a businessman at the Heilbronn food manufacturer Knorr , most recently he held the position of authorized signatory. In the summer of 1945, after the end of the Second World War, he moved to the Heilbronn town hall, as there was nothing to sell at the Knorr company, which was subordinate to the military government, and politically unaffected men were sought in the council of the destroyed city to rebuild the community. His mayor's salary was initially paid by Knorr for a few months. In July 1946 he also became managing director of the IHK .

The Lord Mayors Emil Beutinger (1945-1946) and Paul Metz (1946-1948) were appointed by the military government and elected by the local council. Meyle belonged to the DVP and ran on April 11, 1948 for the office of Lord Mayor of Heilbronn, re-elected for the first time from the citizenship. Paul Meyle received 44.48% and Metz 44.54% of the vote, whereby none of the candidates received an absolute majority of the votes. In a runoff election on May 23, 1948, Meyle received 56.2% of the vote and thus won against incumbent Metz. When he was re-elected in 1954, he clearly prevailed with 28,640 votes against Walter Vielhauer (KPD) with 1,727 votes.

Inscription stone on the Wartbergsteige in Heilbronn

During Meyle's tenure from September 7, 1948 to September 6, 1967, almost the entire reconstruction of the city, which was completely destroyed after the air raid on Heilbronn on December 4, 1944, took place. More than 25,000 apartments, 25 schools, 21 gyms, 20 churches, countless public buildings, 15 Neckar bridges, etc.

At the foot of the Heilbronn Wartberg , a pair of curious inscription stones from 1952 and 1955 has been preserved. In the stone from 1952, an employee of the civil engineering department gives free rein to his displeasure with the " Swabian greeting " because he had not received the promised remuneration for building a vineyard staircase. Mayor Meyle had a rhymed answer from the same civil engineering office employee below it in 1955.

Meyle did not run for the mayor election in 1967. His successor was the SPD politician Hans Hoffmann .

Meyle was a member of the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg from 1964 to 1968 with a second mandate in the Heilbronn-Stadt constituency .

From 1958 to 1976 he was a member, at times chairman of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation . He was an honorary member of the board until his death.

Honors

When he left office, Meyle became an honorary citizen of Heilbronn , and the University of Tübingen made him an honorary senator . He was also the holder of the Theodor Heuss plaque and the Great Federal Cross of Merit . In addition, the Paul Meyle School for the mentally and physically handicapped in Heilbronn's Sontheim district is named after him.

Individual evidence

1. ^ The "Meyle stone" , Heilbronn city archive

literature

• Address book of the city of Heilbronn 1975 , list of honorary citizens
• City and district of Heilbronn . Theiss, Stuttgart and Aalen 1974, ISBN 3-8062-0121-8 (home and work)
• Uwe Jacobi: Heilbronn - The most beautiful years? Post-war period in a German city . Heilbronner Voice, Heilbronn 1984, ISBN 3-921923-01-8 (series on Heilbronn, 9)

Web links

Commons : Paul Meyle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files