Peter Gröning (Mayor)

Peter Gröning, engraving by Johann Georg Beck

Peter Gröning (* 1561 in Stargard in Pomerania ; † February 12, 1631 there ) was mayor of his hometown in the first half of the 17th century and founder of the Gröning Collegium , which existed as a grammar school until 1945.

Life

Peter Gröning was the son of the wheelwright and elderly man of the wheelwright guild Peter Gröning and his wife Gertrud Bellin. There is no reliable information about his childhood. At the age of twelve he is said to have left the city school and attended an ordinary writing and arithmetic school. In 1575 he entered the service of Stettin's court advisor and bailiff of Stolp Svante Tessen and accompanied him on trips through Pomerania and Poland to Russia . In 1578 he switched to the service of the castle captain of Bütow , Anton von Zitzewitz, for whom he also worked as a clerk. On the recommendation of Zitzewitz, he got a job in the office of Duke Ernst Ludwig von Pommern-Wolgast in 1580 . Ernst Ludwig sent him to the Pudagla office , where he was in charge of the grain stores in the former monastery. Then he worked in the rent office in Wolgast under the rent master Felix Husen. In 1584 he was rent master of the Jasenitz office .

In 1588 he resigned from the ducal service and returned to Stargard. There he soon married the councilor widow Margarete Neuenberg, who brought the house of her late husband Peter Neuenberg into the marriage, and was accepted into the sailing guild . As a merchant, he mainly traded in salt and agricultural products such as wool and grain and soon became wealthy. In 1591 he was elected to the city council. It has been handed down from his time as councilor that he took part in sightseeing trips on the Ihna and to Dammschen See to check the navigability of the waters. On August 21, 1608 he became a chamberlain . In addition to his trading business, he also acted as a moneylender.

In 1616 he was elected mayor of Stargard. The city had three mayors at that time, the other two were Thomas Mildenitz and Laurentius Bollhagen. When the plague claimed numerous lives in Stargard in 1625 , Peter Gröning felt compelled to write a will together with his wife. With the consent of his wife, with whom he had been childless for 37 years, he allocated 7,000 guilders from his assets to various foundations. The largest part, about 4,100 guilders, was earmarked for the support of student boys at the city school. His wife Margarete died on November 23, 1628, while Peter Gröning himself was seriously ill and Stargard suffered under the occupation of imperial troops under the leadership of Colonel Octavio Piccolomini . His second marriage was on October 3, 1630, when he married Barbara Maria von Suckow from Blankenhagen in Western Pomerania .

On January 28, 1631 he made his second will, in which he donated 20,000 guilders along with other legacies for the establishment of a college "for good, poor studying boys and journeymen". He died about two weeks later and was buried in a chapel he had donated in St. Mary's Church. The Gröning Foundation was confirmed on May 5, 1631 by Duke Bogislaw XIV , who also provided the necessary timber. The college was opened in 1633 and converted into a grammar school in 1812. It existed in this form until the end of World War II .

literature

• Martin Wehrmann : Stargard in Pomerania and its mayor Peter Groening . In: Baltic Studies . New series, vol. 33, issue 2, Leon Saunier, Stettin 1931
• Karl Blasendorff:  Groening, Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 720 f.
• Gottlieb Christian Teske: History of the city of Stargard . Stargard 1843, pp. 118-121 ( full text ).
• Gotthilf Samuel Falbe: History of the high school and the schools in Stargard together with the two wills of the well-deserved Mayor Gröning, the benevolent founder of the local high school . Stargard 1831 ( full text )