Peter Stern (politician)

Peter Stern (born May 25, 1852 in Cologne , † February 14, 1929 in Bad Godesberg ) was a German local politician and mayor of the city of Viersen .

education

Peter Stern passed his Abitur in 1871 at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne and completed his military service with a Rhenish field artillery regiment in 1871/72 . Subsequently, he began an administrative training course with the government in Cologne. There he began his service as a civil supernumerar on June 16, 1874. In 1882 he was appointed mayor of Hennef a. d. Appointed victory. In this position he applied for the mayor's office in Viersen, where he began his work in 1885. After his first term in office, he was confirmed as the first mayor of Viersen in 1896 because of his successes by all 23 city councilors.

Activity and earnings

At that time the city of Viersen was in a difficult financial situation. While 3386 handlooms were still in use in the predominant textile industry in 1880 , their number had fallen to 465 by 1893. Stern initiated a public welfare scheme by trying to alleviate the hardship by collecting emergency money and building a soup house. Due to the rise of the Kaisers coffee business with its headquarters in Viersen and the general economic upturn, numerous projects were later realized during his term of office:

• 1890 waterworks
• 1886 sewerage system
• 1887 slaughterhouse
• 1900 high school
• 1903 New building of the hospital
• 1905 power station
• 1906 tram and bathing establishment
• 1907 Lyceum
• 1913/14 Viersen festival hall .

Towards the end of the First World War, a workers 'and soldiers' council was formed in Viersen in November 1918 . In view of the general development, Stern refrained from hopeless resistance and cooperated with the 30-member workers and soldiers council. In the subsequent period of the Belgian occupation, the city had to comply with the orders of the local command. In his last years of service he bore the responsibility and burden of the war economy . In 1919, after 34 years of service, Stern gave up his post for health reasons and retired.

Peter Stern had been married since 1893 and had two sons and a daughter. He died after a short illness in Bad Godesberg in 1929.

Criticism of his administration

Despite all the recognition of his work, there was also criticism of his administration, which, when his re-election was due in 1908, caused eight members of the center to leave the meeting room, while the remaining 16 city councilors unanimously confirmed him in office for a further twelve years . In a review of June 28, 1919 , the Viersener Zeitung did not hide its negative sides as well as praise for his term of office. B. that he remained deaf to other, perhaps better, opinions and knew how to get his way through [...], that he gave little room for modern ideas in his politics, that with regard to the social question , to the needs of traffic, he relied on a healthy shaping of land policy often fails and that it has not had a fruitful influence on the artistic design of the urban structure .

Awards

• 1897 Order of the Red Eagle
• 1913 Lord Mayor (honorary award, which at that time only a few mayors of non-urban cities received)

During the First World War he was awarded:

• Cross of Merit for War Aid
• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd class
• Austrian war cross for civil service, 2nd class

• 1931 Viersener street name: Peter-Stern-Allee

Literature / sources

• Peter Stern: wartime and war economy in Viersen . Viersen 1921
• Various editions of the Viersener Zeitung between 1906 and 1919
• FW Lohmann: History of the city of Viersen from the oldest times to the present . Publishing house of the city of Viersen. 1913
• Marcus Ewers: The mayors of Viersen from 1800–1969. Part I: From the Napoleonic period to the end of the Empire . In: Heimatbuch des Kreis Viersen 2008 . Viersen 2007, p. 38ff.