Richard Peters (Mayor)

Richard Peters (born July 16, 1872 in Eschershausen ; † April 5, 1956 in Northeim ) was mayor of Northeim from 1903 to 1934 .

Term of office as mayor

In 1903 Richard Peters, then 31 years old, became mayor. From September 1, 1919 to 1920, he was a member of the Provincial Parliament of the Province of Hanover as a successor to Max Kricheldorff . Peters led the city administration for over 30 years, making it the longest tenure of Northeim mayor in the 20th century. His term of office took place in three different forms of government ( Empire , Weimar Republic , National Socialism ). During Peter's tenure, Northeim's population grew from around 7,900 to around 11,000. Numerous important public buildings were also built at that time, including the Scharnhorst barracks (1915).

On the occasion of his 25th anniversary in 1928, a street in Northeim was named after him, the Bürgermeister-Peters-Strasse, which had only been increasingly developed from 1925 onwards. Peters moved into a house there in 1935. In 1940 the name was finally changed to Karl-Dincklage-Straße, named after a party functionary of the NSDAP . After the Second World War , the street got its real name again.

Impeachment by the Nazis

The non-party Richard Peters was not removed from office immediately after the National Socialists came to power in January 1933. In March, the local group leader of the NSDAP Ernst Girmann was appointed deputy mayor. When Peters went on vacation in the early summer of 1933, the National Socialists used the temporary vacancy in the town hall to illegally transfer the mayor's office to Girmann - who did not have the legal requirements for the mayor's post at the time. Peters could stay at home until further notice, he was informed. In June 1933, impeachment proceedings were initiated against the mayor, which in March 1934 led to his official resignation from office. With him, his confidante Adolf Galland left the city administration. Galland became city director after the Second World War.

After 1945

After 1945, at the age of 73, Peters was to become mayor of Northeim again. However, he refused. He died on April 5, 1956 in Northeim.

literature

• Beatrix Herlemann , Helga Schatz: Biographical Lexicon of Lower Saxony Parliamentarians 1919–1945 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen. Volume 222). Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 2004, ISBN 3-7752-6022-6 , p. 273.

Individual evidence

1. ^ No turning back after vacation , in: Northeimer Latest News from June 20, 2013