Theodor Spitta

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Theodor Spitta (born January 5, 1873 in Bremen , † January 24, 1969 in Bremen) was a German politician ( DDP , BDV and FDP ), mayor and senator in Bremen .

biography

family

Spitta came from a Calvinist family from Flanders who fled to the Palatinate in the 16th century and then came to Bremen via the Braunschweig / Hanover area. A great uncle was the theologian and poet Philipp Spitta (1801-1859), an uncle was his son, the musicologist of the same name Philipp Spitta (1841-1894). The merchant family then based in Bremen was always politically active. His grandfather Arnold Duckwitz , father of Spitta's deeply religious and influential mother Meta (1837–1909), was Bremen's mayor. Spitta's father, who died in 1881, was a versatile businessman.

Spitta was born in 1900 with Paula. Lisco (1881–1961) married; the couple had nine children. Three sons died in World War II, including the son Walter (1903-1945), Protestant pastor and leading member of the Confessing Church in the Oldenburger Land . His daughter Eva married the sculptor Klaus Bücking in 1945 .

education and profession

Spitta grew up in a bourgeois home and attended Friedrich Grobe's private preschool . From 1883 to 1892 he graduated from the old grammar school . From 1890 to 1892 he was a member of the primary club of this school. After graduating from high school, he studied law and economics at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau , the University of Munich , the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin and the University of Erlangen from 1892 to 1896 , where he obtained a doctorate in 1896 with a thesis on sea loans. jur. received his doctorate. He traveled to Egypt , Palestine , England and the USA from 1895 to 1899 . From 1896 he worked as a trainee lawyer. In 1900 he established himself as a lawyer in Bremen . In the time of National Socialism he was u. a. again working as a lawyer.

politics

Empire

In 1905 Spitta was elected a member of the Bremen citizenship for the academic class . He became a member of the legal and three other commissions or deputations . He vigorously defended the eight-class suffrage in Bremen and was an opponent of the growing social democrats . In 1911 he was a Mansion (chair of the council of Bremen's land area) for senator in the Senate of Bremen selected. He was also involved in legal and financial issues. In the First World War he was a representative of a conservative and national, but also European attitude. He was a member of the food commission.

Weimar Republic

In 1918 Spitta was a staunch opponent of the Bremen Soviet Republic . In the Weimar Republic he was a member of the German Democratic Party (DDP) (from 1930 German state party ). He is said to have campaigned for a liberal and social democracy. From April 9, 1919 to July 9, 1920 he was a member of the provisional Bremen Senate and was the authoritative author of the state constitution from 1920, which was in force until 1933. From July 9, 1920 to April 17, 1928 he was the deputy mayor (see Bremen mayor ) of the President of the Senate Martin Donandt . He was then a senator until the National Socialists came to power in the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen on March 16, 1933. During his tenure in the Senate, he participated in the reforms of the education system and was then chairman of the examination board responsible for finance and the judiciary. After the resignation of Mayor Karl Deichmann and Deputy President of the Senate on April 1, 1931, he became his successor.

time of the nationalsocialism

Spitta unsuccessfully rejected the National Socialists' claims to power . After the withdrawal of the three Social Democratic Senators on March 6, 1933, forced by the National Socialists, the rest of the Senate with Donandt and Spitta at the top had to resign on March 16, 1933. His activity during the Nazi era was initially limited to the church. At the beginning of the war, the 66-year-old was asked to work at the desk, in the textiles reference office, then in the legal department of the governing mayor and SA group leader Böhmcker , appointed by the Reich governor for Oldenburg / Bremen, Carl Röver , in whose funeral Spitta took part in 1944. On Böhmcker's order, he wrote the text “Bremen's German Mission”; the brochure published on July 1, 1939 on the occasion of Hitler's visit to Bremen, which was then canceled, “revels in combat metaphor, underlines the topos of blood and soil ”. Spitta lost his valuable library in 1942 when his house was bombed.

Federal Republic

In 1945, Spitta co-founded the Bremen Democratic People's Party (BDV), which later became the regional association of the FDP. On June 5, 1945, he was appointed Senator for Justice by the American Military Government and Mayor as representative of Governing Mayor Erich Vagts . After the replacement of Vagts the Senate elected him on 1 August 1945 proposal by Wilhelm Kaisen mayor as deputy to the President of the Senate in the Senate Kaisen I . After the state elections on November 28, 1946, he was re-elected to the Senate. He continued to hold justice, constitution, and ecclesiastical affairs and remained mayor. He held the offices until December 28, 1955. For Bremen, he took part in the constitutional convention on Herrenchiemsee for the constitution .

Since the summer of 1945, the new Bremen District Court President Diedrich Lahusen and Justice Senator Theodor Spitta have been campaigning for the reinstatement of the dismissed jurists because - so their argumentation - “without the former judges and prosecutors, the courts would soon be under the burden the proceedings collapse. The judiciary, however, can only fight effectively against crime if proven staff is employed - if necessary, former party members too. "

As in 1920, Spitta drafted the Bremen state constitution in 1947, which came into force in 1947. From 1945 to 1947 he worked closely with his legal advisor, Karl Carstens .

After leaving in 1955, he retired from active politics. However, he was still active in the FDP to a limited extent and worked on a voluntary basis in the town hall on commenting on the constitution.

In January 1969, the 96-year-old fell while entering the town hall - hit by a heavy, slamming door. Theodor Spitta died on January 24, 1969 as a result of this fall.

Honors

Writings and certificates issued from the estate

  • “No other consideration than the common best”. Letters and speeches. With a contribution by Karl Carstens . Published by Hans-Albrecht Koch and Anna-Katharina Wöbse, Bouvier, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-416-02719-1, on behalf of the Theodor Spitta Society .
  • End of the bourgeoisie. Diary viewing 1942. Published by the State Center for Political Education of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Edition Temmen , Bremen 1994, ISBN 3-86108-241-1 .
  • New beginning on ruins. The diaries of Bremen's Mayor Theodor Spitta 1945–1947. Edited by Ursula Büttner and Angelika Voss-Louis, with an introduction by Werner Jochmann , Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-486-55938-9 .
  • Out of my life. Citizen and Mayor in Bremen. List, Munich 1969.
  • As editor: Hermann Apelt : Speeches and writings. Hauschild, Bremen 1962.
  • Commentary on the Bremen Constitution of 1947. Schünemann , Bremen 1960.
  • Dr. Martin Donandt - Mayor of Bremen. A picture of life and time in Bremen. Storm, Bremen 1948 (in individual passages abridged and modified edition of the book from 1938).
  • Bremen's German broadcast. Published on behalf of the Governing Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen SA. -Gruppenführer Böhmcker on the occasion of the Fuehrer's visit on July 1, 1939. Bremen 1939 (writing without indication of the author, assigned to Theodor Spitta), DNB 576473898 .
  • Dr. Martin Donandt - Mayor of Bremen. A picture of life and time in Bremen. Recorded for the Donandt family by Theodor Spitta. as hand-written, Belserdruck, Stuttgart 1938.

See also

literature

  • Herbert Black Forest : Theodor Spitta . In: Famous Bremer , Munich 1972, pp. 295–332.
  • Herbert Black Forest: The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 826 f.
  • Rebecka Schlecht: Two voices on the revolution. Adam Frasunkiewicz and Theodor Spitta. In: Eva Schöck-Quinteros, Ulrich Schröder and Joscha Glanert (eds.): Revolution in Bremen. "The whole of the German Reich stands against us today." Bremen 2018, ISBN 978-3-88722-760-9 , pp. 13–34.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://grabsteine.genealogy.net/tomb.php?cem=135&tomb=8979&b=&lang=de .
  2. ^ Heinrich Höpken: Spitta, Walter. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , p. 681 f. ( online ).
  3. ↑ cf. https://www.weser-kurier.de/bremen/bremen-stadt_artikel,-ein-kleiner-mann-mit-grosser-ffekt-_themenwelt,-weihnachten-_arid,1659447_twid,11.html .
  4. ^ Theodor Spitta, Bremen's German broadcast, ed. in the order d. Reg.-Mayor d. Free Hanseatic City of Bremen SA group leader Böhmcker, Bremen 1939 [1]
  5. ^ Joachim Dyck: Benn and Bremen. Bremen 2013, ISBN 978-3-79611016-0 , p. 58.
  6. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/zeitgeschichte/deutschlandarchiv/227352/die-rueckkehr-der-ehemaligen-personelle-und-ideologische-kontinuitaeten-in-der-bremer-justiz-nach-1945 .
  7. ^ A new beginning on ruins , 1945–1947 . (= Biographical sources on German history . Volume 13), Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1992.
  8. ↑ According to the note in the alphabetical catalog of the Bremen State Archives, the author is Theodor Spitta. Dieter Pfliegensdörfer: From trading center to armaments smiths . Economy, the state and the working class in Bremen from 1929 to 1945. University of Bremen Research focus on work and education, Bremen 1986, p. 457.
personal data
SURNAME Spitta, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politicians (DDP, BDV, FDP), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1969
Place of death Bremen