Thomas Wimmer

Grave site in the Ostfriedhof Munich

Thomas Wimmer (* 7. January 1887 in Siglfing , district Erding ; † 18th January 1964 in Munich ) was a German politician of the SPD and from 1948 to 1960 Mayor of Munich .

biography

Until the end of World War II

Thomas Wimmer was born as the son of a fire smith and a maid on January 7, 1887 in Siglfing, today's district of Erding in Upper Bavaria , into poor, petty-bourgeois circumstances. He learned the carpentry trade because his father could not finance a more expensive wood carving apprenticeship for him . After a journeyman's journey that took him through Germany, Switzerland and Italy, he settled in Munich in 1904 to work in a furniture factory. In 1907 he joined the trade union "Deutscher Holzarbeiter-Verband" (DHV) founded in Kassel in 1893 , for which he was elected in 1912 as a district delegate. In 1909 Wimmer became a member of the SPD and in the following years took part in advanced training courses organized by the workers' training association “Forward”. He was also involved as an amateur player in the Thalkirchen Dramatic Society . In 1914 he was drafted to Metz (Bavarian 8th Infantry Regiment) for military service and in 1916 released as an armaments worker. From 1919 until his resignation by the National Socialists , he was an assistant at the Munich employment office. On November 8, 1918, Thomas Wimmer was elected chairman of the workers 'and soldiers' council in Munich. Since July 31, 1919, the Munich Social Democrats have named him their first chairman year after year.

From 1924 to 1933 Wimmer was an honorary city councilor and mainly devoted himself to personnel and housing issues as well as community finances. Just one day after the National Socialists came to power in Munich, he was taken into “ protective custody ” on March 10, 1933 and first imprisoned in Stadelheim and then in Landsberg am Lech . He was later repeatedly taken into Gestapo custody . After his dismissal as a civil servant, he worked in a construction company until 1938, and from 1941 after a long period of unemployment as a carpenter. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Thomas Wimmer was arrested again and sent to the Dachau concentration camp for six weeks . There he met his former political opponent Karl Scharnagl ( BVP ).

From 1945 to 1964

The American military government appointed Karl Scharnagl, who shortly afterwards co-founded the CSU , as Lord Mayor of Munich on May 4, 1945. Thomas Wimmer was appointed third mayor in August 1945 and second mayor in December 1945. In 1946 he was also a member of the state constituent assembly .

After the city council election on May 30, 1948, from which the SPD emerged as the strongest parliamentary group, Wimmer became mayor on July 1, 1948. He was also a member of the Bavarian State Parliament for the SPD from 1946 to 1950 . His name is associated with the “wood action” to ensure the fuel supply in the bitter post-war winters as well as the call for general rubble removal “ Rama dama ”, after which a German film was later named. He became the driving force and symbol of the reconstruction in Munich. He resolutely resisted plans to create a traffic lane for a multi-lane motorway right through the heart of the city, as in other large cities: "If you can't get through, just stop with your stinker carts and then it'll be sensible!" He said his legal adviser Hans-Jochen Vogel after a round of transport policy consultations in the town hall.

Signature by Thomas Wimmer 1953

In 1950, the second Oktoberfest after the Second World War took place in Munich . It was a milestone in the history of the Oktoberfest, because on September 16, 1950, Wimmer, a lord mayor officially opened “the Oktoberfest” by tapping the first barrel in the Schottenhamel tent (“ O'zapft is! ”). In 1952, in the newly introduced direct election, Wimmer was again elected mayor by the city population with 60.9 percent and in 1956 with 58.3 percent. He held this office until 1960. Thomas Wimmer, whom the Munich people liked to call "the Wimmer Damerl" (the preceding article belongs to it in Bavarian ), died on January 18, 1964 of a heart condition. When he was laid out in the hall of honor of the town hall, tens of thousands bid him farewell in person. Wimmer's body was buried in Munich's Ostfriedhof (grave no. 61-1-2a-d).

Thomas Wimmer was married twice. His first wife Therese succumbed to an ailment in 1937 as an armaments worker. In 1939 he married Käthe Kircher.

The Erdinger "Thomas-Wimmer-Straße" was named after the critic of the individual automobile traffic. He also became the namesake of the “Thomas-Wimmer-Ring”, a section of the busy Munich old town ring between Isartor and Maximilianstraße .

Awards

In 1955 Thomas Wimmer received the Great Federal Cross of Merit and in 1959 the Great Federal Cross of Merit with a Star. In 1957 he was honored with honorary citizenship of Munich and in 1958 with the newly created Bavarian Order of Merit .

On January 31, 2008, the then Mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, unveiled a plaque created by the sculptor Toni Preis on Wimmer's former home in Bruggspergerstrasse 41/45 .

See also

• List of honorary citizens of Munich since 1820

swell

1. ↑ Ramadama - Cleanup for Munich on the site of the waste management operation Munich
2. ↑ spiegel.de: When Timo with Leonie
3. ↑ Memorial plaque commemorates Thomas Wimmer , City of Munich, City Hall Umschau, January 28, 2008, p. 3f. (PDF file)

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Wimmer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography of Thomas Wimmer on the homepage of the City of Munich (Board of Directors)
• Audio portrait of Thomas Wimmer on Bayern2 Radio Knowledge with original sound clips
• Dachau prisoners in post-war Europe: Thomas Wimmer (exhibition “Faces of Lagerstraße” in the Josef-Effner-Gymnasium, Dachau, October 2002) ( Memento from January 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive )