Walter Dudek

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Walter Dudek (born October 11, 1890 in Altenburg , Thuringia ; † December 1, 1976 in Hamburg ) was a German politician ( SPD ) with a doctorate in law. From 1925 to 1927 he was Lord Mayor of the city of Harburg (Elbe) , 1927 to 1933 Lord Mayor of the united city of Harburg-Wilhelmsburg and from 1946 to 1953 Senator in Hamburg.

Life

Born in Altenburg as the son of a post office clerk, he attended the Friedrichgymnasium there . After studying economics and law in Berlin, Kiel, Jena and Leipzig, he passed his second state examination in 1919. In 1916 he joined the SPD. From 1917 to 1919 he represented the district administrator in Merseburg in the war economy, from 1919 to 1922 the office of First Mayor in Fürstenwalde / Spree and from 1922 until the expulsion by the French occupation authorities (see occupation of the Ruhr ) in Dortmund as a salaried city councilor ( Department head) for welfare.

In 1925 he was elected Lord Mayor of Harburg. Dudek was instrumental in bringing about the merger of the formerly independent cities of Wilhelmsburg and Harburg (Elbe). This was intended to give more weight to local interests in the area of ​​tension between the city-state of Hamburg and the Free State of Prussia in 1927 . Harburg-Wilhelmsburg became a large city with over 100,000 inhabitants.

Monument in Hamburg-Harburg

He ensured that, with the help of employment programs, the “emergency workers” carried out important urban construction measures in extremely difficult economic times. These included the Harburg city park , today's Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium with the city hall (Friedrich-Ebert-Halle), the city library, a bathing establishment and the fire station .

On March 11, 1933, the SA and SS penetrated the Harburg town hall and forced Dudek out of office by force of arms. The next day the local elections took place, which the NSDAP narrowly won in association with the civil unity list and the center .

On the intervention of Gauleiter Otto Telschow, the former DNVP member Ludwig Bartels , who had only joined the NSDAP on April 1, 1933 , became Dudek's successor .

In December 1933 Walter Dudek converted to the Catholic faith.

During the war, Dudek made a living as a textile merchant in Berlin. He joined the Robinsohn-Strassmann group , a left-wing liberal resistance group. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he, too, was arrested by the National Socialists.

After the Second World War he was a member of the Hamburg parliament until April 30, 1954 . As early as 1945 he was appointed district director for Harburg-Wilhelmsburg and, due to his knowledge of the financial sector, finally became Hamburg's Senator for Finance in 1946 . In this office, which he held in the most difficult period of the post-war years and the reconstruction of the city until 1953, he gained recognition from all sides. In 1948 he was one of nine experts appointed by the Allies to participate in the “Conclave” of Rothwesten under the direction of the US economist Edward A. Tenenbaum in drafting the currency reform . He was also a member of the Federal Council from 1949 to 1953 .

Until his death he worked as a financial advisor to the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) and was chairman of the board of directors of the Neue Sparcasse from 1864 .

Honors

Walter Dudek was awarded the Mayor Stolten Medal by the Hamburg Senate in 1965 , the city's highest honor for its citizens. In 1967 he was made an honorary senator of the University of Hamburg . A monument was placed on Walter Dudek at the Walter Dudek Bridge, named after him, at Harburg train station . A memorial was also found on the former Harburg swimming pool, which is why it was sometimes called the “Dudek bath”.

literature

  • Ellermeyer, Jürgen; Judge, Klaus; Stegmann, Dirk (Ed.): Harburg. From the castle to the industrial city. Hamburg 1987.
  • 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. 93.
  • Lüth, Erich , Walter Dudek: memories of Harburg's last mayor . In: Harburger Jahrbuch 15, 1975–1979, pp. 125–138.
  • Stefan Sarrach : Instructions to strike. In 1919 Fürstenwalde received a social democratic mayor for the first time. In: Stadt Fürstenwalde (Ed.), Fürstenwalder Reading Book - 725 years of history and stories. 1997, pp. 11-14.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brief history of the Catholic parish “St. Bonifatius with the pastoral care office St. Maximilian Kolbe ”in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg
  2. ↑ Horst Sassin: Liberals in the Resistance. The Robinsohn-Strassmann Group 1934–1942. Hamburg 1993, p. 77.
  3. ↑ Honorary Senators of the University of Hamburg ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )


personal data
SURNAME Dudek, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD)
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Altenburg , Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH 1st December 1976
Place of death Hamburg