Werner Priegnitz

Wilhelm Franz Werner Priegnitz (born July 27, 1896 in Magdeburg ; † October 17, 1979 there ) was a German city ​​historian and painter.

Life

Priegnitz was born the son of the entrepreneur Wilhelm Priegnitz , who ran a wholesale business for paints and electrical items. After finishing secondary school in Magdeburg, Priegnitz attended commercial secondary school in Dessau and the Köthen polytechnic .

During the First World War he volunteered for military service in 1915 and was deployed in a light measuring squad.

After the end of the war he first worked in his father's company, then from 1926 to 1933 he worked as an advertising manager for Deutsche Lufthansa and Deutsche Kabelwerke in Berlin. Between 1927 and 1932 he took drawing lessons from Hans Adolf Heymann, teacher for composition at the Reimann School .

In 1933 Priegnitz returned to Magdeburg and became a partner in his father's company, which he continued to run after his father's death in 1937.

During the Second World War , Priegnitz became a trainer for the air raid warning service in Belgium and later took on a managerial role in the Magdeburg air raid warning center.

During the Allied air raid on Magdeburg on January 16, 1945 , the old town was badly destroyed. Large parts of the city center were completely destroyed. In this situation, Priegnitz made an outstanding contribution to the preservation, recovery and research of the remaining or partially destroyed cultural monuments of the city. He tried to salvage sculptures and parts of the architecture that had been preserved from the rubble. For this he undertook excavation and recovery work. He earned particular merit in the 1947 rediscovery of the medieval vaulted cellar Buttergasse on Buttergasse on the Alter Markt .

Priegnitz made a multitude of drawings in the ruins of the city. From 1945 to 1948 he worked full-time as a painter. In 1948 he became head of the inventory department of the working group he co-founded for research into the prehistory and early history of Magdeburg . Priegnitz later worked as a research assistant at the Magdeburg Cultural History Museum . Between 1958 and 1961 he was involved in developing a model of the city for the year 1600 and made around 300 drawings for it.

Priegnitz made the knowledge of local history he gained in the course of his work available to a broad public through many publications in the regional press, in lectures and during city tours.

The city of Magdeburg named a street in his honor as Werner-Priegnitz-Straße .

Publications

• Werner Steinhausen. His life picture, his family and his closest relatives, 1937
• Remnants of the old craft of grouting in the old town of Magdeburg, 1950 (manuscript)
• The Magdeburg cityscape in 6 centuries. For the 100th anniversary of Magdeburg's cultural history collections, 1961
• The old town around 1600. A guide to the city model, 1962
• The early market and Otto I's founding in 965 in Magdeburg, 1965
• The history of the Elbe bridge train in Magdeburg, 1965
• Magdeburg views of the 16th and 17th centuries, no year
• Historical forms of fashion in and around Magdeburg, 1965 (manuscript)
• Floods in historical times and investigations into early water levels, 1968 (manuscript)

literature

• Maren Ballerstedt: Priegnitz, Wilhelm Franz Werner. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 ( article online ).
• Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 .