Wesermünde

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Former city of Wesermünde
City of Bremerhaven
Coat of arms of the former city of Wesermünde
Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 51 ″  N , 8 ° 35 ′ 42 ″  E
Height : 0 m above sea level NHN
Residents : 99.208  (Oct. 29, 1946)
map
Wesermünde, Bremen, Hanover and Oldenburg around 1930

The city of Wesermünde was an independent city in the Prussian province of Hanover . It was formed in 1924 by the union of the cities of Lehe and Geestemünde . The city, to which Bremerhaven had belonged since 1939 , was incorporated into the state of Bremen in 1947 and renamed Bremerhaven.

history

Proclamation No. 3 of 1947: incorporation of Wesermünde into the re-establishment of the state of Bremen

A number of amalgamations took place in the area of ​​the Prussian border communities with Bremerhaven in Bremen . In 1888 Geestendorf was attached to the city of Geestemünde. In 1924 Lehe and Geestemünde were united. The new city of Wesermünde was the third largest city in the province after Hanover and Osnabrück and its most important and largest sea ​​port . Wesermünde was also the largest city in the Stade administrative district . In the election for the first citizens ' assembly on November 16, 1924, 20 bourgeois, 19 social democrats and 4 communists were elected.

In 1924 the Städtische Sparkasse Wesermünde was formed. Lehe left the gas community with Bremerhaven in 1925 and was supplied by the Geestemünde gas works. In 1926 a city archive was set up. The Bremerhaven Tram AG became the Bremerhaven-Wesermünde AG Tram in 1926 and the Wesermünde AG Tram in 1939 . The Provinzial-Zeitung from 1853 was now called Wesermünder Latest News . The once bourgeois newspaper became National Socialist after 1933. It existed until 1941.

In 1927 Weddewarden was incorporated into Wesermünde as a district. The Speckenbüttel freight yard and the area on Schiffdorferdamm also belonged to Wesermünde. Through a Prussian-Bremen State Treaty of 1930, the fishing ports came under common management. The Fischereihafen-Wesermünde-Bremerhaven GmbH was founded .

In 1932 the district of Lehe and the district of Geestemünde were dissolved by an ordinance of the Prussian State Ministry and merged into the district of Wesermünde . The city of Wesermünde did not belong to the district of the same name.

time of the nationalsocialism

In the Reichstag election in March 1933 , the SPD remained the strongest party with 36.7% of the vote. The NSDAP received 35%, the KPD 11.9% and the black-white-red frontline 11.5% of the vote. In the election of the Wesermünde Citizens' Assembly on March 12, 1933, the SPD 18, the NSDAP 16, the Black-White-Red 5, the KPD 4, the bourgeoisie 2 and the center won 1 seat (s). The mandates of the KPD were immediately and illegally canceled. The SPD citizen leaders were also illegally expelled from the committees.

Incorporation of Bremerhaven into Wesermünde

In 1933 the main post office at the main station in Geestemünde was opened. In 1934 the Bremerhaven Commercial College and the Wesermünde vocational and technical schools were merged. In 1935 the city received a garrison from the Kriegsmarine .

In 1935, the mayor of Wesermünde, Walter Delius, wrote a memorandum to the Reich Ministry of the Interior with the wish to unite the cities of Wesermünde and Bremerhaven. In 1939, Bremerhaven, part of the city- state of Bremen, was incorporated, with the port area largely remaining with the city of Bremen and since then forming the city-Bremen overseas port area of ​​Bremerhaven .

The roller and skate club Wesermünde (later roller and skate club Bremerhaven - RSC) was founded in 1941 and existed until 1983. In 1942, the German secondary school for girls on Grazer Straße was closed. The high school for boys at the Bürger and the one in Lehe will be amalgamated at the location in Mitte and the school building at Neumarkt in Lehe was used as a marine vocational school.

War and Post War

On November 17, 1941, in the course of the deportation of Jews from Germany, all Jews in the village had to show up at the main train station for “resettlement to the east”. Most were taken to extermination camps and murdered there. During the Second World War , the first of 52 air raids on Wesermünde took place on October 16, 1940 . The construction of air raid shelters began in 1942 . The largest raised bunker on the Torfplatz had 1688 spaces. The Kinderlandverschickung (KLV) to protect against the attacks began in 1942 and was reinforced in 1943/44. During the heaviest air raid on September 18, 1944, the city center was completely destroyed by extensive fires. In the aerial warfare of the Second World War , 56.5% of the buildings in all of Wesermünde were destroyed, 97% of them in the city center and 75% in Geestemünde; 618 people died.

On May 4, Hans-Georg von Friedeburg near Lüneburg signed the partial surrender for the troops in Northern Germany , Denmark , Holland and Norway on behalf of the last Reich President Karl Dönitz , who had left for Flensburg - Mürwik with the last Reich government . On May 7, 1945 British troops occupied the city. The American forces replaced the British after two days of occupation. The American enclave in northern Germany was created, consisting of Wesermünde and Bremen. Until December 1945 the administrative district of Wesermünde , the administrative district of Osterholz and the administrative district of Wesermarsch also belonged to the American zone of occupation , which were then administered by the British.

The US military government appointed the lawyer Helmuth Koch (DNVP / CDU) as mayor on May 24, 1945 , who was replaced on July 2, 1946 by the election of Gerhard van Heukelum (SPD). At the end of 1945 there was a provisional city constitution, which was passed on June 6, 1946 by the city council.

The soldier broadcaster AFN Bremerhaven ( American Forces Network ) has broadcast its programs since July 28, 1945, and Radio Bremen since December 1945 . The city ​​theater began again on a makeshift basis in October 1945 with the performance of Zuckmayer's folk play Katharina Knie in the Bürgerhaus Lehe (Bürgerhaus Theater) on Friedhofstrasse. The SPD and KPD were re-established as early as September and November 1945, and the CDU and FDP were re-established in November. With the resumption of schooling in September 1945, school councilor Walter Zimmermann introduced English as the first compulsory language from the fifth grade. He founded in 1945 and headed the educational seminar at the Uhlandschule ( Deichstraße ), in which around 160 teachers were trained until 1948, when the Bremen University of Education took over the teacher training. From January 1946 the ferry service to Blexen with the Oldenburg resumed its service. The Arbeiterwohlfahrt was re-established in June 1946. In August 1946, the first free market took place on the old and on the Neumarkt in Lehe.

In the elections, the SPD received 33 seats, the CDU three, the KPD, the FDP and the Lower Saxony state party each received one seat for the city council.

Renaming and reorganization

On January 21, 1947, Declaration No. 3 of the American military governor in Germany incorporated the city of Wesermünde into the state of Bremen , so that the entire city and the ports in Bremerhaven were in the American zone of occupation. By a state act on February 7, 1947 in the Geestemünder Reformgymnasium (the later Wilhelm Raabe School ) the integration was completed. Bremen nevertheless retained everything it had received from the Free State of Prussia eight years earlier , namely Lesum , Grohn , Schönebeck , Aumund , Blumenthal , Farge , Hemelingen and Mahndorf . That is why Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf once said to Wilhelm Kaisen : “You are the greatest war profiteer.” The consideration was that Bremerhaven became the most independent city in Germany, with its own city constitution, without a government president, with a local school system, a local police force and a local authority Administration of the (formerly Prussian) fishing port, which has now become a state port. The city adopted a new constitution on October 1, 1947, based on the Bremen state constitution .

On August 23, 1946, the state of Hanover was established , which became the state of Lower Saxony on November 1, 1946 . Until 1977, Wesermünde and then Bremerhaven was also the administrative seat of the then dissolved Lower Saxony district of Wesermünde .

→ After 1947 see # History at Bremerhaven

politics

Lord Mayor

coat of arms

Coat of arms of Wesermünde
 Blazon : "Above a black shield base , covered with a silver fish , in front a red shield , inside two crossed silver scythe leaves , behind a blue shield, inside a golden anchor ."
Reasons for the coat of arms: In front the red shield with the crossed scythe blades is the coat of arms of the former city of Lehe, behind the blue shield with the golden anchor is the coat of arms of the former city of Geestemünde. The two coats of arms placed next to each other stand for the merger of the independent cities of Lehe and Geestemünde to form the newly founded independent city of Wesermünde. The silver fish in the black shield base points to the importance of Wesermünde as a port and fishing location.

Name dispute on the occasion of the merger of Langen and Bederkesa

When the merger of the city of Langen and the joint municipality of Bederkesa into a new city was being prepared in 2010, the name of the new municipality Wesermünde was up for discussion. The city of Bremerhaven rejected this name as the legal successor to its predecessor city Wesermünde. In a legal opinion commissioned by the city of Bremerhaven, it is said that the name Wesermünde would be “in blatant contradiction to the actual geographical location”. The new community only has contact with the Weser in the "Rumpfstück Imsum" near the Ochsenturm. The name therefore contradicts the information function required by law. Mayor Thorsten Krüger (SPD) suggested the name Neu Wesermünde . Krüger replied "The city name is just a first working title". The councils of the municipalities decided on April 23, 2012 for the merged municipality the name " Geestland ".

Wesermünde fishing port

year Fresh fish auction sales Number of companies Fish steamer
Hundredweight 1000 RM Shipping company Fish wholesale Fishing industry home starting regularly
1913   946.160 11,164 16  59 -  97 174
1924 1,307,957 16,438 18th 127 42 155 225
1926 1,847,966 21,489 15th 154 47 140 196
1928 1,836,343 25,201 18th 148 49 130 182
1930 2,531,000 28,500 18th 149 43 119 203
1932 2,549,000 19,800 18th - - 111 183
1933 2,843,000 21,200 20th 152 39 124 188

See also: Packing hall X and XIV in the fishing port from 1928/29 and 1939/40.

Population development

City of Wesermünde 1924 to 1946

year Population numbers
June 16, 1925 72,065
June 16, 1933 77,491
May 17, 1939 86,041
December 31, 1944 110,982
October 29, 1946 99.208

→ See also population development in Bremerhaven

Personalities

→ See also at Bremerhaven

literature

  • Walter Delius , Lord Mayor of Wesermünde (Ed.): Ten years of Wesermünde . Printing: Wesermünder Latest News, Wesermünde 1934.
  • Burchard Scheper: The more recent history of the city of Bremerhaven . Ed .: Magistrate Bremerhaven. Bremerhaven 1977.
  • Harry Gabcke et al. a .: Bremerhaven in two centuries . 1919-1947. tape 2 . Nordwestdeutscher Verlag, Bremerhaven 1991.
  • Fritz Hörmann, Ude Meyer, Christian Morisse, Eberhard Nehring, Irmgard Seghorn, Egon Stuve, Else Syassen: Wesermünde field names collection - the field names of the property tax cadastre from 1876 . Ed .: Kulturstiftung der Kreissparkasse Wesermünde (=  new series of special publications by the men from Morgenstern , Heimatbund an Elb- und Wesermuende eV Volume 27 ). Men from Morgenstern Verlag, Bremerhaven 1995, ISBN 3-931771-27-X , p. 22 ([ digitized version ( memento of October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )] [PDF; 431 kB ; accessed on October 23, 2019]).
  • Manfred Schmidt: Exclaves and Enclaves: And other territorial anomalies (=  academic series ). GRIN Verlag , Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-640-17973-2 , p. 63 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed August 3, 2020]).
  • Publications in the Niederdeutschen Heimatblatt
    • Julia Kahleyß: Denazification in Wesermünde and Bremerhaven. Report on a workshop in the city archive . In: Men from Morgenstern, Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 789 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven September 2015, p. 2–3 ( digitized version [PDF; 377 kB ; accessed on August 3, 2020]).
    • Matthias Loeber: Waldemar Becké and the merger of the Lower Weser towns. 100 years ago: the amalgamation is maturing for concrete urban development . In: Men from Morgenstern, Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 829 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven January 2019, p. 1–2 ( digitized version [PDF; 3.9 MB ; accessed on June 18, 2019]).
    • Jannik Sachweh: "... sentenced to death for looting." Crimes committed by the judiciary in Wesermünde during the Second World War . In: Men from Morgenstern, Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 839 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven November 2019, p. 1–2, 4 ( digital version [PDF; 4.2 MB ; accessed on December 18, 2019]).

Web links

Commons : Wesermünde  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alfons Tallert : Speech on the 40th anniversary of the reconstruction of the Great Church (October 20, 2000)
  2. ↑ On the way to the altar
  3. ↑ The city relies on a report by the Bremerhaven city archivist Dr. Hartmut Bickelmann : Wesermünde is "historically and currently clearly documented". "A takeover by another regional authority can therefore only lead to misunderstandings, irritation and impairment of grown identities." (Nordsee-Zeitung, January 21, 2012)
  4. ↑ Not legally smudge-proof, article in the Nordsee-Zeitung, March 10, 2012, p. 13.
  5. ^ Krüger rebukes Seestadt. In: Nordsee-Zeitung.
  6. ↑ "A double name should fix it." In: Nordsee-Zeitung. March 20, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Geestland" is the new favorite. In: Nordsee-Zeitung. April 14, 2012 (front page).
  8. ↑ Councilors vote for "Geestland". In: Nordsee-Zeitung. April 24, 2012.
  9. ↑ 10 years Wesermünde (see literature) p. 8
  10. ^ Monument database of the LfD
  11. ^ Monument database of the LfD