Wilhelm Brindlinger

Wilhelm Brindlinger

Wilhelm Brindlinger (born October 21, 1890 in Pieragienen, Insterburg district , † July 19, 1967 in Munich ) was a German administrative lawyer and municipal official. From 1931 to 1944 he was the last German mayor of Memel. As a displaced person, he found his way to becoming a writer in Munich.

Life

Brindlinger's ancestors were exiles from Salzburg who had found refuge in Prussian Lithuania . After graduating from high school in Insterburg , Brindlinger studied law at the Albertus University of Königsberg and the Friedrichs University of Halle . He became a member of the Corps Masovia (1910) and the Corps Palaiomarchia (1911). He spent the winter semester of 1911/12 at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . In October 1913 he passed the trainee exam. In 1916 he was supported by the University of Greifswald to Dr. iur. PhD. He completed his legal traineeship in Labiau . During the First World War he was a volunteer with the Riding Department of Field Artillery Regiment No. 1. As a sergeant with the Iron Cross II. Class, he had to return home in 1916 because of serious ailments. Until the end of the war in 1918, he was a deputy civil servant at the directorate in Königsberg i. Pr.

Lord Mayor of Memel

After passing the assessor examination and being appointed regional judge, he went to Heydekrug as a lawyer and notary in 1922 and to Memel in 1931 . In Memel he was elected mayor in the same year . The Lithuanians tried to prevent the election by buying votes. In the troubled Memelland it simmered incessantly. In 1920 it was placed under the League of Nations without a referendum . The French occupying power did not affect the self-government. On January 10, 1923, however, the Lithuanians entered the Memelland by force and drove out the French. Although they were only represented by two to five members in the otherwise German state parliament of 29 members, they did not care about the promised autonomy of the Memelland. Brindlinger, as the German head of the city, had a very difficult time between the governor, board of directors, parties and interest groups, especially since he had already been unpopular with the Lithuanians as the leading man of the Memelland People's Party in Heydekrug.

In the Neumann-Sass trial , he impressed with clear, fair and correct statements. Like his administration, he was considered incorruptible and reliable. Under Brindlinger's responsibility, new buildings and schools and a new power station were built. He was particularly fond of the theater, the city library and sports. After the incorporation of the Memel area into the German Reich in 1939, Brindlinger received only meager thanks. He was allowed to remain mayor, but was not confirmed by the NSDAP Gauleiter , presumably because he was a Freemason . When Memel was already on fire due to the East Prussian Operation (1945) and the residents were evacuated , Brindlinger, mentally and physically collapsed, was also taken out of the city in December 1944. He experienced the end of the Second World War in Sankt Joachimsthal , Sudetenland . He reached the Bohemian - Bavarian border on foot . He found refuge in Weismain . In September 1948 he moved to Obersendling , where he lived with his wife in a new barrack with an eat-in kitchen and bedroom. Hans Widera took care of the makeshift furnishings .

writer

Leaning towards literature and torn as a displaced person, Brindlinger found writing in Munich. Brooding in East Prussian and idiosyncratic, but with an unusual sense of humor, he wrote about the people and nature in the Memel Delta . Three novel manuscripts were written between 1947 and 1957: Sebastian Schrubba , Mr. Birun auf Birunischken , Die Fehde des alten Rohrer - a memelland trilogy from 1925 to 1929. His broad, sometimes bizarre work, rich in knowledge and history, is a popular and local history treasure trove of language and life, customs and traditions of northern East Prussia . Brindlinger left behind remarkable sonnets . Like something illegitimate, he kept his work hidden for a long time.

The dream is over

The dream is over, it will glide smoothly
On my coffin the fine dune sand;
In hard earth, far from
my homeland, one day a lonely grave will be prepared for me.

Then it crunches and screeches on the bare logs
And rumbles on the high lid of Kant ';
Stones stiffen from the pit wall,
and pebbles roll from the side of the hill. The full organ sound of the nearby sea

will not sound at the escort of the grave
;
No heron will bring me the greeting from the lagoon.

But sometimes the north-east storm will moan around me,
And, resting on the south flight in the vicinity,
a bird will quietly sing about home.

He describes his attitude towards life in destroyed Munich in a poem that he cherished and which he added to a letter to Erich Haslinger dated September 25, 1948:

Isar gulls

Seagulls fly around me again,
screeching up and down,
letting themselves be swayed happily
by the dance game of green waves.

Are their wings waving to me?
Did my world come back to me?
- Instead of the soft dune hills
, a field of rubble rises up around me.

Works

• About the claims of the third party owner after the foreclosure of the property in the debtor's property not belonging , Königsberg i. P .: East Pr. Pressure u. Publishing house, 1915
• As Masur with the Altmark . Newspaper of the Altmark-Masuria, Kiel. Part I: 26 (1969), pp. 263-265; Part II: 27, pp. 312-315 (1960); Part III: 28 (1961), pp. 340-343
• Let me be homesick , Flensburg 1985

literature

• NN: Wilhelm Brindlinger . Altmärker-Masuren newspaper, No. 41, Kiel 1967, pp. 769–771.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Siebert: Obituary for Wilhelm Brindlinger , in: Memeler Dampfboot (home newspaper of all Memel countries), 119th year, No. 16 of August 20, 1967 (with catalog raisonné).

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Brindlinger in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 87/994; 55/371
2. ^ W. Brindlinger: MC at Marchia . Altmärker-Masuren newspaper 36, Kiel 1965, pp. 582-592
3. ↑ Dissertation: About the claims of the third party owner after the completion of the foreclosure of the property in the debtor's property not belonging
4. ^ Obituary to Wilhelm Brindlinger , in: Zeitung der Altmärker-Masuren, Issue 41 (1967), p. 770