Wilhelm Küchler (politician, 1846)

Wilhelm Küchler

Wilhelm Hans Heinrich Philipp Küchler (born September 4, 1846 in Biedenkopf , † October 31, 1900 in Darmstadt ) was a German politician. He was Lord Mayor of Worms and Hessian Finance Minister.

Life

His father Ernst Ludwig Küchler was a Grand Ducal Hessian Tax Council, his mother a née Follenius from Gießen . His uncle Friedrich Küchler (1822–1898) Provincial Director, President of the Hessian Administrative Court and honorary citizen of Mainz .

After attending grammar school in Darmstadt, Küchler studied law in Heidelberg and Giessen. He became a member of the Corps Rhenania Heidelberg (1865) and the Corps Teutonia Gießen (1867). In 1868 he was deputy chairman of the Kösener Congress.

See also : suburbs of the KSCV

Worms

After participating in the Franco-Prussian War , he began his professional career as a volunteer , completing his traineeship and various temporary positions in 1877 as a district assessor in Friedberg. In 1882 he was elected mayor of Worms. In 1888 Ludwig IV (Hessen-Darmstadt) gave him the character of Lord Mayor by decree . Küchler's term of office in Worms was dominated by the upswing, which was expressed in increased economic activity, a sharp increase in population and additional social welfare by the administration. It emerged u. a. the hospital on Mainzer Strasse (1888), the municipal gas and waterworks (1889), the play and festival hall (1889), the sewer system, the trading port, combined with a Rhine regulation and new bank structures for flood protection (1890-1893), new school buildings and several branch lines to the surrounding area. As early as 1883, on his initiative, the town house was converted, the situation of which had become unreasonable. As mayor, he shaped urban life and the cityscape like no other. When his re-election was due in 1894, he was not elected for twelve years, as before, but for life according to Section 31 of the Hessian city code.

Darmstadt

Nevertheless, in 1898 he moved to Darmstadt as President of the Grand Ducal Hessian Ministry of Finance. Here he made a name for himself especially through the implementation of the great Hessian tax reform (introduction of income and wealth tax). Because of a throat cancer , he resigned from office in 1900. He succumbed to the disease a little later. His ashes were buried in the old cemetery in Darmstadt.

See also : Grand Duchy of Hesse

Honors

Küchler memorial

On the occasion of his resignation from office as Lord Mayor, Küchler was made an honorary citizen on July 5, 1898 “because of his great services to the well-being of the city”. A larger-than-life Küchler memorial (1904) by the Karlsruhe sculptor Johannes Hirt , initiated by Cornelius Wilhelm von Heyl zu Herrnsheim and erected on Lindenplatz (later Küchlerplatz), is now located below the Nibelungen Bridge in Worms . The so-called "Küchlerhaus" with a portrait medallion of the mayor above the entrance is located on Friesenstrasse in Worms. After the former Küchlerplatz fell victim to urban planning after 1945, a street was named after it again in 1982.

literature

• Academic monthly booklets , 17th year, p. 366.
• Hansheinrich Friedländer: corps table of the Corps Teutonia Giessen 1839-1999. Giessen 1999, p. 172.
• Fritz Reuter: Karl Hofmann and “the new Worms”: urban development and municipal construction 1882–1918. Darmstadt 1993.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Küchler  - Collection of Images

• Wilhelm Küchler. Biography on worms.de.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Best. 901 No. 346, p. 451 ( digitized version ).
2. ^ ^{A b} Fritz Reuter : History of the City of Worms . Ed .: Gerold Bönnen . 2nd Edition. Theiss, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-8062-3158-8 .
3. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 65/163; 38/322.