Wilhelm Kirchhoff

Wilhelm Kirchhoff (born September 27, 1800 in Jamund ; † February 16, 1861 in Grimmen ; full name: Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Kirchhoff ) was a German lawyer, poet and long-time mayor of the West Pomeranian city ​​of Grimmen.

Life

Wilhelm Kirchhoff came from Jamund near Köslin . He was initially taught by his father, the preacher Johann Jakob Kirchhoff. From 1814 he attended the Joachimsthal Gymnasium and then from 1816 the Marienstiftsgymnasium in Stettin . In 1818 he began studying law and philosophy at the University of Greifswald . The following year he continued his studies at the University of Halle . At the end he returned to Greifswald. In the years 1821-1824 he passed the exams to the notary, lawyer and judge and became a doctor of law doctorate .

In 1824 he was placed on an interim basis as the town judge and lawyer mayor of Grimmen. The final appointment was made on February 19, 1844 by royal order. During his almost 36-year term in office, he represented the small towns in New West Pomerania in the state provincial parliament of the Pomeranian province in Stettin and in the municipal parliament of New West Pomerania and Rügen in Stralsund .

In addition to legal treatises, he wrote articles for magazines, including the " Sundine ". In 1835 he published a collection of poems and prose under the title "Flowers and colorful stones, looking for play" . In addition to translations of classical and modern Greek poetry, this included humorous descriptions of the landscape and people in Western Pomerania.

Mayor Kirchhoff supported the goals of the revolution of 1848/49 , in the course of which a bourgeois reform movement emerged in Grimmen under his leadership. The reformers demanded the abolition of the police force of the manor owners, the abolition of the rules of the servants , the freedom of the press and much more. Kirchhoff opened a print shop with the monthly Grimmener Landbote , which became the mouthpiece of the reformers. After the suppression of the revolution, Kirchhoff continued his striving for democracy with a petition to the High First Chamber of the Prussian National Assembly (1849) and with the publication Das Gesinderecht . In 1860 the Prussian Ministry of Justice revoked his license as a lawyer on flimsy grounds, which resulted in material need for his 12 children. In his pamphlet How I lost my legal profession (Grimmen 1861) he exposed the arbitrariness of the Prussian judiciary. During these conflicts with the Prussian state he died of heart failure in 1861.

In Grimmen, a street was named in honor of its meritorious mayor.

literature

• Adolf Häckermann:  Kirchhoff, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 12.
• Gerhard Strübing: Grimmen district, a plan of history . Ed. Rat des Kreis Grimmen 1989, p. 32 (with picture)

Web links

• Literature about Wilhelm Kirchhoff in the state bibliography MV