Wilhelm Wiesner

Wilhelm Wiesner (born April 3, 1868 in Thiemendorf , † May 6, 1934 in Hamburg ) was a German politician and mayor of Bergedorf .

Live and act

Wiesner, who comes from Upper Lusatia, attended a village school in his place of birth. After training as a carpenter, he became a member of the German Woodworkers' Association in 1885 . After years of traveling as a journeyman, he moved to Hamburg, where in 1899 he accepted a position as a warehouse keeper at the consumer, construction and savings association "Produktion" . In Bergedorf he helped set up branches to distribute the goods produced. He was also involved in the SPD. As a district leader elected in 1904, he received a mandate from the local council in Bergedorf in 1910. Since then he has worked as a full-time party secretary of the SPD. From 1914 to 1927 he represented the party in the Hamburg citizenship .

Wiesner dedicated most of his working time to Bergedorf. In 1916 he was elected as a voluntary citizen representative here. From 1918 he received a salary as a councilor in the magistrate . In June 1919 he temporarily took over the mayor's office. In October of the same year he was elected to office. He served as mayor until 1931.

During Wiesner's tenure, Bergedorf was fundamentally modernized. In the area of ​​social work, unemployment welfare was established in the early 1920s and a modern old people's home in 1927 that had previously been a mass quarter. From 1929 to 1932 the mayor set up emergency programs designed to reduce the number of unemployed. Wiesner was particularly committed to the construction of new apartments and public buildings. Between 1923 and 1923 more than 500 urban or government-sponsored apartments were built; the old town was extensively renovated. Despite clear objections from bourgeois MPs, Wiesner acquired the Messtorff'sche Villa, which was converted into Bergedorf's first town hall from 1925 to 1927. A police station was established in 1926, a fire station in 1926/27, the freight yard around 1928 and the Bille-Bad in 1929.

After the National Socialists came to power , Wiesner was exposed to a major smear campaign. According to the new rulers, he has corrupted, enriched himself and ruined the city's finances. The Bergedorfer Zeitung described the "Wiesner era" in a series. In it she misrepresented the former mayor's lifestyle and accused him of alleged mismanagement. After his death in May 1934, the National Socialists forbade a funeral service that, in their opinion, could have turned into a political rally by social-democratic-minded people.

The Wiesnerring in Bergedorf has been named after the former mayor since 1960 .

literature

• Christel Oldenburg: Wiesner, Wilhelm . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 383-384 .