Berlin – With the election of the House of Representatives next Sunday, the city will also get a new Governing Mayor – and there are some indications that it will be a woman. Michael Müller, who is leaving office, will not go down in history as one of the greats. He actually ruled in good times: no war, no hardship, at the beginning of the corona pandemic he had full coffers. The possible successor inherits a sack full of unfinished business, just think of the state of the schools, but what have some of their predecessors found in the past 150 years! They had to do with wars, collapses, dictatorship and terror, a rubble city, a divided city, a front-line city. Some of the deserving men are remembered here.
Founding years: Max von Forckenbeck
When Max von Forckenbeck became mayor of Berlin in 1878, he had gained extensive experience as President of both the Prussian House of Representatives and the Reichstag. To this day, the liberal is admired for how he managed the administration prudently, economically and skillfully. The sewer system was completed, the school system was generously developed, the road network expanded, and city cleaning organized. A private horse-drawn tram rolled in, and clean market halls replaced dingy markets. Municipal slaughterhouses, water and electricity companies started work. Forckenbeck did not rely on purely municipal companies, but on private companies with strong municipal profit sharing.
Greater Berlin: Adolf Wermuth
In crazy times, from 1912 to 1920, Adolf Wermuth was Lord Mayor of Berlin. Even before the outbreak of World War I, he alleviated the food crisis by ensuring a fairer distribution of scarce goods between rich and poor through rationing. He founded the city archives, introduced the Golden Book, organized incorporations, and prepared for the city to take over the electricity company. His greatest work came after the end of the monarchy in 1918/19. He seized the opportunity to overcome old blockades and negotiated the contract for the formation of the unified community of Greater Berlin. This contract secured the framework for Berlin’s development into a city of four million.
Defender of the front city: Ernst Reuter
Ernst Reuter had several lives behind him when he became mayor of Berlin on December 5, 1948: he was a workers’ leader with experience in Russia, communist, social democrat, Berlin city councilor for transport in the 1920s, mayor of Magdeburg, member of the Reichstag, in 1933 in NS- Imprisonment, exile in Great Britain and Turkey. The city council had elected the popular returnees on June 24, 1946, but the Soviet administration refused to confirm. Nobody symbolized the will for freedom more than he, who did everything to make West Berlin a bulwark against the GDR, which was founded in 1949. When he died in 1953, the Berliners put candles in the windows.
Prominence in the east: Friedrich Ebert
A kind of Soviet putsch promoted Friedrich Ebert to the head of the magistrate in November 1948. The prominent social democrat, now a member of the SED, son of President Friedrich Ebert, who died in 1925, was brought into position against Ernst Reuter. The trained printer worked as a journalist for SPD newspapers in the 1920s and was a member of the Reichstag until 1933. In 1933 he was briefly sent to the concentration camp and was under police supervision until 1945. On November 30, 1948, an extraordinary city council elected Ebert unanimously – only 23 elected members were present, plus around 1,600 selected participants. Until 1967 he organized the reconstruction in the eastern part.
Ice age and thaw: Willy Brandt
“Berlin remains free” – in these three simple but powerful words, Willy Brandt summed up the wish of the large majority of West Berliners during his long time as governing mayor (1957-1966). He was re-elected twice, and in 1963 the SPD achieved an incredible 61.9 percent. He stood firm against Khrushchev’s attacks on the access routes to West Berlin (Second Berlin Crisis). Willy Brandt led the western part of the city through the existential tremors after the building of the wall. It won the hearts of Berliners and gained enormous international recognition – the city also benefited from that. An admired ruler, then a very great statesman. What a yardstick!
City friend in the east: Erhard Krack
Erhard Krack was Lord Mayor of the capital of the GDR from 1974 to 1990, the “showcase of socialism”. His mission: to enforce Honecker’s economic and social policy. He did that – loyally, educated, practical. On the outskirts of the city, prefabricated building blocks were built; in the center, Krack slowed down the demolition frenzy. He succeeded in ensuring that the Gendarmenmarkt was created in a historical form, that the Nikolaiviertel was not dredged as a harbor basin. Krack was not a loudmouth bigwig, but as head of the election commission in May 1989 he was primarily responsible for massive fraud in local elections. In February 1990 he resigned. He was sentenced to ten years probation and repented.
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