Hanno Drechsler
Encyclopedia
Dr. Hanno Drechsler was the legendary Lord Mayor
of the City of Marburg
, Germany
, between 1970 and 1992, and the instigator of its restoration after urban renewal
; he was also an important Social Democratic
politician
and political scientist.
, where after High School he studied to become a teacher and was certified for doing so on all levels, becoming very early the Principal of the Oberschule in Falkenstein. Because of political conflicts with the SED
regime (such as the toleration of students who were members of a church), he and his wife fled East Germany in 1955, and settled in Marburg, West Germany
. Here, Drechsler studied again, at the University of Marburg (1955-1961), mostly Political Science
, History
, and German
, and became a student and then assistant of the famous political scientist (the main representative of political science of the "Frankfurt School
", Wolfgang Abendroth
. In 1962, he received his PhD
with a thesis on the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (SAP), which still today is the classic on this subject, and became an expert on the small parties "between" social democrats and communists during the Weimar Republic
.
) at the University of Giessen
's Political Science Department, but he remained active in Marburg municipal and Hesse
politics as a social democrat
, where he soon held key positions in the City Parliament. In 1970, he was elected - after declining to become the President
of the newly-founded University of Kassel - Lord Mayor of the City of Marburg, a position he held until his retirement due to health reasons in 1992, drawing in the end popular support of well over 75% of the citizens.
and Renaissance
times and with famous castle, churches, including the earliest Gothic church in Germany dedicated to St. Elisabeth of Hungary
. In the beginning, this was a battle against the zeitgeist
, as the idea in the early 1970s was still to raze the old houses to the ground, make the town centre accessible to traffic, etc. To restore all houses individually, create pedestrian zones, but to make the Oberstadt livable and not just a tourist attraction was largely his idea, and he implemented it against then strong opposition.
He significantly promoted art and culture as well. He used his contacts and charisma to assist artists and musicians in Marburg. Much in the international success of Rose Nabinger
and the jazz band " Kreisjazzwerkerschaft" probably came from their appearances he made possible in the sister cities all over Europe.
and held numerous party function, also on the state and federal level. He was for decades the Chairman of the local government SPD council in Hesse and on the board of the Deutscher Städtetag, the German Council of Independent Cities. He was a strong promoter, also in scholarly work and writings, of municipal autonomy, as well as of German Reunification
. Offers of other positions, such as SPD candidate (with a great likelihood to win) for Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main, or as Minister of the Interior of Hesse, he always declined.
(Federal Merit Cross) 1st Class, the Merit Cross of the State of Hesse, the Silver Merit Cross of the Red Cross Germany, and the Freiherr vom Stein
-Plaque, the highest German award for merits in the area of local governance and municipal autonomy. He was also a Honorary Citizen of Poitiers
, France
, a sister city of Marburg, and of Marburg itself. One of the issues closest to him - a Methodist - which he promoted very strongly was the dialogue and re-invitation of the Jewish former citizens of Marburg, the reopening of a synagogue
and the reemergence of a Jewish community in Marburg; the recognitions and awards he received for that were those especially important to him. In fact, it was a stroke (after some earlier heart attacks) that he suffered after, against his doctors' advice, speaking in an outside ceremony to memorialize the "Reichskristallnacht" at the place of the former synagogue in 1991 that ended his career.
.
Lord Mayor
The Lord Mayor is the title of the Mayor of a major city, with special recognition.-Commonwealth of Nations:* In Australia it is a political position. Australian cities with Lord Mayors: Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Newcastle, Parramatta, Perth, Sydney, and Wollongong...
of the City of Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, between 1970 and 1992, and the instigator of its restoration after urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
; he was also an important Social Democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and political scientist.
Education
Hanno Drechsler went to school in SaxonySaxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, where after High School he studied to become a teacher and was certified for doing so on all levels, becoming very early the Principal of the Oberschule in Falkenstein. Because of political conflicts with the SED
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
regime (such as the toleration of students who were members of a church), he and his wife fled East Germany in 1955, and settled in Marburg, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
. Here, Drechsler studied again, at the University of Marburg (1955-1961), mostly Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and became a student and then assistant of the famous political scientist (the main representative of political science of the "Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
", Wolfgang Abendroth
Wolfgang Abendroth
Wolfgang Abendroth was a socialist German jurist and political scientist. He was born in Elberfeld, now a part of Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia. Abendroth was an important contributor to the constitutional foundation of postwar West Germany. He briefly held a professorship in law in East...
. In 1962, he received his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
with a thesis on the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (SAP), which still today is the classic on this subject, and became an expert on the small parties "between" social democrats and communists during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
.
Career
Afterwards, he became "(Ober-)Studienrat im Hochschuldienst" (Lecturer and Senior Lecturer or Assistant Professor, but with tenure; also see BeamterBeamter
The German word Beamter means civil servant, and is pronounced , with a glottal stop between the 'e' and the 'a'...
) at the University of Giessen
University of Giessen
The University of Giessen is officially called the Justus Liebig University Giessen after its most famous faculty member, Justus von Liebig, the founder of modern agricultural chemistry and inventor of artificial fertiliser.-History:The University of Gießen is among the oldest institutions of...
's Political Science Department, but he remained active in Marburg municipal and Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
politics as a social democrat
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
, where he soon held key positions in the City Parliament. In 1970, he was elected - after declining to become the President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of the newly-founded University of Kassel - Lord Mayor of the City of Marburg, a position he held until his retirement due to health reasons in 1992, drawing in the end popular support of well over 75% of the citizens.
Achievements
Of all his efforts and achievements in Marburg, the most notable and lasting was very likely his tenacious and strong support and indeed implementation of the restoration of the Oberstadt (uptown) of Marburg, one of the most important old German cities largely untouched by the war, full with timbered and stone houses of GothicGothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
times and with famous castle, churches, including the earliest Gothic church in Germany dedicated to St. Elisabeth of Hungary
Elisabeth of Hungary
Elizabeth of Hungary, T.O.S.F., was a princess of the Kingdom of Hungary, Countess of Thuringia, Germany and a greatly-venerated Catholic saint. Elizabeth was married at the age of 14, and widowed at 20. She then became one of the first members of the newly-founded Third Order of St. Francis,...
. In the beginning, this was a battle against the zeitgeist
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
, as the idea in the early 1970s was still to raze the old houses to the ground, make the town centre accessible to traffic, etc. To restore all houses individually, create pedestrian zones, but to make the Oberstadt livable and not just a tourist attraction was largely his idea, and he implemented it against then strong opposition.
He significantly promoted art and culture as well. He used his contacts and charisma to assist artists and musicians in Marburg. Much in the international success of Rose Nabinger
Rose Nabinger
Rose Nabinger is a German jazz singer.Rose Nabinger was born in 1958 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany....
and the jazz band " Kreisjazzwerkerschaft" probably came from their appearances he made possible in the sister cities all over Europe.
Party functions
Since 1956, Drechsler was a member of the SPDSocial Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
and held numerous party function, also on the state and federal level. He was for decades the Chairman of the local government SPD council in Hesse and on the board of the Deutscher Städtetag, the German Council of Independent Cities. He was a strong promoter, also in scholarly work and writings, of municipal autonomy, as well as of German Reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
. Offers of other positions, such as SPD candidate (with a great likelihood to win) for Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main, or as Minister of the Interior of Hesse, he always declined.
Honours
Among the many honours Drechsler received are the BundesverdienstkreuzBundesverdienstkreuz
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has existed since 7 September 1951, and between 3,000 and 5,200 awards are given every year across all classes...
(Federal Merit Cross) 1st Class, the Merit Cross of the State of Hesse, the Silver Merit Cross of the Red Cross Germany, and the Freiherr vom Stein
Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein
Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein , commonly known as Baron vom Stein, was a Prussian statesman who introduced the Prussian reforms that paved the way for the unification of Germany...
-Plaque, the highest German award for merits in the area of local governance and municipal autonomy. He was also a Honorary Citizen of Poitiers
Poitiers
Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, a sister city of Marburg, and of Marburg itself. One of the issues closest to him - a Methodist - which he promoted very strongly was the dialogue and re-invitation of the Jewish former citizens of Marburg, the reopening of a synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
and the reemergence of a Jewish community in Marburg; the recognitions and awards he received for that were those especially important to him. In fact, it was a stroke (after some earlier heart attacks) that he suffered after, against his doctors' advice, speaking in an outside ceremony to memorialize the "Reichskristallnacht" at the place of the former synagogue in 1991 that ended his career.
Family
Hanno Drechsler was married, for 53 years, to Gisela Drechsler née Streller (2 March 1931 - 19 October 2008); their son is the social scientist Wolfgang DrechslerWolfgang Drechsler
Wolfgang Drechsler is a Public Administration, Political Philosophy and Innovation Policy scholar. He is Professor and Chair of Governance, and one of the founders and directors of the Technology Governance program, at the Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia.Drechsler holds degrees...
.
Memorials
Today, Hanno Drechsler is remembered by the "Hanno-Drechsler-Platz", an urban space that forms the south-westerly gate to the Oberstadt for pedestrians, with a fountain and trees, but mostly by the intact and restored Oberstadt itself.By Hanno Drechsler
- Drechsler, Hanno et al., eds, Gesellschaft und Staat: Lexikon der Politik, 10th edn., Munich: Vahlen, 2003 (1st edn. Baden-Baden: Signal, 1970; recipient of the Deutscher JugendbuchpreisDeutscher JugendliteraturpreisThe Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis is an annual award established in 1956 by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth to recognise outstanding works of children's literature. It is Germany's only state-funded literary award. In the past, authors from many countries...
) - Drechsler, Hanno et al., Zur Geschichte der Synagoge und der jüdischen Gemeinde in Marburg, 2nd edn., Marburg: Stadt Marburg, 1993 (Marburger Stadtschriften zur Geschichte und Kultur, 39)
- Drechsler, Hanno et al., Rabbiner Dr. Leopold Lucas: Marburg 1872-1943 Theresienstadt: Versuch einer Würdigung, Marburg: Stadt Marburg, 1987 (Marburger Stadtschriften zur Geschichte und Kultur, 21)
- Drechsler, Hanno, Die Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (SAPD): Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Deutschen Arbeiterbewegung am Ende der Weimarer Republik, Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1963; Repr. Hannover: Politladen, 1971; 2. Repr. Hamburg: Junius, 1999
About Hanno Drechsler (Sources)
- Auerbach, Inge, ed., Catalogus professorum academiae Marburgensis. Die Akademischen Lehrer der Philipps-Universität in Marburg von 1911 bis 1971, Marburg: Elwert, 1979 (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen, 15,2), q.v.
- Dettmering, Erhart, ed., Dr. Hanno Drechsler, 22 Jahre für Marburg: Weggefährten erinnern sich an die Amtszeit von Oberbürgermeister Dr. Hanno Drechsler im Marburger Rathaus von 1970-1992 - Eine Würdigung anlässlich seiner Verabschiedung am 16. Dezember 1992, Marburg: Rathaus-Verlag, 1995 (Marburger Stadtschriften zur Geschichte und Kultur, 50)
- Dettmering, Erhart, ed., "Alles für Marburg": Eine Chronik mit Texten, Dokumenten, Artikeln und Reden aus der 20jährigen Amtszeit von Hanno Drechsler als Oberbürgermeister der Universitätsstadt Marburg 1970-1990, Marburg: Universitätsstadt Marburg, 1991 (Marburger Stadtschriften zur Geschichte und Kultur, 33)