Johann Smidt

Johann Smidt ( born November 5, 1773 in Bremen, † May 7, 1857 in Bremen ) was an important Bremen politician, theologian and founder of Bremerhaven.

Biography

Family, Youth and Education

Smidt was the son of the pastor of St. Stephani Church in Bremen. He finished high school Illustre. After graduation he studied theology in Jena from 1792. He was there a founding member of the free men of the society. In 1794 he passed his "candidate exam " in Bremen and continued his studies then continued in Jena. In 1797 he was ordained to the ministry in Zurich.

Smidt 1798 married Wilhelmine Rhode ( 1777-1848 ), daughter of Johann Conrad Rhode, the owner of Sonnen-Apotheke in Sögestrasse No. 37 (now 18). Both lived here from 1804 to 1821. Their son Heinrich Smidt ( 1806-1878 ) was a Senator in Bremen.

Previously rise

Smidt was then a professor of philosophy and history at the high school illustrious in Bremen. He was a member of the parent on people in Bremen. In 1799 he founded the Hanseatic magazine. He was a member of the Bremer Bürgerconvent as precursors of the Bremen state. Only 27 years old he was in 1800 surprisingly elected alderman of Bremen. From 1806 he was increasingly active foreign policy for Bremen. 1811 - Bremen was part of the French empire - he represented in Paris Bremen interests and at the same time paid homage to Napoleon. He took influence on the development of the Hanseatic cities in governmental and commercial terms. In 1811 he was briefly to be Senator office to act as a notary.

Smidt as Senator

After the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, he negotiated with the Russian Major General Baron Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn - the straight Bremen occupied - over the new construction of a Bremen State. Tettenborn put 1813 in Bremen a provisional senate with seven senators. Smidt was now Senator of the foreign affairs of Bremen. He negotiated in 1814 in Frankfurt, then the headquarters in France and 1814/15 the Congress of Vienna and reached the preservation of the independence of the Hanseatic towns and their inclusion in the German Confederation. Smidt left - arbitrarily and without a vote - in the final editing of the decisions of the Congress of Vienna to the rights of the Jews, the text " There are the confessors of Jewish faith receive the same already granted in individual states rights ", slightly but momentous change in: "It will get the confessors of the Jewish faith, the same already granted by the individual states rights ". Since the French, and not the State of Bremen had emancipated the Jews of Bremen, Bremen revoked - like many other states - the emancipation of the Jews. In 1815 he worked with other German personalities, the German Federal Act for the German Confederation.

From November 1815 Smidt was the Bremen representative in parliament of Frankfurt am Main. Here he fought the Metternich's policy. He worked until 1820 in the negotiations, which established the free Weser shipping and the related cancellation of the fees charged by the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg Elsflether Weser duty.

Smidt as mayor

1821 Smidt Mayor of Bremen and he remained in this office until his death, except for the period of the Revolution from 1849 to 1852. He remained first, the representative of Bremen in the German Bundestag.

He gave the trade impetus Bremen. Since the current conditions of the Lower Weser it prevented the seagoing vessels could reach Bremen, Oldenburg was planning the expansion of the port of Brake. Smidt bought from the Kingdom of Hanover a piece of land at the mouth Geestemünde and Bremerhaven was founded in 1827. The " Old Port " was completed in 1830 as an artificial harbor.

He was able to achieve by the conclusion of an advantageous trade treaties with foreign countries, the spread of the consular post. The very conservative Smidt could not prevent Bremen had given a more democratic and liberal constitution in 1849. So he left his mayor office until 1852. After the Restoration and with the help of the German democratic achievements have been abolished in Bremen and it stayed with the strong right hand of the Senate. In 1854 he participated in the new constitution, with its eight -class franchise and the strong position of the Bremen merchants (see also: History of the City of Bremen ). It was in 1850, 1853, 1855 and 1857 President of the Senate

Inglorious is Smidt's rejection of Jews and Lutherans in Bremen. After erfälscht the legal basis for the revocation of the emancipation of the Jews of Bremen (see above), he operated since 1821, "complete expulsion of the children of Israel " as a " angelegentliche state concern." In his anti-Judaism he regarded the Jews as "foreign body in a Christian polity ". In 1826 he had achieved his goal to two adopted from Hannover protected Jews. The Lutheran Cathedral parish, which had fallen to the cathedral precinct in 1803 at the then Calvinistic Bremen State Smidt denied until 1830 the status of a municipality and its assets in developed and undeveloped land.

Smidt died in 1857 and was buried in the Herdentorsfriedhof and 1891 reburied at the cemetery Rien Berger. Smidt was one of the greatest statesmen of Bremen. His conservative, anti-Jewish and anti-Lutheran attitude, however, have tarnished his image in history.

Honors

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