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Wilhelmshaven remembers: Honor for Mayor Grunewald!
The SPD remembers Arthur Grunewald in Wilhelmshaven on June 30, 2025, who had a significant influence on the city's development.
Wilhelmshaven remembers: Honor for Mayor Grunewald!
Today, June 30, 2025, Arthur Grunewald would have been 123 years old. On this occasion, the SPD faction of the Wilhelmshaven city council honored the former mayor with a flower arrangement at his grave. Grunewald, who served as mayor from 1972 to 1976, left a significant footprint in the urban development of Wilhelmshaven [nwzonline.de].
Arthur Grunewald was born on June 30, 1902 and died on May 2, 1985. His political career began immediately after the Second World War when he joined the Wilhelmshaven city council in 1945. Several local politicians, former mayor Eberhard Menzel and a long-time acquaintance of Grunewald took part in the memorial hour, who reported on their personal memories of this special man.
A trailblazer for the city
Grunewald had great visions for the city and emphasized the motto “Wilhelmshaven looks seaward” during his term in office. He was resolutely committed to the economic future and played a key role in developing Wilhelmshaven into Germany's only deep-water port. Projects such as the construction of the oil port, the jade deepening and the “port dispute agreement” fell during his term of office. Under his leadership, numerous companies such as Olympia Werke AG, Krupp Kranbau, the Mobil Oil refinery and the power plant in Rüstersieler Groden were established, as wilhelmshaven.de makes clear.
After attending school at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium and abandoning his studies in law, political science and economics, Grunewald joined his parents' business before being drafted into the air raid police in 1940. His return to Wilhelmshaven in June 1945 marked the beginning of his local political career. From 1960 he took over the office of city manager and was elected mayor in 1968.
Recognition and awards
Grunewald received many awards for his services. These include the Golden Badge of Honor from the German Traffic Watch in 1970 and honorary citizenship of the city of Wilhelmshaven in 1977. Particularly noteworthy is his appointment as honorary chairman of the district association of the German Red Cross in 1980. His dedicated work and the initiatives he launched secured Wilhelmshaven's economic basis and created jobs for the population.
Knowing full well that Wilhelmshaven started a new era in 1958 with the first crude oil tanker to unload there, Grunewald laid the foundation for a petrochemical infrastructure that is still important today, as innenstadt-wilhelmshaven.de describes. This development is now accompanied by the current transformation towards green energy, which aims to create a modern, sustainable economic foundation with the ENERGY HUB in Wilhelmshaven.
The memorial hour in honor of Arthur Grunewald not only commemorates his achievements, but also the foresight and creative will that characterize Wilhelmshaven to this day.