Kurt Conle

Kurt Conle (born March 10, 1918 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ; † January 12, 1966 in Immenstadt im Allgäu ) was a German architect, building contractor and founder of the airline LTU .

Youth and education

Kurt Conle was born in Speldorf as the son of the master carpenter Heinrich Conle and his wife Berta Sieper . His father came from Ruhlkirchen in Hesse and had moved to Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1899 with his first wife Franziska and daughter Katharina. There they had more offspring: Maria (* 1900), Anna (* 1905) and Karl (* 1908). Heinrich's wife died in 1914 at the age of 33. In 1915 he married a second time. The marriage with Berta Sieper had four more children: Heinrich August (* 1915), Kurt (* 1918), Werner (* 1921) and Günter (* 1923).

After graduating from school in 1934, son Kurt began an apprenticeship with his father Heinrich. After the journeyman's examination as a carpenter and joiner, he enrolled as a student at the State Building School in Essen in 1938, where he graduated as a civil engineer in 1940. For a few months he gained professional experience as a construction manager at Hochtief AG in Essen before he was drafted into the Navy. After his release from captivity, he enrolled as a student of architecture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1945 and, after studying at the Technical University of Munich, graduated as an architect in 1948.

The construction company Conle

After graduating, Kurt Conle started his own business. Together with his older brother Heinrich (Heinz) he founded an architecture office in Speldorf in 1948, which quickly made a name for itself in the western Ruhr area. If the first construction project was a modest single-family house, it was followed by larger orders for schools, hospitals and various public administration buildings. The Conle brothers were also involved in social housing. They bought larger land areas and built complexes of social housing there, for example in Duisburg-Ruhrort and in the Mülheim districts of Dümpten, Broich and Speldorf. Other major projects were in Duisburg-Großenbaum and Duisburg-Hamborn . In Mülheim, the Uhlenhorst residential park , the Krähenbüschken settlement and the Saarner Kuppe settlement were among the Conles' projects.

Kurt Conle expanded and began buying up other construction companies. In addition to companies in the Ruhr area , he acquired a window factory and a sawmill in Bavaria , where he also hunted. In the early 1960s, Conle bought large plots of land in East Westphalia as well as in Weeze and Mönchengladbach in order to build settlements for the British occupation forces.

The work areas of the two Conle brothers were separate for all construction projects: while Kurt Conle took care of commercial matters, his brother Heinz was responsible for the architectural drafts and the structural-technical area.

A few years later, Heinz Conle saved this division of tasks from being convicted by the Duisburg Regional Court. In a process that has been going on since 1961, the Conle brothers were accused of having defrauded the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with false accounts of around DM 500,000 in the context of social housing . The proceedings against Kurt Conle were initially severed due to illness and the consequent lack of negotiating ability, and finally ended with his death in 1966. However, his brother Heinrich had to answer in court. In the negotiations he pointed out that his brother Kurt was solely responsible for the company's financial affairs. The trial ended after six years in February 1967 with an acquittal, since the allegations could no longer be verified after the death of Kurt Conle.

Foundation of the company LTU

The flourishing business of his construction company enabled Kurt Conle to fulfill a long-cherished dream in 1955. He bought a small, twin-engine private aircraft of the Cessna brand from his Wiesbaden business partner Sachsenberg, who was a Cessna representative in his second job. On this occasion Sachsenberg drew his attention to the business idea of ​​an Englishman who had just founded a company called LTU.

The company's founder was Bernard A. Dromgoole , who, together with his compatriot Ronny Myhill, founded an airline - the " Lufttransport Union " - in February 1955 and chartered an airplane for this purpose. The aim was to set up our own flight operations. However, the necessary traffic rights were only granted by the responsible German authorities if the majority shareholders of the company were German citizens. The involvement of the flight-loving construction company Conle in the project created optimal conditions for the start of the company, as Conle had excellent contacts to German banks. Kurt Conle enjoyed the trust of the lenders and had the necessary collateral with his construction company. Dromgoole and Myhill brought the technical knowledge and the contacts to the aircraft manufacturers into the company. On October 20, 1955, the company LTU was entered in the Frankfurt Commercial Register with a share capital of DM 30,000, with Kurt Conle and his family initially holding one third, and then two thirds from 1956.

The first regular passenger flight took place on March 4, 1956 from Frankfurt am Main to Catania , Sicily. In order to make air travel to southern countries attractive outside of the summer season, Conle and his employees developed concepts to motivate hoteliers to retrofit their hotels and holiday complexes with heating. In addition, representatives of the company LTU took part in working groups at the state and federal level in order to implement delayed holidays in the German federal states. Company owner Kurt Conle had the vision that one day all Germans would go on vacation by plane. His legendary motto was: "Flying is for everyone".

Kurt Conle became the main partner in 1959 and in 1961 relocated air traffic from Frankfurt am Main to Düsseldorf, which remained the airline's home airport until it was dissolved. The airline experienced a flourishing business here in the 1960s. In the midst of the economic boom, Kurt Conle died after a serious illness on January 12, 1966. The trustees appointed by the community of heirs put his company empire to the test and considered selling the less profitable companies. LTU was also up for grabs, as the airline had benefited greatly in the past from the goodwill of the company's boss, Conle, who never let the losses deter him from investing money in the company. Before his death, Conle had worked out a financial plan with the two managing directors that stipulated that all profits should be reinvested in the company by 1972. In negotiations, the trustees were persuaded to keep this agreement and to continue the company in the spirit of Kurt Conle.

Private

Kurt Conle was married to Hilde Conle, nee Heckhoff (1920-2006). Together they had three daughters: Beate Hüttner, Ulrike Paulus and Vera Conle-Kalinowski.

literature

• Josef Krauthäuser and Ulrich Kappner: Flying is there for everyone: From the Vickers Viking to the Airbus A 330. The history of LTU . NARA-Verlag, Allershausen 1996. ISBN 3-925671-21-8
• LTU review - 5 decades of joie de vivre . Ed. Of ok! Communication, Mülheim an der Ruhr 2005.
• Jens Roepstorff: 50 years of LTU - a success story with Mülheim participation. In: Mülheimer Jahrbuch 2006, pp. 83–86.
• Jens Roepstorff: Kurt Conle - Mülheim building contractor and aviation pioneer. In: Horst A. Wessel (Ed.): Mülheim entrepreneurs and pioneers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2012, pp. 201–210.