Albert Schöndorff
Albert Schöndorff (born December 23, 1870 in Westheim , Westphalia; † September 17, 1942 murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau ) was a German entrepreneur , local politician and founding member of the Düsseldorf-Ost housing association .
Life
Albert Schöndorff founded a carpenter's workshop in 1890, with which he moved from Derendorf to Lierenfeld within Düsseldorf in 1919 , where he specialized in the construction of railway wagons. It was the hour of birth of the Gebr. Schöndorff AG wagon factory , from which DUEWAG later developed. With his company settlement, Schöndorff significantly initiated the development of heavy industry in the Lierenfeld district of Düsseldorf.
From 1912 to 1917 Schöndorff was a city councilor in Düsseldorf for the Liberal Party . The entrepreneur recognized the housing shortage of the workforce, which was a major problem throughout Germany, especially after the First World War. On July 19, 1919, Albert Schöndorff and 152 workers from his company founded the non-profit workers' building association "Freiheit" . The workers 'and soldiers' councils had previously expropriated an area of the forester's yard on Vennhauser Allee in Vennhausen for the purpose of settlement . Here in the "Freedom Estate" on the outskirts of the city, 300 apartments for the workers of the wagon factory were built in a very short time and thus the nucleus of the Düsseldorf district of Vennhausen. Later on, other building associations took part in the "Freedom" project, which is considered to be the origin of today's Düsseldorf-Ost housing association.
As a Jew, Schöndorff was forced out of his position as director of his wagon factory after the Nazis came to power in September 1933; the exact circumstances have not been clarified. In 1938 he was also excluded from the housing association. He went into exile in the Netherlands, to Amsterdam, where he and his wife Marie Schöndorff born on September 12, 1942. Gross was arrested by the Gestapo. The couple died during the transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz.
In front of the house at Cecilienallee 19, where Albert Schöndorff had lived with his family and that of his brother, stumbling blocks were laid for him and his wife .
Honors
On March 14, 1952, the city of Düsseldorf named Schöndorffstrasse in the south of Lierenfeld on the border with the Eller district, in memory of Albert Schöndorff.
On October 6, 2005, the city of Düsseldorf officially inaugurated a square in front of the headquarters of the Düsseldorf-Ost housing cooperative in the Lierenfeld district in honor of the employer, co-founder of the workers' building association "Freiheit" and city councilors. In the presence of the mayor Joachim Erwin and the chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , Paul Spiegel , a bust of Albert Schöndorff with a memorial plaque was unveiled.
Web links
- Albert Schöndorff. Our founding father. (PDF file; 783 kB) on the website of the housing cooperative Düsseldorf-Ost eG (WOGEDO) , accessed on August 7, 2014
- City Archives Düsseldorf, List of City Councilors 1878–1933 (PDF file)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Time history. With the cutting torch. The successful wagon factory Duewag celebrates its anniversary. Without a distracting look back at their dark past. In: Der Spiegel , year 1998, issue 16. (accessed on April 4, 2015)
- ^ Hermann Kleinfeld: Düsseldorf's streets and their names. Grupello, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-928234-36-6 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schöndorff, Albert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur and local politician in Düsseldorf |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 23, 1870 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Westheim |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 17, 1942 |
| Place of death | Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp |