Alfred Rexroth

Alfred Rexroth (born March 27, 1899 in Lohr am Main ; † January 18, 1978 at Elmau Castle (other day of death: January 13)) was a German engineer , entrepreneur and anthroposophist .

Life

Alfred Rexroth was the eldest son of a family of manufacturers who owned an ironworks in the Spessart for four generations . He completed an engineering degree in Nuremberg . During this time he got to know anthroposophy and in 1921 heard a lecture by Rudolf Steiner . He completed his internship at MAN and then went to Stuttgart , where he worked in the office of the anthroposophical company “Der Kommende Tag AG” until he joined the family business in 1923. In 1924 he became a member of the Anthroposophical Society. In 1930 he married Friederike Schultz, b. Fienemann, and adopted her daughter from her first marriage.

In connection with the Gestapo action against the anthroposophists on June 9, 1941, Alfred Rexroth was interrogated, his house was searched and his library with a number of anthroposophical books was confiscated. The exact date of his arrest is not recorded. He denied to the Gestapo that he was a member of the anthroposophical society, declared the books to be part of the collection of the deceased first husband of his wife and his wife declared another box in the attic to be stowed there due to lack of space, according to the report by the Lohr / Main gendarmerie post dated July 12, 1941. However, his ironworks were included in war production where his “passive resistance” was noticed by the Gestapo, which led him back to his anthroposophical activities. The Würzburg branch asked the Gestapo in Nuremberg what should be done against Alfred and Ludwig Rexroth to withdraw their managerial status. In the action against secret doctrines, the connection between the Alfred Rexroth and anthroposophy and the Christian community would have been established.

"The lack of interest of the two Rexroth brothers in the manufacture of the war-essential products made in their company and the indifference in the management are undoubtedly due to their pacifist attitude." This was stated in a report from the Nuremberg State Police Department on November 6, 1942. What was done about it is not recorded.

With his brother and a managing director, he managed and developed the company into a major global company. Improvements in manufacturing in the hydraulics sector enabled the company to produce a homogeneous cast iron that was suitable for high pressures.

Work goals and initiatives

Alfred Rexroth tried, together with his brother Ludwig, to introduce corporate constitutions based on partnership. In the so-called “Heidenheimer Kreis” he found other like-minded entrepreneurs who individually endeavored to maintain and develop Rudolf Steiner's threefold concept . Later, in the 1960s, he found the impetus for binding action and practice in the circle around Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff . They sought to develop financing channels and legal forms on an anthroposophical background. Here he saw the opportunity to take up the impetus of the “coming day” again and to establish new bank-like institutions. Through his commitment, the essential foundations for the development of the extended legal and financial system were created, which today are known as the GLS Gemeinschaftbank eG and Gemeinnützige Treuhandstelle e. V. are known.

The impulses and ideals of Alfred Rexroth can be seen in various start-up initiatives that he undertook as part of his business activities. For example, in 1963 Rexroth was a founding member of the Institute for Contemporary Social Issues

Student internships

From 1965 he offered industrial school internships for Waldorf schools at the Lohr ironworks. Hundreds of Waldorf schoolchildren from the upper grades completed a three to four week industrial internship here. It was his concern to connect institutions of cultural and intellectual life with commercial enterprises. This should stimulate the social imagination through targeted practical experience at a young age.

Labor Research Foundation

In 1974 Alfred Rexroth set up a foundation for work research, which promoted research projects on how people and groups of people could try out new forms of education, training and work while working. As a result, in cooperation with the non-profit trust agency in Bochum and the Anthroposophical Society, numerous training initiatives were promoted that wanted to work in this way.

Alfred Rexroth believed that a modern, globalizing economic life based on division of labor needs certain legal framework conditions. He was primarily concerned with new forms of ownership of the means of production and the question of how human labor can be deprived of its commodity character. In this regard, he made decisions that should be exemplary.

Foundation of your own assets

So he transferred his industrial holdings to a capital management company of trustee partners who, even after his death, had to ensure that private disposal of the entrepreneurial capital was excluded for the entrepreneurs involved and their successors. It was ensured that part of the profits from the industrial activities flow to the bank-like institutions (Gemeinnützige Treuhandstelle e.V. Bochum). In this way, initiatives of cultural and intellectual life are still financed from the proceeds of industrial activity.

When the company in Lohr, which had meanwhile grown into a global company, was faced with major investment decisions as an industry leader in the field of hydraulics, which overstrained the company's financial strength, a financially strong partner was looked for in the large company Mannesmann. Limited partner shares of the Rexroth brothers were transferred to the Mannesmann company for a fee. Alfred Rexroth then, with the help of his wife Friederike, transferred the proceeds of the sale to the non-profit trust office in Bochum in exchange for an annuity. Numerous initiatives in biodynamic agriculture, in the educational, curative education, training and research areas were financed from this entire industrial asset.

Associative partnerships

Ultimately, Alfred Rexroth sought to develop cooperative-associative collaboration instead of anonymizing market forces. The basis for this was to develop a new labor law that should make all employees equal partners and thereby gradually overcome the contradiction between capital and work or between employer and employee. His partnership-based company agreement in the Lohr plant and his work in the “Working Group for Partnership in Business”, of which he was one of the founding members, serve as examples. He wrote essays and commentaries, and gave lectures and seminars to illustrate the principle of brotherhood in business.

Web links

• Rhinow homepage
• Homepage Alfred Rexroth GmbH & Co.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Research Center for Culture Impulse - Biographies Documentation
2. ^ Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism (1933-1945) by Uwe Werner, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1999 ISBN 3486563629 p. 313
3. ^ Homepage of the Neuguss company ( Memento from November 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ AGP newsletter ( Memento of July 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)