Anton Pohl (member of the cooperative)

Anton Pohl (born April 14, 1870 in Neustadt an der Tafelfichte , Austria-Hungary , † August 25, 1939 in Vienna ) was an Austrian consumer cooperative.

Life and education

Pohl was born in 1870 in the north of Bohemia in the small weaving town of Neustadt an der Tafelfichte in today's Czech Republic . From childhood he had to earn his living in the weaving mill . As a weaver journeyman, he went hiking to Germany , Austria and Switzerland at the age of 18 . In Germany he got to know the ideas of the labor movement and the consumer cooperative movement .

Professional activities

After his return he was a self-employed businessman in a wood and toy store. At the age of 24, he founded the consumer association in his hometown of Neustadt, which he successfully led as chairman, manager, salesman and warehouse keeper in one person. The small company was soon seen as exemplary.

He was employed as an auditor in Vienna in 1904 by the General Association of Acquisitions and Economic Cooperatives (since 1930 Austrian Cooperative Association ), to which his association was a member . He switched to the consumer association Vorwärts and was instrumental in founding the Central Association of Austrian Consumers 'Associations (ZÖK) and the large purchasing company for Austrian Consumers' associations (GöC) .

In 1906 he became managing director of the general savings and consumer associations in Graz and in 1907 chairman of the district association of alpine consumer associations . He learned the lesson from the bad experiences at the Hammerbrotwerke , which is why a bread factory was built under his leadership in 1912, which was supported by the consumer cooperative and focused solely on the needs of the consumer cooperative. For many years he was deputy chairman of the central association and chairman of the supervisory board of the GöC. When Karl Renner had to resign from the office of chairman of the association under the authoritarian Dollfuss government in February 1934, and the result of the civil war made a depoliticization of the consumer cooperatives essential for survival, Pohl became his successor. With the DC circuit of the consumer cooperative movement by the Nazis he retired from this position 1938th

Publications

He published on the British and Swiss consumer cooperative movements. Based on the experience of his auditing practice, he wrote a guideline for bookkeeping and accounting for consumer associations, which was published in two editions .

literature

• Anton Pohl 60 years old. In: The Free Cooperative. April 15, 1930; Quoted in: Johann Brazda , Sigfried Rom (Ed.): 150 years of consumer cooperatives in Austria . FOG, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-9501499-2-9 , p. 169f.
• Andreas Korp : Stone on stone, 50 years of the wholesale purchasing company of Austrian consumer associations, a memorial book . Vienna 1955.
• Heribert Sturm, Ralf Gebel, Heinz Engels, Ferdinand Seibt: Biographical lexicon on the history of the Bohemian countries. Munich 1979, p. 255.
• Andreas Reich: From worker self-help to consumer organization . Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56250-9 , pp. 603 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed November 11, 2010]). Here it is incorrectly stated that he was the chairman of the VdW, the Czech association of German business cooperatives - he was at the ZöK, the Austrian central association.
• Pohl, Anton . In: Rudolf Vierhaus : German Biographical Encyclopedia . 2nd edition. Volume 8, Saur, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-25038-X , p. 3.
• E. Spielmann:  Pohl Anton. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 153.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Andreas Reich: From worker self-help to consumer organization . Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56250-9 , pp. 64 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed November 11, 2010]).