Arthur Imhausen

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Arthur Imhausen (born January 8, 1885 in Gelsenkirchen , † July 19, 1951 in Witten ) was a German chemist, entrepreneur and inventor.

Life

Arthur Imhausen was born as the son of the chemist Karl Imhausen and Friederike, born in a Jewish family. Star born. As the son of a sergeant, he attended grammar school up to Obersekunda. He obtained his Abitur as an external student. At the First World War , he took part like his brothers, and he the Military Cross awarded. His brother Hugo was killed on patrol in February 1915, his brother Gustav was killed in the Battle of the Skagerrak on the destroyer V 29 and his brother Fritz was killed in the A 285 aviation division on May 17, 1918.

Imhausen married Auguste, b. Hülsmann. Their son, Karl-Heinz, also worked in the chemical company. He was a co-owner of the Imhausen & Co. company and a member of the Bochum Chamber of Commerce and Industry . He was elected to the board of the Colloid Chemical Society .

Activity as an entrepreneur

Arthur Imhausen, which no chemistry studies completed and his knowledge of chemistry as part of its druggist education received, acquired in 1912 together with his friend Clemens Stallmeyer the company Märkische soap industry in Witten that established during the First World War also raw materials for explosives manufacture and therefore was dismantled after the war. In the years that followed, Imhausen expanded the company into a major manufacturer of detergents and soaps. Together with Werner Prosch, he developed the process of paraffin oxidation on the basis of charcoal slack wax for the production of fatty acids and synthetic edible fats , which aroused great economic interest because of the difficulties in foreign trade and the efforts to achieve self-sufficient supplies.

For the industrial production of grease in the context of gasoline synthesis, Imhausen founded the company Deutsche Fettäur-Werke in 1936 in Witten in cooperation with the Henkel -Werke . In the meantime, the Nazi propaganda had also taken on the inventions, and Hermann Göring was to take part in the opening of the plant as the person responsible for the four-year plan . In the run-up, Wilhelm Keppler informed Göring that Imhausen was considered to be a mixed breed 1st degree due to the origin on the mother's side . In the letter of June 18, 1937, Keppler mentioned that he had reported this and the Führer said that if the man really invented the matter, then we will make him an Aryan . On July 23, 1937, Goering informed Artur Imhausen that he would be recognized as a Full Aryan by Adolf Hitler ; this exemption from the Nuremberg Laws was extended to Imhausen's entire family in November 1937. At Keppler's mediation, the synthetic grease was distributed to the inmates of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on a trial basis for about three years . In 1941/1942 Imhausen produced 250 tons of artificial edible fat per month in a large plant.

There was no further cooperation. In 1945 Imhausen was appointed President of the Bochum Chamber of Commerce and Industry by the British occupation authorities. In 1947 he resigned due to illness.

Fonts

  • Coal as a raw material base for the soap industry. (Lecture given at the conference of the Association of Soap Manufacturers in Königsberg in Prussia on August 30, 1937) In: Fette und Seifen , born in 1937.
  • Arthur Imhausen: The fatty acid synthesis and its importance for securing the German fat supply. In: Colloid Journal. 103, 1943, pp. 105-108, doi : 10.1007 / BF01502087 .
  • Arthur Imhausen: Studies on soaps made from synthetic fatty acids. In: Colloid Journal. 85, 1938, pp. 234-246, doi : 10.1007 / BF01519271 .

literature

  • Georg Wenzel: German business leader . Life courses of German business personalities. A reference book on 13,000 business figures of our time. Hanseatic Publishing House , Hamburg / Berlin / Leipzig 1929, DNB 948663294 .
  • Theodor A. Emessen: From Goering's desk. A document find. Berlin 1990.
  • Ralph Klein: Arthur Imhausen (1885–1951). In: Wolfhard Weber (ed.) Engineers in the Ruhr area. (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien , Volume 17.) Aschendorff, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-402-06753-6 , pp. 344–372.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Berend Strahlmann:  Imhausen, Arthur. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , pp. 145 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Ralph Klein: Arthur Imhausen (1885-1951). In: Wolfhard Weber (ed.) Engineers in the Ruhr area. (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien , Volume 17.) Aschendorff, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-402-06753-6 , pp. 344–372.
  3. ^ Journal of History , Volume 50, 2002, p. 606.
  4. ↑ John Steiner, Jobst Freiherr von Cornberg: Arbitrariness in the arbitrariness. Exemptions from the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 46 (1998), pp. 143–187 / 156 ( PDF ).
  5. ↑ Richard Breitman: The Architect of the "Final Solution". Heinrich Himmler and the extermination of the European Jews. Paderborn 1996, p. 52f.
personal data
SURNAME Imhausen, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Imhausen, Artur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist, entrepreneur and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Gelsenkirchen
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1951
Place of death Witten