Carl Preen

Carl Wilhelm Hermann Preen (born June 15, 1824 in Rübeland , † January 22, 1889 in Tanne ) was a German social reformer and hut director.

Life

Preen was born in Rübeland as the son of the smeltery inspector Carl Preen (senior). His father was a smelter inspector at the ducal Braunschweig Oberhütteninspektion in Rübeland. In the period from June 1830 to March 1837 Carl Preen attended elementary school in Rübeland and at Easter 1837 switched to the monastery school in Ilfeld . There he passed his Abitur on April 5, 1840. He then completed a degree at the Technical University of Braunschweig .

In the turmoil of the revolution in 1848 he had to flee from Braunschweig to Brilon in the Sauerland. In Olsberg he got a job as an authorized signatory at the company Gebrüder Kropff & Unkraut, which he held until 1868. In the summer of 1868 he moved to Tanne, where he was employed as a hut inspector at the Tanner hut . After the ironworks closed in autumn 1869, he took the initiative and founded a workers' production cooperative, from which the Tanner Hütte Eisenguß-Waren Aktiengesellschaft emerged in 1871.

On March 23, 1872 he married Caroline Brünig and on May 1, 1873 the son Karl Preen (junior) was born. Carl Preen was the director of the Tanner Hütte from 1871 to 1889 and died in Tanne on January 22nd, 1889.

Workers' productive cooperative

In the spring of 1871 it was decided to found a cooperative in which all members should participate equally. The driving force of the company from the beginning was the steelworks inspector Carl Preen. But since there were people who feared for their belongings if the cooperative went bankrupt, in the end the stock corporation was chosen as the organizational form. The new cooperative should be called "Tanner Hütte Eisengußwaren - Aktiengesellschaft" and have a share capital of 25,000 thalers . This should be raised by issuing 500 shares of 50 thalers each. Now it was a matter of distributing the shares. Anyone wishing to purchase a share had to make a down payment of 5 thalers. With the acquisition of the shares, a job and a say in the cooperative were secured at the same time. This system was also used at Wiedaer Hütte in Wieda in 1874 , where shares were also issued. Tanner Hütte acquired the majority of the shares and at the same time took over management of the company.

The workers' productive cooperative of the Tanner Hütte is now widely regarded as the first "nationally owned" company in Germany.

Honors

After his death, the hut staff erected an honorary grave for him in the cemetery in recognition of his contribution to the preservation of the Tanner hut. In 2010 a street in Tanne was named after him (Carl-Preen-Ring).

publication

• Carl Preen: Report on the cooperative at the Tanne ironworks . Halle / Saale, 1872

literature

• Richard Stegemann : Fir and Wieda. History of two Harz workers' cooperatives . Publishing house for commercial education and economics, Braunschweig 1899. (= contributions to economics ) TU Braunschweig

Individual evidence

1. ^ Review by Wilhelm Stieda in the year books for economics and statistics . G. Fischer, Jena 1899, p. 278 f. DigiZagazin .