Carlos Vallin i Ballin

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Carlos Vallin i Ballin (born on April 24, 1868 as Karl Gustav Wertheim in Frankfurt am Main , died on August 20, 1945 in Barcelona ) was a German-Spanish industrialist and head of the company "Wertheim Rápida SA"

Life

Carlos Vallin i Ballin was born on April 24, 1868 as the fifth child of the German sewing machine manufacturer Joseph Wertheim in Frankfurt am Main. With his brothers Ernst and Paul, he initially managed the German sewing machine factory together .

On April 7, 1888, he came to Barcelona for the first time to present the products of the Wertheim company at the world exhibition and subsequently managed the Spanish branch of the German sewing machine factory, which was founded in 1870, with business premises in Calle Aviñió. His friends included the industrialist's son and painter Ramon Casas i Carbó , who also designed several advertising postcards for Wertheim sewing machines. After the death of his two parents in 1919, he dropped the name Wertheim and called himself Carlos Vallin i Ballin, adding the maiden name of his mother as an addition.

In 1915 he began to manufacture sewing machines in a factory in the San Marti district. As a result of the tense economic situation in Germany after the First World War, he convinced his brothers Ernst and Paul, with whom he jointly held the management, to gradually relocate the production of the German sewing machine factory to Barcelona. On February 6, 1920, a new factory, the "Wertheim - Rápida SA", was opened in Calle Sancho di Ávila 88, with some of the machines coming from the factory in Frankfurt-Bornheim .

Can Wertheim in Teià

In October 1920 Carlos Vallin bought a castle in Teià near Barcelona, ​​where he had already spent the summer months, and named it Can Wertheim. In July 1921 he married his housekeeper Maria Wischanowska. He held an important position in Barcelona society, including being President of the Catalan Theater and the National Automobile Club.

At the opening of the second world exhibition in Barcelona in 1929, he met Adriano Olivetti , who was presenting typewriters from his father's factory and became one of the financiers for the opening of the first Olivetti branch in Barcelona.

In the summer of 1929, Carlos and his brother Paul made the decision to move the remaining stock of machines and tools from the German sewing machine factory in Frankfurt to Barcelona and to give up the Frankfurt company location. In 1931 he won the Vienna sex researcher Dr. Eugen Steinach , as trustee for the Wertheim family fortune in Zurich. In 1932 the German sewing machine factory closed its own operation in Frankfurt and handed over the distribution of the sewing machines, which were now exclusively produced in Barcelona, ​​to the company Gritzner-Kayser AG .

In July 1936, in the course of the general strike, Rápida SA was collectivized by the anarchist union CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) , but Carlos Vallin offered to continue working in the factory as a simple member of the technical administration, which he accepted. After the May riots in 1937, the collectives in Barcelona were dissolved again and Rápida SA also returned to the ownership of Carlos Vallin, who passed the management on to his wife Maria.

On the initiative of the Swedish consul in Barcelona, ​​a Swedish-Catalan colony was set up in Can Wertheim and in neighboring Can Godo in Teia, where around 200 children from regions that had suffered particularly from the turmoil of the Spanish civil war could live and study in safety. The Swedish botanist Eric Svensson was in charge of this colony.

Both the factory and the sales rooms of Rápida SA in Barcelona survived the civil war years unscathed. The generally difficult economic situation moved Carlos Vallin to sell Rápida SA to Hispano Olivetti in 1943. Carlos Vallin fell into a twilight sleep in April 1945, from which he never woke, and died on August 20, 1945 in Barcelona. On September 4th, a funeral mass was held in the Basilica de la Purissima Conçeptiò, and the burial at the Muntjuïc cemetery took place in silence.

Sole heir of the total assets was his wife Maria Wischanowska-Vallin; there are no descendants from this marriage. According to various sources, however, Wolfgang Ambrosius Bäuml (1921–1990), son of Maria Wischanowska-Vallin's sister, descended from Carlos Vallin.

literature

  • Josef Wertheim's German sewing machine factory, NaeMaSchmiede.de
  • Carlos Guilliard: The lost legacy of the Wertheims. The story of my German-Jewish family . Bastei Lübbe AG, Cologne 2018. ISBN 978-3-7857-2633-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the Royal Decree. Government of Wiesbaden from Sept. 5, 1919 Pet. 2.24 Sta 1210 Karl Wertheim is authorized to use the name Carlos Vallin
  2. ↑ https://www.mozaika.es/wp-content/uploads/013_carlos_vallin_cede_la_rapida_guerra_civil-5-1024x1022.jpg
  3. ↑ https://www.fraudanwalt.com/2017/01/26/kein-ende-fur-deutsche-bank-ag/
personal data
SURNAME Vallin i Ballin, Carlos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wertheim, Karl Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist and sewing machine manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH August 20, 1945
Place of death Barcelona