Ernst Brandi

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Ernst Brandi (born July 13, 1875 in Osnabrück , † October 22, 1937 in Dortmund ) was a German engineer, manager and association politician in the Ruhr mining industry.

Life

Ernst Brandi attended schools in Osnabrück and Berlin. In 1895 he was a mining enthusiast at the Germania colliery and the Hansa colliery . He then studied at the universities in Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin. In 1900 he passed the first state examination for mountain referendar , in 1904 he was appointed mountain assessor after passing the second state examination. Brandi briefly worked in the Ost-Halle mining area before becoming a mining expert at the Emschergenossenschaft on October 1, 1904 . On October 1, 1907, Ernst Brandi moved to Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG (GBAG) at the suggestion of Emil Kirdorf , where he was the operations director of the Hansa colliery, Minister Stein, until 1910and Prince Hardenberg . In 1911 he was appointed as a deputy and in 1914 as a full member of the board of directors of GBAG, and in the same year he took part in the First World War. He was first a lieutenant and later a captain in the Landwehr on the Western Front . After the war he returned in 1918 as director of the United Stein & Hardenberg and Hansa collieries. With the establishment of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt) in 1926, the GBAG was absorbed and Brandi became a member of the board of the VSt and took over the management of the Dortmund group . After the restructuring of VSt and the associated re-establishment of the GBAG in 1933, Brandi kept the management of the 13 associated shafts. He campaigned strongly for the modernization of the mines. Since October 1, 1927 he was chairman of the mining association and the colliery association . Also since 1927 he was a member of the executive committee and board member of the mining section of the Reich Association of German Industry (RdI).

politics

In 1922 Ernst Brandi, meanwhile a member of the national liberal German People's Party, became chairman of the Westphalian Industry Club . Since his student days he was engaged in race theory as a hobby. In September 1931, Brandi and Albert Vögler met Adolf Hitler for the first time at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin , and he was very impressed. A few weeks later he was the only major industrialist to take part in the Harzburg Front , where the National Socialists, the German National People's Party and the Stahlhelm established a short-lived collaboration under the banner of a “national opposition”. At the same time he ultimately demanded from the chairman of the DVP, Eduard Dingeldey , to end the support of the conservative Chancellor Heinrich Brüning ( center ) and also to join the “national opposition”. When this was unsuccessful, he left the DVP. In a letter dated October 1931, he brought with views of the Great Depression all his contempt for the (at times of presidential regime only remaining way existing) Democracy expressed that stood behind its abandonment of political liberalism:

“With these democratic methods, ie methods in which everyone has a say and so-called parity prevails, we will continue to get into disaster. It doesn't get any better than until finally a 'guy' comes along who does what has been recognized as correct with ruthless energy. "

After the Reichstag election in July 1932 , in which the NSDAP had become the strongest party, Brandi and Fritz Thyssen openly campaigned for Hitler to be chancellor. The two thus opposed the majority of German entrepreneurs around the RdI chairman Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach , who were enthusiastic about the anti-democratic and business-friendly plans of Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen . After a conversation with von Papen, which took place on August 16, 1932 in Neubabelsberg , Brandi changed sides and now also stood behind the incumbent Reich government. The industrielleneingabe , 1932 Reich President in some Nazi agrarians, industrialists and bankers in November Paul von Hindenburg calling upon to appoint Hitler as Chancellor, he did not sign.

After the day of Potsdam in 1933, with the smashing of the trade unions and the abolition of collective bargaining autonomy by the National Socialists, the mining association was also dissolved, the mining association remained as a technical and scientific association. In a letter of February 6, 1933 to the editor-in-chief of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , Brandi described his past in such a way that he had always been positive about National Socialism . He wrote:

"I may [...] remind you that at every meeting over the past summer, especially at noon, I emphasized the inevitable necessity that the National Socialist movement should be judged benevolently and increasingly positively and that Hitler's chancellorship the only way out. "

- Ernst Brandi

He also took part in the secret meeting of February 20, 1933 . In October 1934, in response to the request of the treasurer of the Gaues Westfalen-Süd to compile an overview of the cash payments by the private sector to the NSDAP since February 1, 1932, Brandi wrote to the Gauleiter Josef Wagner :

“In the meantime, I feel obliged to point out to you that the result cannot, without a doubt, give you a correct picture, since - as I would like to inform you in all honesty - certain contributions have certainly been made with the assurance of confidential treatment. The letter from your Gauschatzmeister has brought many of my colleagues into a highly embarrassing conflict of conscience when, on the one hand, they would like to comply with the announcement of the contributions, but on the other hand they feel bound by promises made. "

On December 22, 1934, Brandi became head of the Ruhr district group of the coal mining specialist group. He was also involved in numerous committees such as the Social Economic Committee of the Reichsgruppe Industrie , the advisory board of the Mining Economic Group , various joint organizations of the Ruhr mining industry and the board of the Association of German Ironworkers . In April 1937, Brandi asked Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht to relieve him of the head of the Ruhr district group due to excessive workload. On October 14, 1937, he suddenly collapsed at work in the evening and was admitted to the municipal hospitals , where he died on October 22. Numerous personalities from the Ruhr industry such as Gustav Knepper , Albert Vögler , Fritz Thyssen and Heinrich Wisselmann took part in the funeral ceremonies in the group administration and in the main cemetery .

family

His parents were the school reformer Hermann Theodor Brandi (1837–1914) and Antonie Brandi geb. Russell (1843-1925). Ernst Brandi had two older brothers, Karl (1868–1946) and Paul (1870–1960). In 1904 he married Clara geb. Jucho (1882–1947), the couple had six children: Fritz Heinrich (1905–1978), Toni Johanna (* 1907), Hermann Theodor (1908–1973), Hedwig (* 1910), Klara (* 1912) and Albrecht ( 1914-1966).

Honors

literature

  • Werner Abelshauser : Ruhr coal and politics, Ernst Brandi 1875-1937 . Food 2009.
  • Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-Aktien-Gesellschaft (Hrsg.): Ernst Brandi in memory. Speeches at the funeral service . Reismann-Grone, Essen 1937.
  • Karin Jaspers / Wilfried Reinighaus: Westphalian-Lippian candidates in the January elections 1919. A biographical documentation , Münster: Aschendorff 2020 (Publications of the Historical Commission for Westphalia - New Series; 52), ISBN 9783402151365 , p. 43.
  • Fritz Pudor:  Brandi, Ernst Theodor Oswald. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 522 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Gabriele Unverferth: Brandi, Ernst Theodor Oswald . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 1 . Ruhfus, Dortmund 1994, p. 14th ff .
  • Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 1: A-K. German business publisher, Berlin 1930, DNB 453960286 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gabriele Unverferth: Brandi, Ernst Theodor Oswald . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographienbedeutender Dortmunder. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 1 . Ruhfus, Dortmund 1994, p. 14th ff .
  2. ^ Westfälischer Industrieklub: History. Retrieved March 10, 2008 .
  3. ↑ Werner Abelshauser : Ruhr coal and politics, Ernst Brandi 1875-1937 . Essen 2009, p. 94.
  4. ↑ Ulrike Kohl: The Presidents of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism. Max Planck, Carl Bosch and Albert Vögler between science and power. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, p. 181.
  5. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west. Volume 1: German history from the end of the Old Reich to the fall of the Weimar Republic. 4th edition, CH Beck , Munich 2000, p. 500.
  6. ↑ Reinhard Neebe: Big Industry, State and NSDAP 1930-1933. Paul Silverberg and the Reichsverband der Deutschen Industrie in the crisis of the Weimar Republic. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981, p. 103.
  7. ^ Henry A. Turner: The big entrepreneurs and the rise of Hitler. Siedler, Berlin 1985, p. 229.
  8. ^ Henry A. Turner: The big entrepreneurs and the rise of Hitler. Siedler, Berlin 1985, p. 332 and p. 341.
  9. ^ Fritz Klein : Review of Henry Ashby Turner, jr. Fascism and Capitalism in Germany . In: Journal of History . No. 7 . Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaft, 1973, ISSN  0044-2828 , p. 1523 .
  10. ^ Karsten Heinz Schönbach: The German Corporations and National Socialism 1926–1943. Trafo, Berlin 2015 (also dissertation, FU Berlin, 2012), p. 202 f.
personal data
SURNAME Brandi, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brandi, Ernst Theodor Oswald (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, manager and association politician in the Ruhr mining industry
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Osnabrück
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1937
Place of death Dortmund