Franz Brandts

Franz Brandts as honorary president of the German Catholic Congress in Aachen, 1912

Brandt Chapel on Rudolfstrasse

Franz Brandts (born November 12, 1834 in Gladbach ; † October 5, 1914 ) was an industrialist, Catholic activist and local politician.

Life

He was born the son of the textile publisher Franz Anton Brandts (1801–1876) and his wife Appolonia geb. Dehaut (1807-1889).

Franz Brandts initially worked in his father's textile company from 1849 to 1872. In 1872 he founded his own company, which developed very successfully. He initiated a workers' committee there. The factory regulations issued in 1885 guaranteed the workers co-management in operational matters, so it was a preliminary stage of a works council in today's sense. Franz Brandts' factory had its own health insurance, loan office, library, company kitchen, kindergarten and sewing school. Brandts built apartments that his workers could buy cheaply. Social commitment was groundbreaking for the time.

Franz Brandts was the first to introduce the mechanical loom in the textile city of Mönchengladbach in 1865 , which he had got to know in England.

In 1880 Brandts became chairman of the association of Catholic industrialists and workers' friends founded with Georg von Hertling , called "Arbeiterwohl", which was supposed to strengthen the social responsibility of employers and the partnership with the workers. From this the Volksverein for Catholic Germany developed in 1890 , which Brandts founded together with Franz Wärme , Ludwig Windthorst and others and which he also chaired. The head office of this association was therefore Mönchengladbach. In addition, Brandts worked from 1871 to 1904 as spokesman (chairman) of the center group in the city council.

He had the Catholic Chapel of St. Aloysius (today Catholic Brandt's Chapel St. Aloysius) built in Mönchengladbach-Waldhausen, which was inaugurated in 1896. The design came from a government master builder. D. Anton Peter New.

Franz Brandts also supported the social student efforts of Carl Sonnenschein and in 1905 became an honorary member of the "Academic Association Suevia" in the KV at the Cologne Commercial College. In 1912 he served as honorary president of the German Catholic Congress in Aachen . After his death, a three-page obituary, written by Carl Sonnenschein, appeared in the KV's Academic Monthly Gazette. The KV local circle Mönchengladbach still bears the name "Franz Brandts".

literature

Kurt Apelt: Brandts, Franz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 534 ( digitized version ).
Vera Bücker: Franz Brandts , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who's who of social work . Freiburg i. Br. 1998, p. 104f.
Christoph Waldecker: Brandts, Franz. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 166-173. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Commons : Franz Brandts - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Franz Brandts in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ On the foundation cf. Collection of sources on the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914 , Department I: From the time when the Reich was founded to the Imperial Social Message (1867-1881) , Volume 8: Basic questions of social policy in public discussion: churches, parties, clubs and associations , edited by Ralf Stremmel, Florian Tennstedt and Gisela Fleckenstein, Darmstadt 2006, no.155 and no.159.

personal data
SURNAME	Brandts, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Brandts, Franz Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German industrialist (Mönchengladbach)
DATE OF BIRTH	November 12, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gladbach
DATE OF DEATH	October 5, 1914
Place of death	Gladbach

[1] On the foundation cf. Collection of sources on the history of German social policy from 1867 to 1914 , Department I: From the time when the Reich was founded to the Imperial Social Message (1867-1881) , Volume 8: Basic questions of social policy in public discussion: churches, parties, clubs and associations , edited by Ralf Stremmel, Florian Tennstedt and Gisela Fleckenstein, Darmstadt 2006, no.155 and no.159.