Franz Stapelfeldt

This article describes the German shipyard director, for the lifeboat named after him, see the 8.5-meter class of the DGzRS

Franz Carl Heinrich Stapelfeldt (born January 18, 1877 in Stockelsdorf in the Eutin district, † June 4, 1954 in Bremen ) was a German shipyard director.

biography

Stapelfeldt was the son of a businessman. He lived in very simple circumstances. In 1884 he came to Bremen and attended the free school on Grossenstrasse. He did an apprenticeship in an agency and commission business . Afterwards he worked as a traveler for chemical companies and he also traveled abroad, to the Baltic States , Switzerland , Italy and France . In 1900 he founded the first vending machine restaurant on Sögestraße in Bremen .

Otwi-Werke, AG Weser and DeSchiMAG

In 1913, Stapelfeldt joined the Otwi-Werke in Delmenhorst as an industrial clerk as a partner. The company relocated its factory to the coal port in Bremen and produced grenades during the First World War . He became the managing director in 1915. In 1920 he merged Otwi-Werke with Werft Aktien-Gesellschaft "Weser" , or AG Weser for short . On April 1, 1921, he became chairman of the board and director of the shipyard. He worked together with the shipyards of the Vulcan works and the Germania shipyard in Kiel . From 1926 he pushed the merger of the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard from Bremerhaven with the AG Weser. When the shipyards were concentrated in 1927/28, AG Weser merged with seven other shipyards into the Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft (DeSchiMAG). Stapelfeldt became the powerful general director of the shipyard empire of AG Weser in Bremen, Vulcan in Hamburg and Stettin, Tecklenborg in Bremerhaven, Seebeck in Bremerhaven, Neptun Werft in Rostock , Nüscke in Stettin and the Frerichswerft in Einswarden . In the global economic crisis that began in 1928 , many shipbuilding orders were canceled , including by Norddeutscher Lloyd . JF Schröder , co-owner of the Schröder Bank, played a central role . Stapelfeldt involved Friedrich Krupp AG in the restructuring efforts of his group and Krupp was also to take over DeSchiMAG in 1941.

Shipbuilding developments

It was also thanks to Stapelfeldt that the improvement of the ship shape , combined with the acquisition of licenses from the inventor of the Maier shape , the Austrian shipbuilding engineer Fritz Maier (1844–1926), initiated an important, innovative and successful path in shipbuilding. The Maier form was to spread from Bremen around the world through license agreements from around 1928. He succeeded in consolidating the company again from 1932/33 through effective rationalization measures as well as foreign orders and shipbuilding for the Navy . In 1933 aircraft parts were also built and therefore Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH Bremen was founded in 1934 and Stapelfeldt was its chairman of the supervisory board. Another shipyard was built in Lemwerder and the construction of the submarine types XXI brought profits.

time of the nationalsocialism

Stapelfeldt was a liberal-minded person who openly expressed what he thought. He was in close contact with “his” workers. It existed in the era of National Socialism connections to the Reich Commissioner for Price Monitoring Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and in later civil resistance groups that he supported financially. In 1936, however, he became a member of the NSDAP and in 1940 he became a military economic leader and head of the industrial department of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce . He was a member of the Seafaring House and in 1938 was the creator of the Schaffermahlzeit .

The anti-fascists who worked on the AG-Weser were partially covered by the anti-Nazi Stapelfeldt, who personally campaigned for Emil Theil 's release . He was arrested by the Gestapo on October 3, 1944 . This could not prove that he was involved in the resistance movement , so that he was released in March 1945. He had already previously had to resign from the chairmanship of the DeSchiMAG board on December 31, 1944.

After the war, the now 68-year-old was imprisoned for one year by the American military government. As a pensioner, he was no longer active afterwards. In a book, My Relationship to the NSDAP , Bremen 1946, he presented his past during the Nazi era. The rapid denazification of Stapelfeldt led to an uproar in the ruling chamber in 1947 and Hermann Prüser (KPD) withdrew from this body.

Honors

• The Franz Stapelfeldt , a sea ​​rescue boat (SRB) of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS), was named after him.
• The Stapelfeldtstraße in Bremen - Gröpelingen was named after him.

literature

• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Monika Porsch: Bremer Straßenlexikon, Volume 10 · Walle, Gröpelingen . Verlag Schmetterling, Bremen, 1999, ISBN 3-932249-04-6 .
• Peter Kuckuk (ed.): Bremen large shipyards in the Third Reich . (Contributions to the social history of Bremen 15), Edition Temmen, 1993, ISBN 3-86108-203-9 .
• Inge Marßolek , René Ott, Peter Brandt: Bremen in the Third Reich - Adaptation, Resistance, Persecution . Schünemann, 1986, ISBN 3-7961-1765-1 .
• Jörg Wollenberg : Labor disputes and political strikes of the Bremen shipyard workers. Franz Stapelfeldt - from Hitler's supporter to resistance fighter? Democratic Publishing Cooperative (DVK) / Socialist Politics and Economy (spw), Berlin West / Bremen 1984.
• Bremen 1933–45. From trading center to armaments smiths. Catalog for the exhibition in the Schlachthof cultural center. Bremen 1983.
• Franz Stapelfeldt: My relationship with the NSDAP . Bremen 1946.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jörg Wollenberg: Labor disputes and political strikes of the Bremen shipyard workers. Franz Stapelfeldt - from Hitler's supporter to resistance fighter? Democratic Publishing Cooperative (DVK) / Socialist Politics and Economy (spw), Berlin West / Bremen 1984, p. 78.