Franz Thiemann

Franz Thiemann (born January 6, 1906 in Hanover ; † February 19, 2000 there ) was a German athlete, businessman, association official and president of the Hanover Chamber of Commerce and Industry . The award-winning "pioneer of health food" propagated the idea of a health food store , and the company built melting true to his motto "Companies that nothing refrain" to Europe at that time the largest reform house.

Live and act

Born in Hanover at the time of the German Empire , Franz Thiemann suffered from furunculosis as a teenager , which caused him problems in rowing and skiing , which he practiced. During the Weimar Republic in 1927, at the age of 21, the young man initially only visited the “ Reformhaus Hannover - Emma Schmelz” in Hanover's Osterstraße as a customer , where the entrepreneur Emma Schmelz had bought the house at Osterstraße 84 in the same year - and soon became the merchant's son-in-law when he married her daughter Helene .

After Franz Thiemann had completed a professional training in Leipzig at the health food factory Thalysia as well as in health food stores in Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main , he first started as an employee of the " Health Food Store Hannover - Emma Schmelz". After the owner's death († 1930), he took over the business shares of the widower Gerhard Schmelz in 1931 and then successfully managed the health food store together with his wife Helene from the aftermath of the global economic crisis .

Also at the beginning of the 1930s, Franz Thiemann visited Hans Gregor at his first " technical school for health food store owners and health food store employees", founded in Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains in 1932 . In 1933, the year the National Socialists seized power , Thiemann spent three weeks in the Bircher Benner Clinic in Zurich .

In 1936, Franz Thiemann founded and directed the “Schmelz-Schule für Gesundheitskost + Diet ”, which was attended by around 68,000 people in the following four decades. Due to the increased demand for food, shoes and textiles from the reform movement, Thiemann expanded his Hanoverian business premises considerably in 1938 and at the end of the 1930s also took over the management of the Hanoverian local association of the “German Life Reform”. In the middle of the Second World War , Thiemann also became a member of the “Working Group Life Reform Economy” founded in this association in 1941.

Then, however, the air raids on Hanover put an end to further activities for the time being: in 1943, aerial bombs destroyed the business headquarters in Hanover's Osterstrasse , and all nine branches established so far were badly damaged. After all, the “ total war ” propagated by Joseph Goebbels brought the survivors, so-called “ master people ” in their distress, to a “total plundering” of all smelting businesses during the war.

After the war and the currency reform , from 1948 onwards , the Hanover building community began building a new street with the residents of Karmarschstrasse, which is now mostly lined with commercial buildings. Franz Thiemann resumed his sales activities in 1951 and, since he was able to offer many goods cheaply as " brand-free ", he was able to increase his sales again. He was able to hire the architect Ernst Friedrich Brockmann as the client for Karmarschstrasse 16 and in 1953 opened the new Schmelz main business as the “House of Health Culture”, which was also the first self-service shop in Hanover with an attached milk and juice bar and a health food restaurant. Thiemann also set the first “rolling health food store” in motion, and later another automobile of this type (both vehicles were shut down in 1989).

When the Reformhaus-Fachakademie was founded , which started its work in 1956 as a foundation under the current name “Akademie Gesundes Leben” in Oberstetten , Franz Thiemann was one of the founding members and was elected to the board of the academy. He was also involved in the key professional associations and in the corresponding committees of the retail sector .

At the time of the economic miracle , Franz Thiemann relocated his wife's specialty shop , the “Helene Schmelz lingerie , corsetry and knitwear” store in Hanover, in 1957 to Karmarschstrasse 40 under the new name “Schmelz-Mode”, which then existed until 1989 .

From 1958 Franz Thiemann held the office of Vice President of the Hanover Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK).

In 1965, Thiemann set up his shop on Karmarschstrasse - in connection with a fundamental modernization of the premises and the creation of the "avocado grill" - an information stand that was constantly manned by a dietician. In the following year, both Schmelzschen restaurants were awarded the "Quality Mark for Diet Meals" in 1965.

After Franz Thiemann had held the office of IHK vice-president from 1958, he headed the IHK as its president from 1979 to 1983.

By the 1980s, Thiemann expanded the “Schmelz” company into Germany's largest health food store in Germany, with around 20 branches in the Lower Saxony state capital and its surroundings.

After Franz Thiemann's death, the Schmelz company was sold in 2002 to Reformhaus Bacher GmbH & Co. KG , based in Remscheid .

Fonts

• Heinz Sahner, Franz Thiemann (Ed.): The future of natural remedies in Europe in danger? (= Writings of the research institute Freie Berufe / FFB , vol. 2), text for the symposium on January 24, 1990 in the Leibnizhaus, Hanover , ed. on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Holistic Medicine eV, Research Institute for Liberal Professions (FFB), University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg: Research Institute for Free Professions, 1990, ISBN 3-927816-06-X

Further honors

Franz Thiemann was “the recipient of the highest awards from the federal government and the state ” and was honored, among other things, as a “pioneer of health food”.

literature

• Waldemar R. Röhrbein : THIEMANN, Franz. In: Dirk Böttcher, Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 359.
• Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Health food store Schmelz. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 518.
• Florentine Fritzen: Franz Thiemann (1906–2000) , in this: Live healthier. The life reform movement in the 20th century (= Frankfurt historical treatises , vol. 45), Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-515-08790-2 and ISBN 3-515-08790-7 , pp. 155f .; partly online via Google books

Remarks

1. ↑ if the "vending machine restaurant" opened in the Georgspassage a century before is not taken into account; compare for example this postcard from Georg Alpers junior from around 1900

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q} Waldemar R. Röhrbein: THIEMANN, ... (see literature)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Florentine Fritzen: Franz Thiemann (1906–2000) (see literature)
3. ↑ Compare the GND number of the German National Library
4. ↑ ^{a b} Waldemar R. Röhrbein: SCHMELZ, Emma. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 317f.
5. ↑ Florentine Fritzen: Hans Gregor in dies .: Live healthier ... (see literature), p. 148f .; Preview in Google Book Search
6. ↑ ^{a b} Helmut Knocke , Hugo Thielen : Karmarschstrasse. In: Hannover Art and Culture Lexicon , p. 155f.
7. ↑ Rainer Plum (Responsible): About us  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the akademie-gesundes-leben.de page , last accessed on November 13, 2014