Friedrich Karl Henkel

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Fritz Henkel (approx. 1876)
Fritz Henkel (around 1928)

Friedrich ("Fritz") Karl Henkel (born March 20, 1848 in Vöhl ; † March 1, 1930 in Rengsdorf ) was a German entrepreneur and founder of the Henkel Group .

Life

Fritz Henkel was born as the fifth child of his parents, the teacher Johann Jost Henkel (1809–1874) from Wallau an der Lahn and his wife Johanette Philippine (1807–1881), née. Youngest, born. At the age of seventeen he moved to Elberfeld , where he began training in the Gessert brothers' paint and varnish factory. After completing his apprenticeship, he worked his way up to the position of authorized signatory .

On October 4, 1873, Henkel married Elisabeth von den Steinen in Elberfeld (born January 23, 1852 in Elberfeld; † November 5, 1904 in Düsseldorf), a daughter of August von den Steinen and Alwine, née. Schlieper. The couple had four children:

  • August (* July 8, 1874 in Aachen, † June 8, 1879 in Vöhl) died at the age of four
  • Fritz (born July 25, 1875 in Aachen, † January 4, 1930 in Unkel) died two months before his father
  • Hugo (Wilhelm) (born January 21, 1881 in Düsseldorf, † December 18, 1952 in Hösel)
  • Emmy Anna (born September 8, 1884 in Düsseldorf, † September 19, 1941 in Düsseldorf).

In 1874, at the age of 26, Henkel became a partner in the chemicals and paint wholesaler "Henkel und Strebel". On September 26, 1876, the then 28-year-old founded the detergent factory “Henkel & Cie” in Aachen together with the owners of the Rheinische Wasserglasfabrik “Scheffen und Dicker” . After Scheffen and Dicker left, Henkel assumed sole responsibility for the company .

Two years after it was founded, he moved the company headquarters to Düsseldorf , where he rented an empty soap factory. In 1880, construction work finally began on a new company building in Düsseldorf-Flingern. In 1899, the company achieved sales of over one million marks under his leadership . In 1899, Henkel moved the company headquarters to Düsseldorf-Holthausen , where four building complexes were built by the end of 1900, as well as the Fritz Henkel residential building in Düsseldorf city center.

In 1911, the year he was appointed Royal Prussian Councilor of Commerce , Henkel moved to Rengsdorf in the Westerwald, where he built a spacious country house ("Haus Henkel") as a retirement home. In Rengsdorf he also built a guest house that served as a rest home for employees; he promoted the community in many ways.

On the occasion of his 50th anniversary as a businessman in 1915, Fritz Henkel founded the “Support Fund for Workers and Salaried Employees”; In 1918, on his 70th birthday, the “old-age and survivors' pension for employees” ( pension fund ) followed.

On March 1, 1930, Fritz Henkel died at the age of 81 after a brief, serious illness on his country estate in Rengsdorf. He was buried in the north cemetery in Düsseldorf. The pavilion-like, open-front rotunda made of shell limestone with a glazed dome, reminiscent of a Greek Monopteros-type temple, was built around 1925 by the architect Walter Furthmann . The female figure made of white marble is a late neoclassical work by the sculptor Karl Janssen, who died in 1927 . He was the father of Gerda Henkel-Janssen (1888–1966), the wife of the industrialist Hugo Henkel .

His youngest son Hugo Henkel took over the sole management of the company. In memory of his wife Gerda, the Gerda Henkel Foundation was founded in 1976 , which is committed to promoting science.

Awards and recognitions

See also

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Web links

Commons : Friedrich Karl Henkel  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. Wilfried Feldenkirchen, Susanne Hilger: People and Brands: 125 Years of Henkel, 1876–2001 , Henkel KGaA, 2001, ISBN 978-3-923324-79-8 , p. 29, online (PDF, 10 MB)
  2. Entry on Friedrich Karl Henkel in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database , accessed on August 21, 2016 .
  3. ^ Deutsche Bergwerkzeitung Düsseldorf from March 2, 1930
  4. Edgar Thiesbürger: The mausoleum of the Henkel family. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 28, 2016 ; accessed on July 15, 2019 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heimat-krefeld.de
  5. ^ Wallau district on the website of the city of Biedenkopf
  6. ^ Adolf Menges, Rector i. R .: History and culture of the village of Wallau an der Lahn . The community of Wallau; Print: A. Bagel, Düsseldorf , 1936, DNB  579485757 , p. 445 .
  7. Vöhl Center School. In: Bildungsland Hessen. Retrieved July 13, 2017 .