Fritz Rechberg

Fritz Rechberg (born February 29, 1868 in Hersfeld ; † November 17, 1939 there ) was a German entrepreneur and councilor . He came from a Hersfeld industrial family who worked in the traditional textile industry there.

Life

As a trained cloth maker, Fritz Rechberg took over the factory of his father Adam Rechberg on Hainstrasse together with his brother Ferdinand. However, in 1892 he withdrew from managing the factory due to illness, so that Fritz Rechberg became the sole owner. Another brother was Arnold Rechberg .

Fritz Rechberg expanded and modernized the factory considerably. At the turn of the century the factory had 91 looms (in 1873 there were 20 looms) and in 1902 and 1903 the factory was electrified with a dynamo machine. Between 1906 and 1907 the factory was given its own siding and the boiler system was modernized with an automatic lignite charging system. The factory had 115 looms at the time, which increased to 150 by 1914. In 1908 the administration building was built on Hainstrasse.

In 1910 Rechberg had a factory with around 500 workers, 15 foremen and 16 commercial and technical officials. Rechberg also participated in the development of industrial potash mining on the Werra . From 1910 he was a member of the supervisory board of the German Potash Indicate . Fritz Rechberg was thus an internationally known entrepreneur.

In 1913 he received a patent from the emperor in which he was appointed councilor of commerce. During the First World War he was a member of the supervisory board of Kriegswollbedarfs AG. Due to the German inflation from 1914 to 1923 , Schilde AG had economic difficulties in 1926 in Hersfeld . Rechberg bought a large part of the shares. This saved the company from bankruptcy and was the majority shareholder in Schilde AG until the 1940s .

For his cloth factory, he set the course early on in order to be able to face international competition. At the beginning of the 20th century, for example, he and Ludwig Braun (the owner of the second large full cloth factory in Hersfeld) founded a buying group for so-called Cape wool. This made it possible to buy more cheaply directly in South Africa while eliminating the middleman. This cooperation intensified further when the two cloth factories Adam Rechberg and Georg Braun were merged in October 1920 to form Mitteldeutsche Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH. Contrary to what the name suggests, collaboration wasn't just about sales. Production was also merged within the two factories. One of the largest cloth factories in Germany was created, managed by Fritz Rechberg and Ludwig Braun. The collaboration ended in 1937. This separation was probably connected with the National Socialist corporate policy, which favored companies run by individuals.

On his 70th birthday, in 1938, he was to become an honorary citizen of the city of Hersfeld. Since he maintained an upright and critical attitude towards the events even during the National Socialist era, the city was not granted the honor. Because of his services to the city, a street on the Tageberg was later named after him. The houses that he had built in 1921 are also located here.

Rechberg was also socially and culturally involved. In 1910 his factory had its own sickness benefit and loan fund, and he set up a factory kitchen. In times of great housing shortage, he built a total of 46 houses for employees each year. In the 1920s, together with the SPD politician Michael Schnabrich, he was a co-founder and board member of the Hersfeld “Bauverein Selbsthilfe e. V. ". In 1934 and 1935 he and Georg Braun built a workers' settlement on the Hohe Luft . Furthermore, in 1933 he was one of the 18 foundation stone donors to the House of German Art in Munich, built in 1937 .

literature

• Wilhelm Neuhaus: Hersfeld cloth - contributions to the history of the Hersfeld wool industry . Hans Ott Verlag, Bad Hersfeld 1950.
• Peter Braun: The Hersfeld textile industry. Past and present . Association for hess. History and Landeskunde eV Kassel 1834 - Branch Association Bad Hersfeld, Bad Hersfeld 2003, ISBN 3-9806842-5-3

Remarks

1. ↑ The dates of birth and death come from the grave of the Rechberg family in the town cemetery in Bad Hersfeld
2. ↑ Kommerzienrat was an honorary title awarded until 1919. The award only took place, and by no means automatically, after substantial “foundations for the common good”.
3. ↑ on the Bad Hersfeld – Treysa railway line
4. ↑ the only building that still stands from the factory today
5. ↑ This was the name given to factories that carried out all manufacturing steps from the raw material to the finished cloth
6. ↑ it lasted until the 1950s
7. ↑ Source: Mein Heimatland, Vol. 44, No. 8, August 2005, p. 31 PDF file ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Source: Private website about the House of German Art