Günter Powalla

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Günter Horst Powalla (born December 27, 1919 in Altona (today: Hamburg); † October 4, 2019 in Hamburg ) was a German patron and entrepreneur in the real estate and cruises sector .

Entrepreneur

Powalla first learned the profession of insurance salesman . In 1937 he was drafted into the Reich Labor Service , but not into the Wehrmacht due to an eye disease . On October 3, 1946, he married the photographer Lieselotte Fock (1923–2009), who came from a Hamburg shipowner family. With the proceeds from the sale of a harbor boat, a wedding present from the in-laws, Powalla acquired the first rubble plots and built houses on them. Later further developed land was acquired, so that the real estate company G. and L. Powalla was created, a housing company with approx. 3000 rented units. Powalla's business model was to build smaller affordable homes for the broad masses of the population.

In 1960 Powalla took his wife on their first cruise on the Italia . This was followed by a series of voyages on the Hanseatic , and voyages were also undertaken on the successor ship of the same name. After a third Hanseatic was decommissioned, Powalla acquired a cruise ship in 1993 and had it christened Hanseatic by Dagmar Berghoff on March 23, 1993 . He became the owner of the fourth Hanseatic. Powalla later acquired two more cruise lines, the Minerva and the Silver Explorer .

patron

Together with his wife, Powalla sponsored numerous church, social and cultural projects in Hamburg, Thuringia and Switzerland with large amounts and set up four foundations for this purpose.

The first charitable project was the founding of the Günter and Lieselotte Powalla Foundation in 1989 , which is dedicated to elderly care and operates a senior citizens' residential complex in Hamburg-Lokstedt . Powalla then supported a large number of projects in the area of ​​elderly care through donations to charitable organizations.

In addition, Powalla supported the G. and L. Powalla Bunny's Foundation, founded in 2006, in the renovation of churches and church fixtures , in particular the Hamburg main churches of St. Michaelis and St. Katharinen . For the "Hamburger Michel" alone, Powalla spent several million euros through the foundation he founded for the exterior and interior renovation, for the organ and the remote works as well as the Powalla-Forum visitor center, which is still under construction .

Powalla's grave is in the Ohlsdorf cemetery .

Honors

In 1997 the couple received the medal for loyalty to work in the service of the people from the Hamburg Senate

In 2009 he received the Senator Biermann Ratjen Medal from the Hamburg Senate

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Powalla, Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and patron
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 4th October 2019
Place of death Hamburg