Georg Kropp
Georg Kropp (born December 1, 1865 in Swinoujscie ; † January 21, 1943 in Wüstenrot ) was a German publicist . With the Bausparkasse he founded in 1921 , then called the Association of Friends (GdF) Wüstenrot , today Wüstenrot Bausparkasse , the spread of building societies in Germany began.
Life
Kropp wanted to take up his father's profession and become a sailing ship captain. He steered a barque called Lessing , with which he stranded in a storm in the Kattegat in 1880 . Since then, his father stopped going to sea, but opened a drugstore . The emerging steam shipping probably contributed to the fact that Georg Kropp gave up his career aspiration to become a sailing ship captain. Instead, at the request of his father, he learned the trade of a druggist in Stettin . He then attended the Druggist Academy in Braunschweig for two semesters , where in 1888 he received the best diploma ever awarded there. In 1895 he married his cousin Marie Wulff, with whom he had three children.
After his father's death in 1895, he gave up the drugstore in Swinoujscie. The family moved several times. Mannheim , Heidelberg and Heilbronn were the next stops. In Heidelberg, Kropp enrolled as a guest student in chemistry and pharmacy. In addition, he was a great nature lover, mushroom friend and active in the organization of the good templar . Kropp worked in the First World War as a war correspondent , later as a pharmaceutical representative and copywriter for pharmaceutical products. He also became a lay Methodist preacher .
He was an editor at the Carl Rembold publishing house and publisher of the Glücksbuchkalender (later the Michel calendar). He also edited the journal "Pilz- und Kräuterfreund" (PuK) founded in 1917 by the Nuremberg bookseller August Henning (1867–1929). In 1921 - after committed mediation negotiations by Adalbert Ricken - it passed into the hands of the German Society for Mushroom Science (DGfP, today DGfM ). Immediately afterwards the "PuK" was renamed "Zeitschrift für Pilzkunde". After organizing the founding conference, Kropp himself was a member of the first board of the DGfP, elected on August 25, 1921 in Nuremberg, under the leadership of August Henning. This board was composed as follows: Hans Kniep , Würzburg, 1st chairman; Ludwig Klein, Karlsruhe, 2nd chairman; G. Kropp, Heilbronn, managing director; City Inspector F. Quillig, Frankfurt am Main, Treasurer; Heinrich Zeuner, Würzburg, editor; E. Herrmann, Dresden, and Ert Soehner, Munich, both assessors. It soon turned out, however, that Georg Kropp could not support the new, mainly scientific orientation of the two chairmen. He saw his area of responsibility restricted and quit the service. August Henning was also outside shortly afterwards. His mushroom and herb center, founded in 1910, formed the basis for the mushroom and herbology department in the Natural History Society of Nuremberg (NHG) from 1923 .
Kropp lived in Wüstenrot since 1919. In 1920 he published his book From Poverty to Prosperity , in which he addressed the first ideas for a kind of building society savings scheme. On July 22, 1921, the founding meeting of the Association of Friends of Wüstenrot (GdF) took place, and on August 17, 1921, it was entered in the association register. The founding members included the first female member of the state parliament, Mathilde Planck, and the head of the Stuttgart Post Health Insurance Fund, Robert Ankele. Until 1936 Mathilde Planck was a member of the board of directors and a member of the supervisory board. Due to the inflation at the time , Kropp replaced his home savers from his private assets. In May 1922 he dissolved the GdF.
On February 16, 1924, the reopening meeting of the GdF took place in the alcohol-free dining house Silberner Hecht in Stuttgart. It was decided to convert the company into a GmbH . This founded the first German building society, for which Kropp promoted on extensive lecture tours all over Germany, especially among his friends at the Guttemplern. The housing shortage was particularly great after the First World War; so the idea of building society savings fell on fertile ground.
"Every family has their own home"
At the end of 1925 there were already 10,600 home loan and savings contracts. The GdF Wüstenrot was a great success and initiated the spread of building societies in Germany. It was certainly not the first building society in Germany; as early as 1885, Friedrich von Bodelschwingh founded the first German building society, the building society for everyone .
Georg Kropp was almost 60 years old when the GdF was founded. From 1924 he was editor of the in-house magazine Mein Eigenheim and managing director of GdF. In 1925 he gave up the management and took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board.
When the company's headquarters were relocated from Wüstenrot to Ludwigsburg against Kropp's will in 1930 , Georg Kropp resigned from all his offices at the GdF. Kropp founded the Neue Bausparkasse in Wüstenrot in 1930 , but it had to be liquidated in 1934. On December 1, 1930, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, he was made an honorary citizen of the municipality of Wüstenrot.
Georg Kropp died in Wüstenrot in 1943. He was given a grave of honor in the Wüstenrot community cemetery. His life and work motto is written on a stone slab: "Will, save, trust in God / will build fathers' houses." Another Georg Kropp life motto was: "Deeds, not ink, works, not words."
A memorial has been set up in Kropps Wüstenroter residential building, in which the GdF Wüstenrot started its work, since 1984, which was expanded in 1996 to a building society museum .
Fonts
- From Poverty to Prosperity: The Needs of Time and How We Can Overcome Them; A book for apolitical people , Eigen-Heim-Verlag, Wüstenrot 2nd edition 1926, new edition by Eberhard Langer, Hess Verlag, Bad Schussenried 2012, ISBN 978-3-873369450 .
See also
literature
- Adolf Reitz: Georg Kropp. The leader of the new German home ownership movement , Weinsberg 1926
- Hans Jaeger: Kropp, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , pp. 89-91 ( digitized version ).
- Marc-Wilhelm Kohfink: With homes against alcohol abuse. Georg Kropps "Community of Friends" and social liberalism. In: Ludwigsburg history sheets . Volume 50 (1996), pp. 119-153.
- Christoph Seeger: Georg Kropp and the history of the Bausparkasse (s) in Wüstenrot. In: Wüstenrot. History of a community in the Swabian-Franconian Forest. Municipality of Wüstenrot, Wüstenrot 1999, ISBN 3-00-005408-1 ( Municipality in Transition. Volume 8), pp. 185–197
- Christoph Seeger: Bauspar Museum in the Georg-Kropp-Haus Wüstenrot. 2nd Edition. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-6020-4 .
- Klemens Grube: Kropp, Georg (1865–1943) In: Dirk Alvermann , Nils Jörn (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon für Pommern . Volume 2 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania. Series V, Volume 48.2). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne Weimar Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22541-4 , pp. 148–151.
Web links
- Literature by and about Georg Kropp in the catalog of the German National Library
- Information about the Wüstenrot Bauspar-Museum, with picture Kropps
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karin Monday: Rickenella gackstatteriana . In: The Tintling . Volume 91, edition 6/2014, pp. 79-98.
- ↑ Information on the establishment of the Bausparkasse , gemeinde-wuestenrot.de.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kropp, Georg |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German publicist, founder of GdF Wüstenrot |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 1, 1865 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Swinoujscie |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 21, 1943 |
| Place of death | Desert red |