Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman
Gerhard Hermann Fiepko ten Doornkaat Koolman (born June 2, 1916 in Hanover ; † October 20, 1992 in Norden ) was a German businessman , entrepreneur and majority shareholder of Doornkaat AG .
Life
Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman was born together with his twin brother Jan Hinrich Wilhelm on June 2, 1916 in Hanover. A few weeks earlier, his father Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman had died on April 27, 1916 in Verdun , France . The mother of the two twins, Gertrud Elisabeth Margarethe geb. Leyn (1888–1953) had to raise the two boys and daughter Berta Marie, born in 1913, alone. The family initially lived with relatives in the north of East Frisia for a while , but then moved back to Hanover, where Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman graduated from high school in 1936 . After completing his labor service , he completed two years of internships in various distilleries to prepare for a career in the family business in East Frisia.
In the fall of 1937, however, he received the convocation to a two-year military service in the Flak in Berlin . At the beginning of the war in 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and deployed in various countries. Shortly before the end of the war, he and his unit were transferred from the Latvian Courland to West Germany, where he was taken prisoner by the Americans at the end of the war and imprisoned in France. In September 1945 he was released from captivity.
In the spring of 1946 he began a commercial apprenticeship in a Hanover food wholesaler, which he completed in autumn 1947 with distinction. At the same time, he continued his education at the Leibniz Academy in Hanover in the business department.
On October 1, 1947, he joined Doornkaat AG in Norden as assistant to the director . His uncle Fiepko ten Doornkaat Koolman (1875–1952) was on the company's board of directors with Walter Schwöbbermeier. In 1948 Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman took over the position of operations manager and was responsible for the purchasing department. In 1949 his uncle switched to the supervisory board. Schwöbbermeier became the sole director and Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman received power of attorney . After Schwöbbermeier's death in 1953, Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman was appointed to the Doornkaat AG Board of Directors together with Heinz Klautschke .
After the currency reform of 1948 , the family business made the dynamic change to one of the best-known German companies. The “Doornkaat” brand and the associated green square bottle became a branded product for spirits . On the company's 175th anniversary in 1981, Doornkaat AG had over 700 employees, almost 600 of whom were employed in the small town of Norden. In the anniversary year, sales of over DM 240 million were achieved. The company was not only active in the grain distillery sector, but also in the areas of non-alcoholic beverages and East Frisian tea as well as in the area of ship investments .
At the beginning of the 1970s, but mainly in the 1980s, sales and profits shrank due to the changed drinking behavior of the increasingly health-conscious and now increasingly car-driving population. With the acquisition of a company that produced fruit juices , Doornkaat AG tried to build up another mainstay. However, this turned out to be a failure. The company saw strong declines in sales of hard liquor. The company could not get this basic structural problem under control on its own. In addition, there was an increase in the spirits tax , which resulted in further losses in sales.
In 1976 Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors. At that time he was already the majority shareholder of Doornkaat AG . On March 31, 1984, he resigned from the Board of Management and after a few months switched to the company's supervisory board, where he was active until the end of February 1992.
Due to the unsolvable structural problems, Doornkaat AG had to be sold in 1991 to the Berentzen group of companies in Haselünne , where the “Doornkaat” product continued to be manufactured. The hopes for a revival of the brand name “Doornkaat” and the maintenance of the production location in the north were disappointed. The distillery in the north had to be closed.
About six months after leaving the company, he died on October 20, 1992 in Norden.
Foundation, endowment
In 1988, Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman founded the Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman Foundation as a non-profit foundation under private law based in Norden in East Frisia. Initially, the foundation was planned as a family foundation in order to be able to continue the company after the death of the owner. However, the problematic situation of Doornkaat AG in the early 1990s and the subsequent sale of the company meant that the purpose of the foundation was changed. The proceeds from the sale to Berentzen flowed into the foundation's assets. From now on, the foundation should take care of the promotion of charitable purposes, in particular science and research, art and culture, environmental, landscape and monument protection, the idea of home and rescuing from danger to life with a local focus on East Frisia.
Honors
The Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman Foundation enabled the DGzRS to finance the construction of an 8.5-meter lifeboat . As a thank you, this lifeboat was named after Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman and christened GERHARD TEN DOORNKAAT . The GERHARD TEN DOORNKAAT was put into service in 1992 and is in use at the easternmost DGzRS station in Ueckermünde . Their territory is the Stettiner Haff on the German-Polish border.
Offices
Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolman held the following positions:
- 1953–1984: Representative of industry in the north district in the plenary assembly of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for East Friesland and Papenburg zu Emden
- from 1958: Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce
- from 1968: Member of the board of directors of the Ostfriesische Landschaftliche Brandkasse as well as the advisory board of the Federal Railway Directorate in Münster
- from 1975: Member of the advisory board of the Hanover Federal Railway Directorate, which is now responsible for East Frisia.
literature
- Thomas Aldick: A wealth for a good cause , in: Ostfriesland-Magazin, 1999, Heft 3, S. 8-13.
- Gerhard Canzler: North, Trade and Change , North 1989.
- Theda Schuh, Hans Friesland (Ed.): The descendants of Jan ten Doornkaat Koolman 1773-1851 and his second wife Jeikelina born. Cool 1792–1878 , Norden 1979.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Eckart Krömer: Gerhard Hermann Fiepko ten DOORNKAAT KOOLMAN , accessed on April 6, 2016
- ↑ Lifeboat GERHARD TEN DOORNKAAT , accessed on April 6, 2016
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | ten Doornkaat Koolman, Gerhard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | ten Doornkaat Koolman, Gerhard Hermann Fiepko (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German businessman, entrepreneur and majority shareholder of Doornkaat AG |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 2, 1916 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanover |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 20, 1992 |
| Place of death | north |