Cologne Commercial College

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Former building of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (2012)

The municipal commercial college in Cologne , founded in 1901, was the first independent commercial college in Germany. It was one of the constituent higher education institutions for the University of Cologne , which was re-founded in 1919 , in which it was absorbed.

prehistory

Claudiusstraße 1 - View through the Römerpark to the commercial college (1911)

The first city university in Germany, the Universitas Studii Coloniensis , founded in 1388, was closed in 1798 during the French era, like all universities in France at that time, and replaced by a central school as a training facility. From the time that followed, under Prussian rule, Cologne endeavored to re-establish or re-establish a university. This did not succeed despite several attempts. The new Prussian university was established in Bonn in 1818 , and the polytechnic planned for the new Prussian western provinces was founded in Aachen in 1863 after many successful polytechnics in Germany and Europe and opened in 1870 as the Royal Rhenish-Westphalian Polytechnic School in Aachen . After the Franco-Prussian War , the University of Strasbourg received the highest level of funding as the Kaiser Wilhelm University . The efforts of Gustav von Mevissen in particular , who campaigned in the mid-1850s to restore the city to a higher education institution, were not crowned with success for a long time. Nevertheless, he adapted his ideas to the new needs and political conditions. After founding a state university no longer seemed possible, he finally presented a memorandum on the establishment of a municipal commercial academy, which he presented on the occasion of the golden wedding of the imperial couple on June 11, 1879 with the announcement of a foundation for a university fund for a Kaiser-Wilhelm- Commercial college of initially 100,000 marks , which he hoped would soon reach a capital of around 1 million marks through growth. However, due to the hesitation of the city, the provincial administration and commercial professional associations, it would take more than two decades before the plans were realized. First, a commercial college was founded in Leipzig in 1896 and opened in 1898, although it was affiliated to Leipzig University . In the same year, the Handelsakademie St. Gallen and the kk Exportakademie Vienna followed . A commercial college was also attached to the Aachen University in 1898. This then inspired the Cologne plans, but Mevissen did not live to see them come true. He and his wife, who only survived him by two years († 1901), had decreed in their will that the foundation should be increased to one million marks from their assets. On June 12, 1900, the Cologne city ​​council under Lord Mayor Wilhelm von Becker decided to establish the Cöln City Commercial College , on September 19 the state approval followed and on May 1, 1901, the Cologne commercial school on Hansaring, which had been built shortly before (1898/1899), took place the grand opening took place. By 1918, eight commercial colleges were founded in Germany or affiliated with existing institutions. The Aachener had to stop teaching after ten years due to a lack of demand, probably also due to the success in Cologne.

Hansaring location 1901–1907

organization

The structure of the university and teaching company followed the conception of Mevissen and the first experiences in Leipzig, which the Bonn professor Eberhard Gothein , who had worked closely with Mevissen, had further developed in a memorandum from 1900 for the city of Cologne. On this basis, the specific curriculum and the organization of the university were designed by the founding director Hermann Schumacher , who was appointed in 1900 . Teaching began with 68 enrolled students who were taught by six lecturers from the university as well as eleven professors from the University of Bonn on a part-time basis and twelve practitioners from Cologne's business community. The prerequisite for admission was a high school diploma or authorization for one-year voluntary military service and completed commercial apprenticeship or training at a teaching college. The minimum period of study for qualified business people and trade teachers was initially four semesters, and from 1904 onwards it was five semesters for trade teachers. Course contents with a high practical relevance were commercial engineering as a forerunner of business administration , political economy as a forerunner of economics, law. From the start, French and English were each represented by a full professorship held by Arnold Schröer and Etienne Lorck . But geography, chemistry and technology were also among the most important subjects. Subjects such as art history should promote the general education of the students. They were offered in the evening and were open to everyone in Cologne. The first art history lecture on Rhenish art history was given by Paul Clemen . The subject was later taken over by the director of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum , professor and councilor Carl Aldenhoven . The practical relevance and the diversity of the courses on offer were additionally reinforced by teaching assignments. A nucleus for the philosophy faculty was already laid out here for the later university .

The commercial college was responsible for the development of the teaching of "commercial technology" for business administration, not only through Schmalenbach, but also by setting up chairs for special business administration. So was Paul Moldenhauer , the first Professor of Risk and Insurance in Germany (1901 Habilitation in Cologne, in 1903 associate professor, 1907 full professor).

The commercial college was, like its then rector Otto Wilhelm Thomé , a member of the German Colonial Society, Cologne department .

The interlinking of the university with the city was achieved by the board of trustees , which was able to take a position on all questions relating to the university, including the lists of appointments, and which met with a majority of representatives from the city and the district government chaired by the mayor.

The number of students rose rapidly, in the winter semester 1905/06, the 10th semester, there were 304 counted, in the winter semester 1913/14 there were already 600, a number that was not reached by any other commercial college in Germany at that time. At 15%, the number of foreign students was also as high as it was never achieved later. By ministerial decree of February 7, 1907, women were also admitted to study with the appropriate training.

Buildings and locations

The Cologne building authority director and later city curator Friedrich Carl Heimann presented the buildings and the building conditions in detail with many pictures and building drawings in 1908 in the central gazette of the building administration .

The increasing number of students made it advisable to build a separate building for the university, as the main wing of today's Hansa High School was no longer used. A new building was therefore planned as early as 1902, the design of which was determined by competition and approved on November 10, 1904. After two years of construction and almost 2.5 million marks in construction costs, the new building based on the design by Ernst Vetterlein in the southern part of the city, near the Rhine and in the inner fortification ring of Cologne , was officially opened on October 26, 1907. The building planned for 400 students soon necessitated an extension, the south wing, built in 1914, which, with the main building, should now be sufficient for around 1000 students.

The front of the building was not oriented towards the Rhine, but rather contemplatively towards the Römerpark , via which a line of sight led from Teutoburger Straße with median avenue over the egg corner to the central projection of the main part with the allegorically designed coat of arms of the city of Cologne in the gable field. The adjoining side wings of the 140 m long front, into which two small inner courtyards are integrated, are slightly lower. The Rhine front is 80 m long. In turn, two large inner courtyards are embedded between the three-storey building sections, providing light to the building sections. The building was decorated in a contemporary style with a series of turrets that were not restored during the reconstruction. The building, which is reminiscent of the German neo-baroque , appears even more clearly structured. The center of the building is the staircase, 14.50 m long, 10.70 m wide and 9 m high and surrounded on three sides by walkways. The largest lecture hall in the middle of the upper floor held 328 people. The oval assembly hall on the front of the Rhine was also used for public lectures and was therefore directly accessible from there. There was also a gym. The integrated apartments for Pedell and the servants of the scientific institutes as well as a representative room for the director were remarkable and timely.

End of college

When, after the First World War , the Kaiser-Wilhelm University of Strasbourg was again the French Academy, the acting mayor of Cologne saw Konrad Adenauer chance for Cologne still the Rheinische University to establish what then in 1919 with the merger of the Cologne university facilities to university Cologne again succeeded as a municipal institution. This used the building until 1934. After that, the Gauleitung of the Gau Köln-Aachen of the National Socialist German Workers' Party moved in . After the war, Lufthansa had its German headquarters here until 1969. The building has been used by the Cologne University of Applied Sciences since 1971 . The building has been a listed building since 1985 .

Well-known professors

  • Christian Eckert (1874–1952), successor to the founding director and later first rector of the university
  • The most famous lecturer at the university was Eugen Schmalenbach (1873–1955), who immediately after completing his studies at the Leipzig Graduate School and subsequent postgraduate studies in economics at the university there, worked as a private lecturer in Cologne from 1902 and as a professor from 1906. He is considered the father of business administration
  • Julius Hirsch (1882–1961) completed his habilitation here in 1911 and became the first professor of private business studies / Bwl of Jewish faith in Germany
  • Otto Wilhelm Thomé (1840–1925), rector of the commercial college and botanist
  • Alfred Ludwig Wieruszowski (1857–1945), lawyer at the Cologne Higher Regional Court and professor at the University of Cologne , since 1909 lecturer at the commercial college
  • Leopold von Wiese (1876–1969), 1915 professor of economics and 1919 first professor of sociology in Germany at the university

Well-known graduates

  • Robert Debes (1878–1962), Rector of the University of St. Gallen
  • Fritz Terhalle (1889–1962), economist, professor in Hamburg and Munich
  • Oskar Sillén (1883–1965), professor of business administration at the Stockholm School of Economics and founder of the field of auditing there
  • Wilhelm Sollmann (1881–1951), journalist and SPD politician, professor in the USA
  • Friedrich Flick (1883–1972), economist, entrepreneur, Minister of Defense Economics and convicted war criminal

Footnotes

  1. ^ Matthias Weber : The Old University of Cologne. (= Rheinische Kunststätten , issue 269.) Cologne 1982, p. 7.
  2. ^ Friedrich Carl Heimann : The commercial college in Cologne on the Rhine. In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 28, 1908, No. 55 (from July 11, 1908) ( online ), pp. 370–374.
  3. ^ Directory of members October 1906. German Colonial Society, Cologne Department, pp. 4–9 , accessed on January 22, 2014 (German).
  4. ^ Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences in Faculty Weeks, 600 Years of Cologne University , p. 4
  5. ^ Matthias Weber : The Old University of Cologne , Rheinische Kunststätten series , issue 269, Cologne 1982, p. 9f
  6. ^ Description of construction and history in the picture book Cologne

literature

  • Hermann Kellenbenz : The Cologne Commercial College. In: The University of Cologne 1919–1969. Basel 1969.
  • Heike Franz: Between the market and the profession. Business economist in Germany in the field of tension between the educated and economic middle class (1900–1945). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998. (at the same time dissertation, Bielefeld 1996/1997) - especially section 3 Establishment and development of commercial colleges , p. 43 ff. ( Preview on Google books )
  • Sabine Eichler: Südstadtgeschichte (s). Claudiusstrasse 1 - "just" a building at the Römerpark? In: Yearbook of the Cologne History Association 80 (2010), pp. 123–148.

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 55 '11.7 "  N , 6 ° 58' 2.2"  E