Hans Constantin Paulssen

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Hans Constantin Paulssen (born June 5, 1892 in Weimar ; † January 18, 1984 in Konstanz ) was an industrialist and president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA).

Life

Hans Constantin Paulssen was a son of the first Prime Minister of Thuringia , Arnold Paulssen . After graduating from a humanistic grammar school in Weimar, he studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau and Jena , which he completed in 1914 with a doctorate in law. After the First World War he was first lieutenant in the Paulssen Freikorps Battalion in Upper Silesia until he left the Reichswehr in 1920. In Wroclaw in 1920 he met the President of the Reichstag, Paul Löbe , with whom he maintained a friendly relationship throughout his life. In the Weimar Republic he was a member of the Deutscher Herrenklub , an influential association of high-ranking conservative personalities.

He began his professional life without any previous commercial knowledge in 1920 as an aluminum salesman at Aluminum-Walzwerke GmbH in Singen . He got this position through the mediation of his father-in-law Otto Binswanger , who came from Kreuzlingen and was a member of the board of directors of the parent company of the Singen company founded in 1910, Robert Victor Neher AG in Kreuzlingen.

After only three years, Paulssen took over the management, to which he belonged until 1963. As early as 1929, on the advice of Bernhard Averbeck, he joined the Supervisory Board of the Saxon-Thuringian Portland Cement Factory Prüssing & Co. KG a. A. in Göschwitz / Saale . In 1939 he also became general director of a holding company for the six subsidiaries of the Swiss parent company that were under the control of the German Reich. In 1940 he was awarded the title of military economic leader without ever having been a member of the NSDAP . During the war years he held functions at regional level in the steering apparatus of the arms industry headed by Albert Speer . In these functions, he succeeded in immensely increasing production in his factories, which only produced goods essential to the war effort.

Because of this activity, he was banned from all management positions for three years after the end of Nazi rule. In 1948, classified as a “fellow traveler” , he took over the management of the Singener Werke again.

In 1948 he was appointed by the government to represent the Marshall Plan in what was then the state of Baden , and in 1949 he became President of the Konstanz Chamber of Commerce and the Employers' Association of the Baden Iron and Metal Industry in Freiburg.

In 1954 he was a founding member of the Citizens' Association .

From 1963 he then took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board of the aluminum rolling mills until 1970. As successor to Walter Raymond , Hans Constantin Paulssen joined the board of directors of the Federal Association of German Employers' Associations on January 22, 1954 , of which he was honorary president until his death . During his tenure, he led a social partnership with the trade unions , the collective bargaining . On June 25, 1964 Siegfried Balke became employer president.

His offices and other activities included the establishment and presidency of the Franco-German Society in Konstanz, the establishment of the University of Konstanz , the office of Honorary Senator of the University of Freiburg im Breisgau and much more. Hans Constantin Paulssen had been a member of the Corps Hasso-Borussia Freiburg since 1912 . At the 1963 Kösener Congress in Würzburg, he gave the keynote address. From 1958 to 1973 he was a member of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation .

Paulssen was married to Hertha geb. Binswanger , the daughter of the psychiatrist Otto Binswanger . With her he had a son and two daughters.

Honors

literature

  • Cornelia Rauh-Kühne : Hans Constantin Paulssen - social partnership based on the spirit of war comradeship . In: Paul Erker, Toni Pierenkemper (Hrsg.): Studies on the experience of industrial elites . Munich 1999, pp. 109-192.
  • Cornelia Rauh-Kühne:  Paulssen, Hans Constantin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 131 ( digitized version ).
  • Cornelia Rauh-Kühne: "... that's how I know today that your life will have a more valuable place in our family history than that of your sons". On the bourgeoisie of entrepreneurial families of the reconstruction generation. In: The German business elite in the 20th century . Essen 2003, pp. 443-461.
  • Hans Thieme: Memories of Dr. HC Paulssen (1892-1984) . In: Singener Jahrbuch. Singen 1984, pp. 63-66.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul Erker u. Toni Pierenkemper: German entrepreneurs between war economy and reconstruction , p. 131.Business & Economics 1999.
  2. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 31 , 305.
  3. ↑ Corps Student Tradition in Today's World . Supplement to DCZ, No. 3, June 1963.
  4. ↑ Cornelia Rauh-Kühne:  Paulssen, Hans Constantin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 131 ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Paulssen, Hans Constantin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist and President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1984
Place of death Constancy