Hans Kohnert

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Hans Kohnert (born November 15, 1887 in Geestemünde , † January 10, 1967 in Bremerhaven ) was a German manufacturer, painter and patron in Bremerhaven.

Life

Kohn's parents were Franz Kohn (1857–1909) and his wife Johanna geb. Gehrels (1862-1925). The ancestors were captains and owners of emigrant sailors who brought emigrants from Brake and Bremerhaven to America in the 18th century and carried out overseas trade on their way back via the Caribbean. With the advent of steamships in the 1850s, the business became unprofitable. Hans Kohn's grandfather settled down and bought into a timber import company. Hans Kohn first studied art painting (1906/07) in Max Thedy 's 'Class of Antiquities' at the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar . After the premature death of his father (1909), Hans dropped out of his art studies at the age of 22 in order to take over from his father's business, the wood importing and processing company Pundt & Kohn (P & K) in Geestemünde (Bremerhaven), which he did until his Death in 1967. In 1912 he married Maria Müller (1890–1945), with whom he had a son (Franz) and a daughter (Hannemarie). He got divorced in the mid-1930s. In his second marriage, Kohnert was born in 1939 with Ingeborg Kohnert. Neumann (1911–1990) married, with whom he had another daughter (Johanna). Due to hostility because of his Jewish-sounding family name (Kohn, Cohn ) during the Nazi era , he applied for a name change to Kohnert for himself, his family and his company in 1937 . It was ministerially approved on August 14, 1937.

Companies

The wood importing and wood processing company Pundt & Kohn , founded by his grandfather in 1863 , including the company's sawmills and planing mills, which also operated under the name Geestemünder Holzindustriewerke Backhaus & Co. , in Geestemünde - one of the most important and oldest companies in this branch on the Lower Weser - experienced its heyday under Hans Kohn (ert).

During the Second World War , the factory, the wood storage and office and residential buildings on the Geeste, the Geestemünde wooden harbor , the old harbor and Schönianstraße and Borriesstraße were destroyed by Allied bombers during the night of bombing in Bremerhaven (September 18, 1944). The company was never able to recover from the destruction in the post-war period. After the death of his brother Gerhard Kohnert (1962), Hans Kohnert took over the Meller Möbelfabrik (MMM) in Melle near Osnabrück, which Gerhard had founded in 1909 . After the war, the latter was already closely linked to the timber import company (P&K) through a profit transfer agreement (1956–1966), which contributed to the fact that MMM did not need to invest and modernize. In 1966, in order to prevent bankruptcy, MMM was sold to the main creditors by Hans Kohnert. In January 1975, MMM finally went bankrupt under the new owners. Pundt & Kohn was dissolved after Kohnert's death in 1967.

Further work

III. Sailor artillery barracks, Bremerhaven-Lehe, around 1900

In addition to his entrepreneurial activity, Hans Kohnert became particularly well known beyond local borders for his political and voluntary work. So was Hans Kohnert u. a. Member of the supervisory board of Bremer Landesbank and Geestemünder Bank (1941–1967; Chairman: 1951–1967). In the First World War , Hans Kohn served as a naval officer of the III. Sailor artillery department, Lehe (belonging to the naval artillery) mainly in Fort Brinkamahof II near Weddewarden / Imsum. The fort was permanently occupied during the First World War, but - like all forts on the Lower Weser - never involved in combat operations. In the last year of the war, 1917/18, Oberleutnant Kohn took part in the Third Battle of Flanders as a company commander . On the occasion of the sailors' uprising in Bremerhaven in November 1918, Hans Kohn withdrew from public life for some time and devoted himself to painting. The fact that his oeuvre has not yet been included in the canons of local artists from Bremerhaven and the surrounding area such as Klaus Bemmer or Paul Ernst Wilke is probably due to the fact that the paintings are almost exclusively in private ownership or were destroyed by the effects of the war.

“For Hans Kohnert, the guiding principle that had shaped his father's actions applied: A businessman should not only think about his business and about making money, he also has a responsibility to fulfill the common good. His father had been a senator in Geestemünde from 1898 until his death. Fifteen years later, Hans Kohnert had the same title. On December 1, 1924, he became an unpaid, honorary member of the Wesermünder Magistrate for the united bourgeoisie and held this position until 1929. "

- Obituary. In: Nordsee-Zeitung of January 12, 1967.

Shortly after the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Hans Kohn ran for President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK) Bremerhaven and was elected against the votes of the NSDAP . In 1938 he joined the NSDAP (retroactively from 1937), which awarded him the Golden Party Badge for his services to the Bremerhaven economy . According to his own statements, this was done under pressure from Walter Gravenhorst , the former district judge of the Hanover-East district and SD employee, and to protect the IHK from further attacks by the NSDAP. From 1933 to 1945 Hans Kohn (ert) was President of the Chamber of Commerce of the IHK Bremerhaven. From 1943 to 1945 he was also appointed military economics leader and president of the newly created Gauwirtschaftskammer Ost-Hannover. "In 1951, Kohnert was appointed honorary president of the IHK for his successful endeavors to protect the chamber from state access" (from: "125 years IHK-Bremerhaven ; 1925 - 1950, Liberal even in difficult times", IHK, Bremernhaven). After the end of the Second World War, the American occupying power issued Hans Kohnert a two-year professional ban and temporarily confiscated his company assets; During this time he lived in a makeshift home in Drangstedt and devoted himself to painting.

Hans Kohnert “resumed wood imports in 1948 and moved to the position of chairman in the supervisory board of the Geestemünder Bank, to which he had been a member since 1941, and took part, albeit more in the background, in political and social events. He chaired the societies for the promotion of the reconstruction of the city theater and the establishment of the city baths… Kohnert's death also meant a great loss for the United Protestant Congregation for the Mayor Smidt Memorial Church, which appointed him to its church council in 1949. Since 1950 he has been one of the three builders ... Hans Kohnert represented his congregation from 1951 to 1964 in the Bremen Church Congress, the two port cities of Bremerhaven and Vegesack from 1954 to 1964 in the church committee as the highest body. In the twenties, Kohnert demonstrated his social sentiments when he was chairman of the Geestemünder vacation colony. This association of wealthy Geestemünder citizens wanted to give schoolchildren in need of rest a free vacation and acquired the school camp in Bederkesa. ”( Nordsee-Zeitung , January 12, 1967).

Honors

  • Honorary President of the Bremerhaven Chamber of Commerce and Industry since 1951
  • Honorary member of the Heimatbund der Morgenstern men

Bremerhaven pictures by Hans Kohn

  • Old Port

  • Cloudy landscape and moor near Weddewarden (1921)

literature

Sorted by publication

  • Paul Hirschfeld: Hanover's big industry and wholesale trade. Ed .: Deutsche Export-Bank, Berlin / Duncker u. Humblot, Leipzig, XVI, 1891, 412 pp.
  • Julius Marchet: The timber trade in Northern Germany. F. Deuticke publishing house, Leipzig Vienna 1908.
  • Fritz Thienst: From the history of the labor movement in the Lower Weser places . SPD, Wesermünde 1930, 251 pages plus illustrations; Bremerhaven City Archives; here: Excerpt from the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council established in Bremerhaven in November 1918, pp. 143–159.
  • Klaus Drobisch: Documents about the history and character of the fascist Wehrwirtschaftsfüher-Korps. In: Journal of Military History. 5, 1966, pp. 323-337.
  • Obituary for the late Hans Kohnert. In: Nordsee-Zeitung. Bremerhaven January 12, 1967.
  • Burchhard Scheper: The more recent history of the city of Bremerhaven. Magistrate of the City of Bremerhaven (Hrsg.) Bremerhaven.
  • Harry Gabcke : Hans Kohnert was born 100 years ago. In: Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt, Mitteilungsblatt der Männer vom Morgenstern (MvM). Bremerhaven, November 1987, No. 455.
  • Rainer Schulze: Entrepreneurial Self-Administration and Politics - The Role of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Lower Saxony and Bremen as the representation of entrepreneurial interests after the end of the Second World War. Publishing house August Lax, Hildesheim 1988.
  • Hartmut Bickelmann: From Geestendorf to Geestemünde - spatial, commercial and social structural change in the vicinity of the Geestermünder Holzhafen. In: Men from the Morning Star. Jahrbuch 75, 1996, pp. 149-235.
  • Hartmut Bickelmann (ed.): Bremerhaven personalities from four centuries. A biographical lexicon. Second, enlarged and corrected edition. Bremerhaven 2003, pp. 172-174.
  • IHK (2000): 125 years IHK-Bremerhaven; 1925–1950, liberal even in difficult times. Chamber of Industry and Commerce, anniversary publication, Bremerhaven.

Web links

Commons : Hans Kohnert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Kloppenburg: The disaster night of Bremerhaven (Wesermünde) on September 18, 1944 (episode 1 & 2). Bremerhaven. PSM-data, history, primary literature; zum.de accessed on May 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ Application for opening of bankruptcy proceedings. Production in the Melle furniture factory is suspended. In: Meller Kreisblatt . 23rd January 1975.
  3. ↑ Research in the Freiburg Military Archives, 2014–2015, sa argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de Bundesarchiv . Archives used for research on site (selection): RM 121-I / 620, title: Flandern; RM 121-I / 626, title: Very secret; RM 121-I / 638, Title: Exercises in the ward area; s. in addition: (1) Scherer, Wingolf (ed.) (2009): Change - The silent enthusiasm. Flanders 1914–1918: Letters, notes and photos of a marine in the Marine Corps in Flanders. Publisher: Helios.
  4. ↑ Elke Grapenthin: Artists in Bremerhaven around 1827–1990. Verlag HM Hauschild, Bremen 1991, ISBN 3-926598-40-9 .
  5. ^ Negotiations of the main denazification committee of the city of Hanover; AZ: RIS VE: 3522, cult, October 2, 1948.
personal data
SURNAME Kohnert, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kohn, Johannes (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Entrepreneur, manufacturer, President of the Chamber of Commerce and painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Geestemünde
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1967
Place of death Bremerhaven