Hans Lutz Merkle

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Hans Lutz Merkle (born January 1, 1913 in Pforzheim ; † September 22, 2000 in Stuttgart ) was a German manager . He was chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1931, Merkle first completed a commercial apprenticeship in his father's company and began his professional career in 1935 at the Ulrich Gminder textile factory in Reutlingen. Without a university degree - he had only studied as a guest student at the law faculty of the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen - he succeeded in advancing within the company, in which he became managing director in 1949, regardless of the fact that he was working for the company from 1942 at the same time until 1945 was chief executive of the Nazi steering association Reichsvereinigung Textilveredelung , whose main goal, "the rationalization of the cartel system in the textile finished goods industry, especially in the merger of existing cartels", made a significant contribution to the organization of the war economy.

Until 1958, Merkle was a member of the board of Ulrich Gminder AG in Reutlingen . Then he came to Robert Bosch GmbH as a managing director responsible for investments , where his ascent continued. As successor to Hans Walz , he was chairman of the management from 1963. In 1984 he then moved to the supervisory board of the GmbH, which he took over as chairman, and later became personally liable partner and chairman of Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG (until 1993), which exercises the voting rights of the non-profit Robert Bosch Foundation into which the heirs at Merkle's instigation had transferred large parts of their assets (92% of the shares), and thus represents the actual center of power. His successor as Bosch managing director was Marcus Bierich at his instigation in 1984 . After leaving the company, he was appointed honorary chairman of the Bosch Group. During the period in which he was active, Bosch GmbH rose to become a global corporation, whose sales rose from DEM 2 billion in 1963 to 1984 to over DEM 18 billion under Merkle as Chairman of the Board and has now (2019) reached over EUR 77 billion.

Merkle was seen as a public shy, but was one of the last industry managers who made almost unrestricted decisions and alone. In 1976 he became an honorary member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . In 1984 he received the Harnack Medal of the Max Planck Society , which is awarded for services to society. In 1994 he was awarded honorary citizenship by the University of Stuttgart . This was considered a very special honor at the time, as the university had not awarded this honor for 30 years. On October 4, 2001, Henry Kissinger , who was a friend of Merkle, gave a commemorative speech in Berlin.

On July 13, 1988, Merkle was able to give a lecture at the University of Frankfurt / Main as part of the lecture series Profession as Experience only under the protection of a police hundred, since student groups had asked him to be involved in the National Socialist economic organization in the announced autobiographical statements to enter into what Merkle vehemently rejected with the reference “everything is already known”.

It was only after his death that it became known to the public that Merkle had been an almost obsessed bibliophile throughout his life . Its library contained 17,000 volumes, including bibliophile rarities such as a copy of the first edition of Goethe's Das Römische Carneval . The volumes of his library, which was auctioned from 2002–2004, bear his ex-libris without a name, only with the location of Feuerbacher Heide and book number.

Publications

  • Stability in economic policy - dynamism in the economy. Lecture . Stuttgart, 1966, 36 pp.
  • Hermann J. Abs with an introduction and a contribution by Hans L. Merkle: Lebensfragen der Wirtschaft . Econ, Munich, 1976, ISBN 3-430-11011-4
  • Rupture zones of the present. Thoughts on politics and economics . Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1984, 321 (3) pp.
  • Culture of business. Considerations on the fringes of politics . Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1988, 304 pages, ISBN 3-421-06483-0
  • Hans L. Merkle, Hans Ullrich Gallwas: On the subject of the foundation. The individual and the community. Constitutional remarks on current social and political developments . Edited by the Robert Bosch Foundation. Stuttgart; 1991, 35 pp.
  • The stony way. Experience of an entrepreneur . Manesse Verlag GmbH Munich, 1993, ISBN 3-7175-8199-6 , 2nd edition. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 1994, 135 pp.
  • A German company in France. The Bosch Group and the new beginning in German-French relations from 1945 . Bonn: Bouvier 1995, 56 pp.
  • Serving and leading - knowledge of an entrepreneur . Foreword in English by Henry A. Kissinger and H. Scholl. Stuttgart; Leipzig: Hohenheim-Verlag, 2001, 351 pages, ISBN 3-89850-058-6 (selection of his lectures and articles)

literature

  • Heide Ziegler (Ed.): Hans L. Merkle. Speeches at the ceremony on the occasion of the appointment of Prof. Dr. hc Hans L. Merkle as honorary citizen of the University of Stuttgart, February 4, 1994 . Appendix: List of honorary citizens of the Technical University or the University of Stuttgart. [Ulrich Sieber]. [University of Stuttgart]. Stuttgart: University, 1994, 48 pages, ISBN 3-926269-13-8 (speeches and essays / University of Stuttgart; 47)
  • Awarding of the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Medal in gold to Professor Dr. phil. hc Hans L. Merkle, Stuttgart on October 23, 1973 , Hamburg: Foundation FVS 1973, 32 pages

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See for the information on training and career appreciation on the centenary of death in the Stuttgarter Zeitung of January 1, 2013 and obituary in Der Tagesspiegel of September 26, 2000 .
  2. ↑ ( Franz Neumann , Behemoth. Structure and Practice de National Socialism 1933-1944 , Frankfurt / Main, Fischer, 1988, p. 629: “The Reichsvereinigung Textilveredelung differs from the other Reich associations because it is least subject to the control of the Ministry of Economic Affairs The main goal is the rationalization of the cartel system in the textile manufacturing industry, especially in the merger of existing cartels - a task successfully solved by this Reichsvereinigung. ")
  3. ↑ See also the parts of the preserved files of the Reichsvereinigung Textilveredelung in the German Federal Archives: BArch R 10-IV / ...
  4. ↑ See article "Ulrich Gminder: The rise of a small dye works" in "Reutlinger Generalanzeiger" from May 27, 2014 and article "Gminder AG resided in Tübinger Strasse until 1964" in "Schwäbisches Tagblatt" from March 31, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Henry A. Kissinger's commemorative speech from October 4, 2004 in Berlin ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.henryakissinger.com
  6. ↑ Profession as experience
  7. ↑ "The highest good, which no power in the world can rob us of, is pure conviction, which finds its expression in the conscientious fulfillment of duty" (Flyer), Frankfurt / Main, July 1988.
  8. ↑ Even years later, this statement contradicts general knowledge: On his centenary, the Stuttgarter Zeitung zu Merkle simply notes that “from 1942 onwards he worked for the Reichsvereinigung Textilveredlung in Berlin. This organization was involved in the war economy. What exactly Merkle did there is not known. "( Stuttgarter Zeitung, January 1, 2013 )
  9. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 14, 1988: fear of harmony between spirit and money. The dispute at the university over the series of lectures continues. Students hold on to criticism.
  10. ↑ See Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of April 22, 2002 as well as Reiss & Sohn book and graphic auctions, catalogs 82, 85 and 88: Library Hans L. Merkle. Parts 1-3 I. German literature of the 17th-19th centuries Century. II. Books that moved the world. III. Modern literature and illustrated books. 3 vols., In total approx. 660 p., Numerous Fig. Archived copy ( memento from August 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  11. ↑ See data set by Hans Lutz Merkle in the catalog of the German National Library .
personal data
SURNAME Merkle, Hans Lutz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Merkle, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Pforzheim
DATE OF DEATH September 22, 2000
Place of death Stuttgart