Hans Reuter (industrialist)

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Hans Reuter (* 23. January 1895 in Wetter (Ruhr) , † 23. October 1982 in Duisburg ) was a German mechanical engineering - engineering and industrial managers , who as a longtime director general and CEO of the German Machine Aktiengesellschaft worked (Demag).

Life

Reuter grew up in Wetter and later in Düsseldorf, after his father Wolfgang Andreas Reuter had three machine factories in Wetter an der Ruhr, in Düsseldorf -Benrath and in Duisburg to form Deutsche Maschinenfabrik AG , later Deutsche Maschinenbau-Aktiengesellschaft (DEMAG) based in Duisburg had summarized. Reuter completed his studies in general mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Dresden . After graduation with the academic degree of Dipl.-Ing. He joined his father's company as a designer in 1922 and soon headed the overseas and rolling mill construction departments . Large orders from the Soviet Union and in particular the project for a new iron and steel works for the South African Union with an order value of ₤ 850,000 (approx. 24 million Reichsmarks ) brought the company out of the existence-threatening crisis. In 1934 Reuter was appointed to the board of directors for the metallurgical division , which had become the mainstay of the company during the global economic crisis . After Wilhelm Zangen moved to the top of Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG in the same year, Reuter took over first the commercial and then the financial department. When his father resigned in 1940, Reuter was his successor as DEMAG General Director, also known internally as Reuter II .

Before the end of the war, Reuter refused to obey the so-called Nero order to destroy all production facilities when the Allied combat units approached , which is why he was arrested by the Gestapo before the end of the war, from which the Allies liberated him in 1945. Nevertheless, he was interned by the occupying powers as one of the representatives of the German armaments industry during the National Socialist era in the British interrogation center in Bad Nenndorf , which meant that he was prohibited from doing any business.

After completing various proceedings and being fired, however, in 1946 he was allowed to become a member of the board again, but not to become the general manager of his company. As part of the re-education and democratization of the German population started by the British occupation forces , Reuter suggested to the military administration that they should ask the DEMAG workforce whether they wanted him back as General Director or not. Trusting that the workers would not vote for a Reuters-type capitalist, the British officers agreed. To their surprise, what they had not thought possible happened: Around 80 percent of the workers and employees at DEMAG voted for Reuters to return as the company's general manager.

Reuter also resisted being placed in an apartment designated by the military authorities. Rather, he had a simple barrack built directly opposite his Römerhof country house, which had been confiscated by the Belgian military , into which he moved with his family. Provocatively, he was then chauffeured to his company every working day in one of the company's remaining luxury company limousines. In 1953 he got his property back.

Under the aegis of Hans Reuters, DEMAG became a global company with sales reaching the billion mark in 1961. The Reuter family and the company's largest single shareholder owned around 17 percent of the share capital of around DM 110 million at the time . In the 1960s, DEMAG was the only company in the world that was able to manufacture and build complete steel works in its own factories with a workforce of around 28,000 employees. The continuous casting technology that revolutionized metallurgy was developed in collaboration with Mannesmann. At that time, DEMAG steel works and machine factories were sold to all parts of the world, so that at times up to 75 percent of production was exported. Foresight, Reuter trained the foreign specialists required to operate these systems in-house, making Duisburg a training center for developing countries.

In addition, Reuter developed an extensive travel activity. He himself studied major projects around the world and sent his experts from continent to continent. In 1957, DEMAG's travel expenses reached the turnover of a medium-sized machine factory, namely more than 20 million DM. The delegation of representatives of West German heavy industry , which he led in 1958 and which traveled to the Soviet Union for 14 days for the first time after the Second World War , came across the Execution of Imre Nagy in Hungary and the further deteriorating situation of the population in the GDR on various occasions to severe criticism.

When Reuter stepped down from the position of general director in 1962 to take over the chairmanship of the supervisory board , which the banker Robert Pferdmenges had previously held for 38 years, the long-standing board member, the mechanical engineer Heinrich Müller, was first appointed general director of the group, before that 1967 Hans Reuter's son Wolfgang Reuter , called Reuter III , took over the management in Duisburg.

Honors and memberships

Reuter received numerous honors. In 1954 he received the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , in 1955 he was awarded an honorary doctorate (as Dr.-Ing.Eh ) from RWTH Aachen University , in 1959 he received the GDR National Prize for Science and Technology (in Class III) and since 1961 he has been Honorary member of the Association of German Ironworkers .

He was chairman of the supervisory board of Jünkerather Maschinenfabrik GmbH in Jünkerath in the Eifel, further member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank AG West , Düsseldorf, Dinglerwerke AG in Zweibrücken, Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks AG , Essen, Mannesmann AG , Düsseldorf, the Physikalische Studiengesellschaft in Düsseldorf, the nuclear reactor financing GmbH in Frankfurt am Main, the Colonia Kölnische Versicherungs-AG , Cologne, and the Kölnische Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft . He was a member of the advisory board of Concordia-Lebensversicherung AG and a member of the foreign trade advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Economics , the German Atomic Energy Commission and the technical and scientific committee of EURATOM in Brussels. He was a member of the advisory board of the North Rhine-Westphalian State Office for Research in Düsseldorf, member of the scientific council of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation in Cologne, member of the board of the Association for the Promotion of Research in the Field of International Technical Cooperation in Aachen, member of the Board of Trustees of the Max Planck Institute for chemistry in Mainz and the first chairman of the East Committee of German Business, founded in 1952 .

family

Hans Reuter, son of the married couple Wolfgang Andres Reuter and Martha Reuter b. Blank, was born with Helga Reuter. Gran married. They had two sons, Wolfgang (* 1924) and Niels (1929–1970), and a daughter, Karin (* 1926).

Fonts

  • Export problems and proposed solutions - Lecture at the German Industrial Institute [Lecture series of the German Industrial Institute, Vol. 3 (1953) No. 27]. German industrial publishing company Cologne 1953
  • Long-term loans and commercial contracts - Lecture at the German Industrial Institute [Lecture series of the German Industrial Institute, vol. 4 (1954) No. 28]. German industrial publishing company Cologne 1954
  • Export, Productivity and Investments - Lecture at the German Industrial Institute [Lecture series of the German Industrial Institute, Vol. 7 (1957) No. 29]. German industrial publishing company Cologne 1957
  • Europe between EEC and EFTA - Lecture at the German Industrial Institute [Lecture series of the German Industrial Institute, Vol. 10 (1960) No. 33]. German industrial publishing company Cologne 1960
  • German mechanical engineering in the large European market - lecture a. Excerpts from d. Discussion in d. General Assembly d. Working group f. Rationalization d. State of North Rhine-Westphalia on January 23, 1963 [Series of publications by the Working Group for Rationalization of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia; H. 62]. Traffic u. Wirtschafts-Verlag Dortmund 1963
  • No investments without profits - Lecture at the German Industrial Institute [Lecture series of the German Industrial Institute, vol. 13 (1963) No. 8]. German industrial publishing company Cologne 1963

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Spiegel , year 1967, No. 31
personal data
SURNAME Reuter, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mechanical engineer and industrial manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Weather (Ruhr)
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1982
Place of death Duisburg