Heinrich Auer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heinrich Auer (born November 28, 1825 in Cologne ; † May 31, 1892 ibid) was a German industrialist and Cologne entrepreneur who operated flour mills .

Establishment of mills

Heinrich Auer was the son of Alois and Katharina Auer, b. Carpenter. He grew up with 6 siblings. As early as 1850 he began the industrialization of this district in Cologne-Nippes by building a steam mill. It was a flour mill that was supposed to meet the increasing demand for flour products in the steadily growing cities. This mill was put into operation on December 4, 1850 in today's Auerstraße / corner of Niehler Straße (then Niehler Weg) and processed wheat into flour. Auer was one of the first millers to use steam power. Another mill was built on Landsbergstrasse in Cologne in 1866. This was the beginning of the 3-generation Auer empire of flour mills. The wind- or water-powered mills were finally pushed back by steam-powered mills. Heinrich Auer was a member of the Cologne city council between 1856 and 1868 and 1871 to 1876 .

successor

When Heinrich Auer died in May 1892 at the age of 67, his sons Jakob (born June 17, 1854 in Cologne, † June 11, 1919 in Bad Oeynhausen ) and Carl Auer took over the management of the now 4 mills. The sons arranged for the construction of the first large Auer mill in Cologne-Deutz by architect Hans Verbeek in 1909. This location was chosen because the industrial port in Cologne-Deutz had previously been put into operation on December 14, 1907, and barges on the Rhine could be used as a means of transport for grain and Auer products. In the meantime, the daily capacity here had risen to 1,500 bags, and later it was even 3,000 bags. Auers Großmühle became the most important resident of the new Deutz industrial port. On April 7, 1910, Auerstraße in the Nippes district was named after Heinrich Auer, where his first steam mill was located. At that time, Auer's first mill there had already been demolished.

In 1921 the management of the milling company passed to Clemens Auer (* June 27, 1894 , † after 1966), Jakob Auer's eldest son. Clemens Auer rose to become one of the most important mill industrialists in Germany, because in addition to his function as a personally liable partner of the company now trading as Heinrich Auer Mühlenwerke KGaA , he was also represented on the board of 3 other milling companies. On August 28, 1939, he also acquired the majority of shares in Österreichische Zuckerindustrie AG as part of an " Aryanization program ". From then on it traded as the Brucker Zuckerfabrik Clemens Auer . On December 18, 1944, the Deutzer Mühle was hit by bombs and burned down.

Brand name is created

Ellmühle, Cologne-Deutz

It was not until December 4, 1950, exactly 100 years after the first Auer mill was built, that the destroyed mill was able to go back into operation. Just one year later, Clemens Auer registered the “Aurora” brand as a trademark in 1951 . It is now registered under the number 799213 at the EU Office for the registration of trademarks and designs for Kampffmeyer Mühlen GmbH as a word mark. "Aurora" is derived from Roman mythology, where Aurora was the goddess of the dawn. This was also expressed in the logo of the slogan “Aurora with the Sun Star”, which is still used today.

In 1955, strong overcapacities of 50% in the German milling industry caused a “mill cartel”, in which Clemens Auer also - reluctantly - participated and achieved sales of 114.3 million DM that year. The brand continues to be the market leader in branded flour and has been part of the Kampffmeyer Group , Germany's largest milling company , since 1975 . The activities of the 18 mills throughout Europe are grouped under the VK Mühlen holding . In the same year the Auer mill was merged with the neighboring Ellmühle (until 1964: Leysieffer & Lietzmann mill ). With an annual capacity of 365,000 tons, this is one of the most important large mills in Europe. In 2000, Aurora Mühlen GmbH from Cologne moved to Hamburg, the headquarters of VK Mühlen. Heinrich Auer's mill empire had become Cologne's industrial history.

Others

Another son of Jakob Auer was the ambassador Theodor Auer .

In April 2005, the Claims Resolution Tribunal in Zurich ruled that the heirs of the Jewish-Austrian families Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and Otto Pick would receive compensation of 17.1 million euros because a Swiss bank was involved in the expropriation of their sugar Shares of the Österreichische Zuckerindustrie AG had been involved. The bank acting as trustee had violated its obligations under the syndicate agreement because, contrary to the agreement, it had sold the shares to Clemens Auer.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aurora flour about the founding years ( memento of the original from December 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aurora-mehl.de
  2. ^ Ulrich S. Soénius , Jürgen Wilhelm: Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven-Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , p. 35.
  3. ↑ In 1926, Dr. Carl Auer built a silo and storage building in Bonn and opened the "Bonner Weizenmühle Carl Auer" there in 1927
  4. ↑ Klaus-Dieter Henke / Harald Wixforth, The Expansion of Dresdner Bank in Europe , 2006, p. 40
  5. ↑ Claims Resolution Tribunal on Österreichische Zuckerindustrie AG, 2005, p. 12 (PDF file; 345 kB)
  6. ↑ Registration of Aurora
  7. ↑ MÜHLENKARTELL / INDUSTRY: Pferdmenges helped . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1955 ( online ).
  8. ^ Salzburger Nachrichten of April 14, 2005, Compensation for expropriated sugar shareholders
personal data
SURNAME Auer, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1892
Place of death Cologne