Heinrich Freese

Heinrich Johannes Carl Freese (born May 23, 1853 in Hamburg , † September 29, 1944 in Berlin ) was a manufacturer who emerged through internal social reforms.

Life

Freese came to Berlin in 1876 to take over the Berlin branch of his father's blind factory. The "Hamburg-Berlin blind factory Heinr. Freese ”became the leading German company for blinds and wooden paving with its main business in Rungestrasse 18 a, and branches in Hamburg, Breslau and Leipzig. In 1923 the Political Science Faculty of the University of Tübingen awarded Freese an honorary doctorate (Dr. rer. Pol. H. C.).

The social reformer

In 1896, the social democratic forward called him an “enlightened industrialist”. Freese saw social and democratic reforms in his company as crucial for its success. Heinrich Freese was the first industrialist in Berlin to convene a workers 'council in 1884 (since 1911 the legal name was workers' committee). He introduced profit sharing for his workers. This measure is also known from the nearby Otto Lilienthal machine factory (1890). The profit sharing was later (1896) known as a measure of the Carl Zeiss Foundation . Freese also introduced the eight-hour day.

From 1896 onwards, part of Freese's profit participation was transferred to a company savings bank, which grants company insurance protection. In 1908, recreational opportunities and a children's playground were offered on the new factory site in Niederschönhausen. Freese sees his principle in contrast to the growing trade unions .

From 1890 to 1898 Freese was the first chairman of the federal land ownership reform . From 1898 he was honorary chairman of the successor organization German Federation for Land Reform . As a soil reformer, he was particularly committed to the social and economic concerns of the Berlin building craftsmen.

Works

• Manufacturers' concerns , 1896
• Factory owners happiness! One way that can lead to Leipzig 1899.
• The constitutional system in the factory. , Leipzig 1905.
• Employee profit sharing. , Gotha 1905.
• Land reform! , Gotha 1907.
• The constitutional factory , Jena, 1909.

literature

• Karl-Wilhelm Gabbert: Heinrich Freese. His work, his world of thought, his meaning. Goettingen 1970.
• Hans-Henning Zabel:  Freese, Johannes Carl Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 389 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Martin Küster: A constitutional factory monarch - The Berlin social reformer Heinrich Freese . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 11, 1999, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 3643 ( luise-berlin.de ).