Heinrich Kost

Heinrich Kost (* 11. June 1890 in Betzdorf ( Siegerland ); † 3. July 1978 in chapels ), a German mountain was engineering and mining - Manager , he was Managing Director ( CEO ), the mining company Rheinpreußen .

Live and act

Heinrich Kost was born on June 11, 1890 as the second child of six siblings in Betzdorf (Siegerland). His father was a royal Prussian mountain master and head of the local mining area.

After attending elementary school and high schools in Wattenscheid and Essen , Kost graduated from high school in Wiesbaden at Easter 1910 . He later studied mining at the University of Munich and at the Bergakademie Berlin . Interrupted by military service, Kost passed the mountain referendar exam in spring 1919 . This was followed by the main diploma examination at the end of the same year. In autumn 1921, Kost laid the foundation for his further career advancement in mining with the mountain assessor examen.

Heinrich Kost married Martha Pattberg on June 20, 1925. His father-in-law Heinrich Pattberg was general director of the Haniel collieries in Rheinpreußen and Neumühl, and Heinrich Kost took over this position in 1932. Kost proved to be a technically imaginative manager who pushed the mechanization of coal mining. The Rheinpreußen colliery played a pioneering role in the Ruhr mining industry in the development and use of the first cutter loader , a cutting coal extraction machine that became known as the "Iron Heinrich".

In the office of President of the Lower Rhine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Duisburg-Wesel in Duisburg , which he took over in 1944, he countered Hitler's order from the "scorched earth" and called on industrial companies not to carry out any destruction, but to expand and hide important parts of the company. After the end of the war it became known that Martin Bormann had issued an execution order against Heinrich Kost .

On November 19, 1947, Heinrich Kost became General Director of the German Coal Mining Management (DKBL) and thus responsible for the reconstruction of this shattered German basic industry . On July 21, 1953, the liquidation of the DKBL was decided. Heinrich Kost remained connected to his professional field as chairman of the supervisory board of Rheinpreußen AG for mining and chemistry (until 1961) and as president of the mining industry association (until 1964). Kost was one of the few industrial politicians who were represented in all three central associations of the German economy ( Federation of German Employers' Associations (BDA), Federation of German Industry (BDI) and German Industry and Trade Day ( DIHT )). Until 1966 he was President of the Board of Trustees of the German Student Union . In 1975, three years before his death, Heinrich Kost summarized his ethical principles and thoughts in the book What Moves Me .

Honors

• 1953: Large Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1964: Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fonts

• What moves me. Thoughts on society today and tomorrow. Düsseldorf 1975.

literature

• Evelyn Kroker :  Kost, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 620 ( digitized version ).
• Konrad Fuchs : Heinrich Kost (1890-1978) - An industrial and business leader from Betzdorf . In: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Kreis Altenkirchen 58 (2015), pp. 288–290.
• Evelyn Kroker: Heinrich Kost. Rationalization and social relations in mining. In: Paul Erker / Toni Pierenkemper (eds.): German entrepreneurs between war economy and reconstruction. Munich 1999, pp. 291-316.

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Kost in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Heinrich Kost in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .