Hugo Ferdinand Boss

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Hugo Ferdinand Boss (born July 8, 1885 in Metzingen ; † August 9, 1948 there ) was a German textile entrepreneur . With his tailoring he laid the foundation stone for the clothing manufacturer Hugo Boss AG.

Life

Hugo Boss's parents were Heinrich Boss and Luise, geb. Munzenmayer . Boss attended elementary school and secondary school , from which he left in 1899 without a degree. He then completed a three-year commercial apprenticeship in Bad Urach .

Boss gained his first experience in the clothing industry in 1902 at the JJ Wendler colored weaving mill in Metzingen. After completing his military service from 1903 to 1905, he found a job in a weaving mill in Constance .

In 1908, after the death of his parents, Hugo Boss took over their manufactory and trousseau business in Metzingen. In the same year he married Anna Katharina Freysinger . The daughter Gertrud emerged from this marriage. In 1931 she married the businessman Eugen Holy , who had joined the company during the economic depression.

In 1914 Boss was drafted as a corporal and in 1918 dismissed with the same rank. Nothing is known about active participation in the First World War . After the war and stabilizing the economy, he founded in Metzingen the Tailoring Hugo Boss and began by dress shirts and underwear , then professional and workwear ago. In 1924 he founded a clothing factory (initially with two partners) in which he produced underwear, shirts and windbreakers , and later also work clothes, sporting goods and raincoats . In the 1930s and during the Second World War , his company mainly produced uniforms for the SA , SS , Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht , but also for post and railway employees.

Party career

In 1931 Boss joined the NSDAP , in 1936 in the German Labor Front (DAF), in 1939 in the Reich Air Protection Association and in 1941 in the National Socialist People's Welfare . He was also a member of the NS-Reichskriegerbund and the Reichsbund für physical exercises , whose predecessor organizations he had already belonged to during the German Empire . According to his own statements, he was also a supporting member of the SS . After the war, he was initially classified as an "incriminated person" in a denazification procedure and subjected to considerable sanctions, but then as a " follower " in a review procedure he requested .

Post War and Death

After 1945, Boss resumed the production of workwear in Metzingen, but for health reasons he only appeared in public as deputy managing director from October 1, 1945. In 1948 his son-in-law Eugen Holy took over the management of the Hugo Boss company.

Hugo Ferdinand Boss died on August 9, 1948 at the age of 63.

literature

  • Roman Köster: Hugo Boss, 1924–1945. The story of a clothing factory between the Weimar Republic and the “Third Reich” . CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61992-2 .
  • Rudolf Renz: Hugo Boss: Metzinger uniform tailor in the "Third Reich" . In: Wolfgang Proske (ed.): Perpetrators helpers free riders. Nazi victims from the south of what is now Baden-Württemberg, vol. 9, Gerstetten: Kugelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-945893-10-4 , pp. 44–58.

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