Hugo Küttner

Hugo Richard Küttner (1920)

Hugo Richard Küttner (born March 17, 1879 in Sehma ; † May 8, 1945 in Dresden ) was a German entrepreneur in the artificial silk industry in Pirna .

Live and act

Hugo Richard Küttner was the son of the entrepreneur Friedrich Richard Küttner , who, in the 3rd generation, has successfully managed a factory in Sehma since it was founded in 1820, which, among other things , produced and processed cotton yarns ( twisting , bleaching and dyeing). Küttner attended school in his home town of Sehma until he was 11 years old. Later completed an apprenticeship as a businessman in Plauen , spent a further training year in London and worked as an authorized signatory in his father's company.

Friedrich Richard Küttner retired in 1906, moved to Dresden a year later and handed over management of the company to his son Hugo Richard Küttner. The Küttner company in Sehma had developed by leaps and bounds since the 1870s and supplied raw materials in particular to the silk cord and trimmings industry.

From 1889 artificial silk began to increasingly replace the previously used natural silk. The Chardonnet process developed at that time was difficult to apply because of its fire hazard. Hugo Küttner's merit was to improve the Chardonnet process for the manufacture of artificial silk and to set up an efficient production line for it.

For this he built a small test facility in Deuben im Plauenschen Grund near Dresden in 1908 . After the dangerousness of the production process became known, however, he had to give up this production site. In the same year, however, the city of Pirna made a site available for the establishment of an artificial silk factory on the site of a former parade ground on the city limits of Großsedlitz , after the prospect of creating around 1000 jobs was announced.

Hugo Küttner moved to Pirna and built an artificial silk factory here in 1908/09. A few days before the planned start of production, the Chardonnet process was stopped and, within a construction period of eight to nine weeks, it was switched to the less dangerous viscose process. The result was that in 1910 the first usable rayon in Germany from the Küttner factory in Pirna came onto the market using the viscose process. As early as 1913, the share of the artificial silk factory in Pirna in total world production was around 6%. That was a masterpiece of the company's founder and his employees after only three years of operation.

In 1920 he celebrated the 100th anniversary of the company, as he saw the purchase of a twisting mill by Christiane Sophie Küttner in Sehma in 1820 as the founding date . In 1924/1925 a second plant was built in Pirna. As early as 1913 he was the city's largest employer; At times Küttner employed 50% of Pirna's employees. The peak was reached in 1928 when it numbered 5,688 workers and employees.

The course of time also left its mark on Küttner's company. The beginning and end of the First World War , the end of the monarchy with the rule of the Arcbeiter and Soldiers' Councils, the Kapp Putsch , high inflation and the reparations led to production being stopped for a long time due to a lack of raw materials and personnel.

Ms. Küttner AG (advertisement 1928)

Saxon artificial silk factory Pirna 1970

Grave site of the Küttner family of manufacturers in Sehma with the memorial inscription for Hugo Küttner on the right inscription plate

In 1920 the company was converted into an open trading company (OHG): The reasons were the growing need for loans, including for repairs to downtime, the expansion of the plant in 1924/1925 and the associated securities for the banks. In 1927 the plant was converted into a stock corporation (AG), but Küttner and his two daughters remained the sole owners. At the beginning of the 1930s the financial situation worsened due to the global economic crisis . The company's economic situation deteriorated due to the dramatic drop in product prices and a lack of purchasing power. The production of viscose silk and copper rayon was stopped for months in the early 1930s. Some of the workers and employees had to be laid off. The dissatisfaction of the working people led to increasing politicization in the plant. The KPD grew stronger. In the political agitations, the person Hugo Küttner was the main target of the criticism, since an individual was far easier and more powerful to criticize than the anonymous management of a stock corporation. The wrath of the labor movement was directed against Kiittner personally; he was portrayed as an exploiter. The works council chairman and communist member of the Reichstag, Siegfried Rädel, was his opponent. The artificial silk factory was still the largest employer, although in 1932 with around 2,200 employees it was less than half its size. From 1927 to 1930 the company made no profit; from 1931 to 1933 the plants even stood still. Because of the difficulties, the banks took over the company. At the beginning of 1934 the company was restructured. A consortium of banks made new loans available and the shares were simultaneously assigned as security. In the years that followed, renovation programs were developed that achieved great success. The market developed new demand, prices became stable, production quotas were set by a rayon syndicate. The company paid a dividend for the first time in 1936 .

In 1934/1935 Küttner ran into difficulties with the National Socialist rulers. With their entry into the company, Hugo Küttner waged a long, but unsuccessful, struggle against the National Socialists, who were employed in management positions at the plant on the executive board and supervisory board of the AG. Hugo Küttner, who was not a party member, was taken into protective custody for allegedly disrupting the industrial peace. He was released from protective custody and was initially not allowed to enter his factory, then permanently. In the period that followed, his influence on his work waned and he was forced out. At the instigation of Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann, Hugo Küttner's share capital was withdrawn through an illegal contract and sold on to a state-owned bank.

For the last ten years of his life he waged a tough but ultimately unsuccessful struggle against the unjustified claim to power of the National Socialists in his company. Hugo Küttner accepted all the humiliations associated with this. What could not be taken from him was his steadfastness, strength of will and the care for his family and those of his employees in the artificial silk factory.

Up until the end of 1944 the artificial silk factory was in constant upward development. The main reason for this was the excellent patents for the viscose and copper rayon processes, which were the basis for the excellent quality and economy of the products. In 1952, after the collapse in Pirna, stolen Küttner patents were offered to West German competing companies as well as companies in the USA and Japan, and some were sold because of their great potential for rationalization.

Küttner died at the end of the war on May 8, 1945 on a bicycle trip from Dresden to Pirna to the artificial silk factory. He was buried in the Dresden-Tolkewitz cemetery, the grave site there no longer exists. A grave slab with Hugo Küttner's name is also on the grave site of the Küttner family at the Pauluskirche in Sehma.

When the Red Army marched into Pirna on May 8, 1945, production in the artificial silk factory was stopped, but only for 18 days. Then operations resumed until the plant was dismantled and transported to the Soviet Union. It was later rebuilt at the same location in Pirna and continued to be used for decades. Production peaked in 1977.

The rayon factory outlasted even the political turn in 1989 until 1993 bankruptcy ended. It was wound up because it was not competitive and because production was harmful to the environment and health. The industrial and commercial park "An der Elbe" is now located on the former factory site. With the exception of the factory settlement (" Piependorf "), only a few remains of the historical buildings have survived .

In the GDR , Küttner's “opponent”, the workers' leader Siegfried Rädel , enjoyed greater fame. In Pirna, a street was named after Hugo Küttner on the former factory premises after the fall of the Wall. The Thuringian Institute of Textile and Plastics Research awarded in 2011, on the occasion of the opening of the new technical center building in its 20th anniversary year and in recognition of the lifetime achievements of this pioneer of German chemical fiber industry, the technical name technical Hugo Richard Kuttner .

Private life

Hugo Küttner married Toni Schuller (1884–1968) from Plauen in 1910. The marriage had four children, two of whom died at an early age.

In 1913, Küttner bought a villa with a park between today's Königsteiner Strasse, Einsteinstrasse and An der Gottleuba. He had the house rebuilt and the park designed. In 1920 he celebrated the company anniversary here and later his daughter Marga lived here with her family. The building, which is known today as the "Küttnervilla", was then used as a clubhouse and pioneer house and was then empty. The Saxon Switzerland Music School has been located in the renovated building complex since 2011

literature

• Klaus Müller, Georg-Heinrich Treitschke: Artificial silk from Pirna. A company in Germany's timescale. (= Grün-Weiß , No. 45.) Verlag Gunter Oettel, Görlitz / Zittau 2014, ISBN 978-3-944560-12-0 .
• Otto Weiss: The company Küttner AG, Sehma and Pirna i. Sa. your beginning, advancement and development. JJ Weber, Leipzig 1932.

Web links

• The entrepreneurial family Küttner (p. 4) (PDF; 507 kB)