Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kassel-Marburg

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Logo of the IHK Kassel-Marburg
Headquarters of the IHK Kassel-Marburg

The IHK Kassel-Marburg is the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Kassel , North Hesse and Marburg , based in Kassel. Service centers are located in Marburg, Homberg (Efze) , Korbach , Bad Hersfeld and Eschwege . It has around 86,000 member companies.

The IHK Kassel-Marburg fulfills tasks assigned by the state (e.g. vocational training). It advises politicians and provides offers with a range of services (for example succession advice, business start-up advice).

history

Commercien-Cammer

In 1710, the princely Commercien-Cammer was set up in Cassel based on the model of the Spanish consulados (first in Valencia in 1283 ) and the French Conseil de Commerce (since 1664) . This makes the Kassel IHK one of the oldest chambers in Germany.

The Commercien-Cammer was founded in 1710 by Landgrave Karl . Karl had promoted the settlement of Huguenots in the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel and learned about them from the French Conseil de Commerce. The chamber consisted of an appointed director and four appointed merchants, the consuls. The task was to monitor trade and commerce. The chamber formed the supreme commercial jurisdiction. Appeals against the judgments of the Chamber were only possible with the Landgrave. The consuls had the right to speak directly to the landgrave. The Commercien-Cammer was dissolved after a few years. The commercial director Gasparini pursued a policy of consequent protectionism (common in mercantilism ) and through this initially lost support from the merchants and then from the landgrave. Gasparini had to answer to the Privy Council and the Chamber was dissolved.

He was succeeded in 1921 by the Police and Commerce Commission, in which, however, no more merchants were represented.

Commerz College

In 1763 a new attempt was made with the Commerz College to set up an administration of the economy with the participation of the merchants. Landgrave Friedrich II had learned the lesson from the failure of the Commercien-Cammer to ensure a close connection between the college and the government. The director was therefore the President of the War and Domain Chamber. Further members were named by the Cassel government, the judiciary and the Kassel local government. Two businessmen were brought in to help out. These carried the title of Commercial Assessor and had an advisory role.

The college had advisory, administrative and judicial functions and was called Commercien-Collegium and Commercial Court from 1764. Above all, the task of organizing and monitoring the Cassel Mass, founded in 1762, was important . A quick and effective judiciary was seen as a success factor for trade fairs.

In addition to the Kassel Chamber, local commercial colleges were also set up in various towns in the Landgraviate, for example in Rinteln and Karlshafen in 1765 and in Hersfeld in 1768 . From 1773 there were rivalries between the War and Domain Chamber and the Commerz College in the course of which the College largely lost its importance. In 1782, the Landgrave rearranged the tasks. The Commerz-Colleg was now responsible for trade, the trade fair, trade supervision and supervision of private factories.

In 1806 the landgraviate was dissolved. In the Kingdom of Westphalia there was no committee comparable to the Commerz-Colleg. The tasks were carried out by the relevant ministry, the “Ministère des Finances, du Commerce et du Trésor”. With the restoration of the electorate in 1814, the Commerz College was reinstated.

Trade and Industry Association

With an edict of June 29, 1821, the organization in Kurhessen was reorganized. Line ministries were established. The Ministry of the Interior was now responsible for trade and commerce. In order to involve those affected, an agricultural association and a trade and industry association were founded, which took on the tasks and organization of the Commerz College. It consisted of a three-member executive committee (including a government councilor, a member of the finance chamber) and 8 to 16 of the "most active and insightful wholesalers, bankers, manufacturers and technological scholars". The members were not elected but appointed. In 1822, deputations were also formed in Rinteln, Eschwege , Karlshafen, Marburg an der Lahn , Fulda , Hersfeld, Schmalkalden and Hanau .

In 1834 a reform of the organization of the association was carried out under pressure from the Kurhessische estates assembly , which however retained the strong position of the governing committee and thus did not take into account the main demand of the liberals , namely the strengthening of the members. The March Revolution in 1848 led to the dissolution of the association. The task was now taken over by a commission at the Ministry of the Interior without the involvement of business.

On May 23, 1855, the Free Association for Trade and Industry was founded in Cassel in the Residenz, after such an association had already been founded in Hanau in 1849. It was now an association under private law that shaped economic policy in close coordination with the Ministry of the Interior. In the following years such associations were formed in many cities, which from 1863 worked together in the state assembly of trade associations of the Electorate of Hesse. Even after the IHK was founded, the association continued to exist, but quickly lost its importance.

IHK

After the German War and the subsequent annexation of Electorate Hesse by Prussia , the law on the chambers of commerce was passed on February 24, 1870, and the chamber of commerce in Cassel was founded by a ministerial decree of December 19, 1870. The constituent session of the Chamber took place on May 25, 1871. Initially, the area of ​​responsibility of the Casseler Chamber was limited to the city and district of Kassel. Over the following years, the local chambers of Cassel were connected to final in Kassel , only the chamber in Hanau and consisted in Kassel. At the end of the empire the general assembly consisted of 27 members. In 1924, the Chamber of the Free State of Waldeck was attached to the Kassel Chamber of Commerce. In the same year, the traditional name Chamber of Commerce is expanded to become the current Chamber of Commerce and Industry. On April 1, 1932, a Thuringian IHK, the IHK Mühlhausen, was added. The chamber now operated under the name of "Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kassel-Mühlhausen Sitz Kassel".

time of the nationalsocialism

With the seizure of power by the National Socialists and the recent DC circuit IHK Kassel. The President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the banker Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer, had to resign at the beginning of April 1933 and was replaced by the district economic advisor of the NSDAP, Rudolf Braun . The plenary assembly was replaced by an “election” in which only a “national unified list” took place. With the Reich Law of August 20, 1934, the Chamber was placed under the Reich Minister of Economics and the Führer principle was introduced. In March 1935, a "Hesse Chamber of Commerce " was formed, in which the Kassel and Frankfurt IHK were merged. On April 1, 1943, the Gauwirtschaftskammer Kurhessen was formed and the IHK was dissolved. In addition to the IHK, the Kassel Chamber of Crafts was absorbed into the Gau Chamber of Commerce .

Continuation in the Federal Republic

After the Second World War, the IHK was re-established. In April 1945 Karl Ludwig Pfeiffer was reinstated as President of the Chamber by the occupation authorities. On April 18, 1945, the chamber was able to resume its work. The association with Frankfurt was dissolved, the connection between the Chamber of Crafts and the IHK was retained. On July 27th, the "Ordinance on the establishment of the Chamber of Commerce Kurhessen" was issued, which served as the legal basis of the work. With effect from March 1, 1946, the Chamber of Crafts and the IHK Kassel were separated again. At the same time, the Fulda Chamber of Commerce and Industry was established, which was the last to be connected to Kassel.

A party-political dispute broke out over the character of the future IHK. The federal states governed by social democracy (including Hesse ) strove to fill the IHK with representatives of the economy and the trade unions on an equal footing within the framework of inter-company co - determination . This request was ultimately rejected with the (federal) “Act on the Provisional Regulation of the Law of Chambers of Commerce and Industry”, which was passed by the Bundestag on December 18, 1956, against the votes of the SPD . The Hessian implementation law of December 9, 1957 and the new statutes of the IHK Kassel of November 13, 1957 have formed the legal basis of the Chamber's work to this day.

While a small general assembly was previously elected by the members, membership was voluntary and each member had the same number of votes, now a general assembly was elected, the composition of which was based on the strength of the branches of industry. With the statutory compulsory membership , the number of members has increased significantly.

At the beginning of 2013, the name of the Kassel Chamber of Industry and Commerce was expanded to include “Marburg” by resolution of the general assembly in order to set a clear sign of regionality. The IHK has been called IHK Kassel-Marburg since then .

Employee

A total of approx. 3000 people are volunteers in the IHK Kassel-Marburg. A large part is active in vocational training and further education. The regional committees and the general assembly are elected directly by the entrepreneurs. The general assembly of the IHK Kassel-Marburg has 87 members. The president is the entrepreneur Jörg Ludwig Jordan. Member of the plenary assembly is the federal manager of the Federal Association for Free Chambers (BffK) , Kai Boeddinghaus . He is considered a critical supporter of the chambers of industry and commerce and advocates democracy and transparency in the Chamber of Commerce, free membership, fair contributions and restriction to sovereign tasks.

The IHK Kassel-Marburg employs around 100 full-time employees. The main office was held by the general manager Dr. Walter Lohmeier. Since January 1st, 2016 Sybille von Obernitz has been General Manager of the IHK Kassel-Marburg.

"Economy North Hesse"

The North Hesse economy (WN) is the official organ of the IHK Kassel-Marburg. The WN has a current circulation of 30,000 copies.

Mission statement of the IHK Kassel-Marburg (excerpt)

  • Promotion of the market economy
  • Improvement of the regional economic structure
  • Independent positioning and expansion of centrality in North Hesse
  • Improved acceptance by the member companies
  • Consistent regionalization of chamber work
  • Positioning of new service areas

building

Messhaus

The Commerz-Colleg had its seat since 1763 in the Messhaus in Kassel. This building was located between Königstrasse, Wilhelmsstrasse and Karlsplatz on the site of today's Wilhelmsstrasse wing of the Kassel town hall. The house was mainly used by Messe Kassel . Like the Chamber of Commerce in the first few years, the trade and industry association did not have its own building.

The inauguration of the first own chamber building in Hohenzollernstrasse took place on March 18, 1900. The representative neo-renaissance building had a sandstone facade in the style of the Italian early renaissance , had workrooms and a chamber meeting room on the second floor. The other floors were initially used for public purposes. There was a library and, above all, a large ballroom on the ground floor. Over the years the chamber area grew so that in the end the entire building was used by the IHK. On the night of October 22nd to 23rd, 1943, the chamber building was completely destroyed by Allied air raids. The IHK archive was also lost in the night of the fire.

The IHK rented the house at Querallee 36 and used it as a chamber building from 1944 to 1953. In 1954 the Haus der Wirtschaft on Ständeplatz was built as a new IHK building. The unadorned building, the strict facade of which was structured by regular rectangular windows, was initially partly used by the Landeskreditkasse. In the course of time, more and more parts of the building were used by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce until the chamber was the sole user. As the space requirement continued to increase, a decision was made to build a new building on Kurfürstenstrasse in 1986. Since 1990, the IHK has 3400 m² of usable space on six floors. The new building had cost 22.5 million DM (in today's purchasing power 19 million euros).

people

President of the Princely Hessian Commerz College:

Chairpersons / Presidents of the Chamber of Commerce / IHK Kassel-Marburg:

Companies

A number of companies not only shaped the North Hessian corporate landscape, but also made a significant contribution to the work of the IHK Kassel. The Bankhaus L. Pfeiffer has long been the leading bank in Kassel and set three presidents of the Chamber of Commerce. As a leading coal and steel company, Henschel-Werke was also involved in chamber work. The founder, Anton Henschel , was a member of the Electoral Hessian Trade and Industry Association in Kassel from 1834 to 1848, and his grandson Oskar was the long-standing President of the Chamber of Commerce. The Thielemann, Eggena and Co. wagon factory , the city's second major railway company, also provided C. Eggena as a chairman of the trade association from 1861–1865. The W. & L. Jordan GmbH , market-leading wholesale company for floor coverings, home textiles and wood products, made with Horst-Dieter Jordan from 1983 to 1994 a long-time vice president. His son and successor, Jörg Ludwig Jordan, also held this office from 2000 to 2016, before he was subsequently elected as the current IHK President. In addition to the Kassel companies, companies from all over North Hesse were also involved in the chamber work. Otto Braun, the owner of B. Braun Melsungen, was President of the Chamber.

literature

  • Harm-Hinrich Brandt : From the Princely Hessian Commercien-Cammer to the Kassel Chamber of Industry and Commerce, 1710–1960: Economic policy and commercial participation in the North Hessian area, 1960
  • Harm-Hinrich Brandt: The Kassel Chamber of Commerce and Industry and its predecessors, 1763–1963, 1963
  • Harm-Hinrich Brandt / Rainer Olten / Herbert Marschelke: Economy and politics in North Hesse since the 18th century - The Kassel Chamber of Commerce and Industry and its predecessors, 1991, ISBN 3-87064-083-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Press release from September 19, 2012: General assembly clears the way for the IHK to change its name. IHK Kassel becomes IHK Kassel-Marburg , accessed on January 17, 2013