Jacques Bettenhausen

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Jakob or Jacques Bettenhausen (* December 27, 1866 in Beiseförth , Hesse; † July 6, 1944 in Röhrsdorf near Dresden ) was the founder of the modern train station book trade in Germany .

Life

Jacob Bettenhausen, who came from a large family, grew up in Hessen. After the early death of his father, he had to look after 13 siblings and came to Dresden at the age of 20, where he sold inexpensive books in a vendor's tray in Dresden Central Station . The economic success enabled him to set up a kiosk in the station hall and to found the company Jacques Bettenhausen & Sohn . Later he leased further locations for his station bookstores, first in Saxony , later also in Berlin underground stations , in Budapest and Warsaw .

Memorial stone for Jacques Bettenhausen in the Röhrsdorf estate park

Bettenhausen's business model of selling literature at low prices as travel books for rail travelers proved to be a great success. He invested the profits of his company in real estate, including residential buildings in Dresden. In addition to the Lahmann Sanatorium , he had the new Park Hotel built in the Dresden suburb of Weißer Hirsch around 1914 according to plans by the architect Johannes Kraaz . He acquired a manor in Röhrsdorf for his family.

After the First World War, Bettenhausen continued the cooperation with Schmitt and Stilke, with whom he founded Storm's Kursbuch publishing company in Leipzig in 1921. In 1919 he brought 60,000 marks into Ernst Rowohlt's limited partnership . In 1929, Bettenhausen enabled the establishment of the Dresden cigarette factory Dressler with a loan of 500,000 Reichsmarks , which was considered the cigarette factory of the National Socialist Sturmabteilung (SA). Around 1939 he was also managing director of the Rhine book trade . In 1944 he died on his estate in Röhrsdorf. After 1945 the Soviet occupying power expropriated the family who fled to the western occupation zones. Only after 1990 was the Parkhotel returned to the heirs.

literature

  • Hans-Dieter Wallbach: Chronicle of the place Röhrsdorf . Röhrsdorf local council 2001.
  • Siegfried Thiele: Jacques Bettenhausen & Son. Big station for the book trade. In: Lingner, Pfund & other hits. Well-known founder of Dresden companies. Verlag- und Publizistikhaus, Dresden 2005, ISBN 3-9806990-2-1 , p. 175 ff.

Footnotes

  1. ^ The opening in 1914 - storms of enthusiasm. (No longer available online.) Parkhotel Dresden, archived from the original on June 24, 2014 ; Retrieved August 17, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.parkhotel-dresden.de
  2. ↑ Thomas Grosche: Arthur Dressler. The Sturm company - cigarettes for the SA. In Christine Pieper, Mike Schmeitzner, Gerhard Naser (eds.): Braune careers. Dresden perpetrators and actors in National Socialism. Special edition for the Saxon State Center for Political Education, Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2012, ISBN 978-3-942422-85-7 , pp. 193–199, here p. 193.
personal data
SURNAME Bettenhausen, Jacques
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bettenhausen, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of the station book trade in Germany
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Beiseförth , Hesse
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1944
Place of death Röhrsdorf near Dresden