Josef Rupp (entrepreneur)

Member of the Landtag Josef Rupp senior (1885–1962)

Josef Rupp as a member of the XIII. Vorarlberger Landtag (2nd row, 3rd from left)

Josef Rupp (born January 30, 1885 in Fußach ; † July 26, 1962 in Lochau ) was an Austrian entrepreneur (cheese maker, dairy product dealer and farmer) and politician ( CSP ). During National Socialism he was forced to sell a cheese melting plant he had built in Lochau to the Vorarlberg cooperative "Alma". In a restitution procedure carried out between 1947 and 1949, this sale was assessed as a confiscation; the smelter, which was sold in 1938, was returned to him in 1950.

Life

Josef Rupp was the third oldest of eight sons of the farmer and cheese merchant Peter Rupp. Between 1898 and 1900 he did an apprenticeship as a cheese maker and herdsman in Rucksteig near Möggers in the Bantel dairy. As an Untersenn, he saved up the funds that enabled him to attend a dairy school in Rütti- Zollikofen, Switzerland, in 1907 and worked as a self-employed cheese maker in the Allgäu. In 1908 he rented an alpine dairy in Möggers, soon afterwards he moved to Schwarzenberg and produced Emmentaler the Swiss way, which he successfully sold on the Viennese market. In 1912 he took over the state cheese dairy school in Doren in the Bregenz Forest, which was run as a model company . Under his leadership, the company was soon profitable. In 1914 he was called up for military service, but soon released again at the instigation of the Vorarlberg state government . In addition to the cheese-making school, he was entrusted with the war farming for cheese, butter and milk. Rupp organized a "fair" delivery by the producers and a "fair" distribution to the consumers. He regularly visited all alpine and valley dairies in the country and in this position oversaw the entire milk processing and management. After the end of the war, Rupp moved to Lochau and took over the agriculture of his father-in-law Engelbert Kohler. He began to buy milk from other dairies and, in addition to making cheese and butter, also traded in dairy products.

In 1931 he acquired the Bregenz dairy and also financed a modern Emmentaler cheese dairy in Hörbranz , which he ran from then on under lease. The export business became more and more important for Rupp. Between 1932 and 1938, Rupp exported between 60,000 and 70,000 kg of Emmentaler annually to France , the USA , Germany , Italy , England , Belgium , Syria , Morocco and Norway . Above all abroad, there was a demand for processed cheese , which Rupp initially had other factories produce in block form. However, since the cooperation with his partners was not satisfactory, he decided in 1937 to build his own smelter on the property of a disused detergent factory in Lochau, which he had acquired in 1933.

In 1938 he wanted to open this plant. With the dairy in Bregenz (approx. Ten employees), his cheese dairy including cheese trade (approx. 20 employees) and a large farm (approx. 25 hectares) in Lochau near Bregenz, he hoped for corresponding synergy effects. Rupp had also leased a cheese dairy and dairy in 1931 in Hörbranz, where he had signed a milk purchase agreement with the farmers. He had combined his economic position with political commitment: Between 1923 and 1932, Rupp was a member of the Christian Social Party in the Vorarlberg state parliament and was active on the finance and agriculture committee. Associated with this was his work as a member of the board of directors of Vorarlberger Landeselektronik-AG, Vorarlberger Kraftwerke AG and Pfänderbahn AG. Since 1928 he was for the Christian Social Party in the municipal council of Lochau, 1929-1938 mayor. In 1932, however, he resigned his state parliament mandate and gave up the associated functions, but remained mayor of Lochau and was active as a functionary of the Fatherland Front from 1933 . He was also the guild master of the dairy guild and co-founder of the Vorarlberg Dairy and Cheese Association. It was therefore no coincidence that one of the politically motivated attacks by the illegal National Socialists was directed against him: on November 10, 1933, an explosive device destroyed the furnishings of his office, fortunately no one was injured.

The Alma cooperative, which as a producer of processed cheese was a competitor of Rupp, had tried in vain to obtain a permit for a smelting plant in Bregenz. In 1938 the leading functionaries of the cooperative used the political constellation to persuade Josef Rupp to buy under pressure. Rupp was briefly imprisoned, threatened and - as was customary at the time - had to pay a high sum of 10,000 Schillings to the NSDAP . His attempts to refuse the sale failed. He finally sold the processed cheese factory for 290,000 shillings.

His attempts to get the processed cheese back from him were met with incomprehension by many. Many ÖVP politicians and peasant chamber officials were now on the side of the "Alma", whose management level had naturally been denazified in 1945. In 1947, Rupp submitted an application for restitution under the 3rd Restitution Act, which ultimately led to the fact that he was able to start up his processed cheese factory from 1950. A corresponding finding made it clear that the sale of 1938 had not complied with the rules of fair dealing and that it had been a case of property deprivation. In a settlement, Rupp had nevertheless agreed that the “Alma” cooperative could still use the plant until a new company was set up.

Between 1945 and 1954, Rupp was again a member of the community council in Lochau, in 1953 he was appointed to the commercial council and in 1959 he was made an honorary citizen of the community of Lochau. Josef Rupp had been married to Rosa Kohler (born 1894, died 1976), daughter of the Hirschen landlord Engelbert Kohler, since 1916, and had four daughters and two sons with her. After 1945 he was a board member of the Vorarlberg regional group of the Association of Austrian Industrialists. His descendants have expanded his company into a large food company, Rupp AG , which employed around 380 people in 2008 and 630 in 2018.

Web links

• Biography of Josef Rupp in the parliamentary materials of the Vorarlberger Landtag.

literature

• Peter Melichar : Displacement and Expansion. Expropriations and restitution in Vorarlberg (=  publications of the Austrian Commission of Historians . Volume 19 ). Vienna / Munich 2004, p. 67-89 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Melichar, Displacement and Expansion. Expropriations and restitution in Vorarlberg, publications of the Austrian Historical Commission 19, Vienna and Munich 2004, pp. 90-102.
2. ↑ Melichar, Displacement, p. 78.
3. ↑ Melichar, Displacement, p. 78.
4. ↑ Die Industrie No. 31 of August 3, 1962, p. 14.