Julius Kinner

Memorial plaque to Julius Leopold Kinner in the town hall in Wiener Neustadt

Julius Leopold Kinner (born March 31, 1837 in Vienna ; † February 6, 1894 in Matzendorf ) was an Austrian bookbinder , local politician and innkeeper. In 1869 he founded a workers' building cooperative, which formed the club settlement and today's Josefstadt district of Wiener Neustadt . From 1870 to 1876 he was councilor of Wiener Neustadt and thus historically the first councilor of the SPÖ .

Childhood and apprenticeship years

Kinner came to Wiener Neustadt from Vienna at the age of four because his father found a job in the course of the construction of the southern runway in the boiler house. In Wiener Neustadt he experienced the revolution and the military reaction of 1848 at the age of ten . During his school days, he suffered an accident that left his left arm joint a little stiff. His father gave Kinner an apprenticeship as a bookbinder in Vienna when he was 12 years old. After his apprenticeship to Kinner went to the mill to Germany. Here he met his future wife Berta in Ulm .

Bookbinder trade, later innkeeper

The two married and settled in Wiener Neustadt in 1862, where Kinner founded a small business as a bookbinder and gallantist worker on July 1, 1862 in what is now Herzog-Leopold-Straße 26. As early as 1862, Kinner spoke in the local press for better housing for working-class families and very soon became involved in the emerging local social-democratic workers' movement, which did not promote his career as a small business owner. His income was low over the years, only from 1867 onwards Kinner succeeded in obtaining bookbinding work from the magistrate, previously the magistrate had decided that the petitioner was not responsible for Wiener Neustadt but for Vienna . He was elected to the local council in 1870 as a representative of the 3rd electoral body (electoral class of the "minimum taxed"). He remained in this position until 1876. The stock market crash of May 8, 1873 meant that the large orders for the bookbinding workshop from the magistrate, the military academy and the locomotive factory fell sharply. Kinner was looking for an alternative and planned an inn on the Rohrteichwiese in today's Schleifmühlgasse in today's Josefstadt, but sold the project to the innkeeper August Jaitner, in order to move from Leobersdorf to Gutenstein in 1874 in the course of the construction of the Gutensteinerbahn Matzendorf to start an inn Zum Weißen Roß for the workers there in a former sheepfold . At the end of 1876, he handed over the bookbinding in Wiener Neustadt to his assistant JF Gleditsch. The Kinner couple had two daughters and a son in Matzendorf. But Kinner's health deteriorated noticeably, which is why Kinner appointed a guardian for his children at Christmas 1893 and passed away a few weeks later. The Wiener Neustadt worker functionary Theodor Behlolawek gave the funeral speech. The widow Berta died on November 12, 1895. The workers of Matzendorf donated a tombstone for the couple with the motto Rest softly, dedicated by their friends.

Workers Construction Cooperative 1869

In the summer of 1867, the emperor sanctioned the established state laws, which came into force on January 1, 1868, whereby an association and assembly law was given, whereupon workers 'associations emerged, and Kinner was elected to the board of the Wiener Neustadt workers' association. Kinner related his commitment to workers 'housing to experiences in Mulhouse in France, where in 1852 the Mülhausen workers' housing company ( Société mulhousienne des cités ouvrières , see also Mülhauser type ) was formed with the industrialist Dollfus and the money of other wealthy people . There, a house buyer paid a tenth of the purchase price and continued to pay as a tenant in additional monthly and annual installments, and became the home owner from half of the purchase price with a purchase agreement and mortgage loan. On May 13, 1869, a local newspaper in Wiener Neustadt reports that an entire workers' settlement similar to that in Mulhouse will be built in the vicinity of the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik . In May 1869, Kinner formed a founding committee as chairman with Ludwig Neumayr as deputy, and a workers' construction cooperative was started. Neumayr was a member of the Workers' International and edited the left-liberal Wiener Neustädter Wochenblatt. The cooperative bought the innkeeper and Schmid Franz Rupanowitsch's house and a large, undeveloped heather north of today's Fischauer Strasse, as a pasture in the land register, at that time still far outside the city. As early as November 1, 1868, after a rapid renovation, 25 apartments with rooms, kitchens and cabinets were created and occupied in the purchased guest house. The first house of the club settlement was built in 1870 at what is now Fischauer Strasse 14-16. The cooperative ran its own brickworks in Katzelsdorf , which was sold in 1875 after construction work was completed. On February 16, 1879, the Arbeiter-Bau-Genossenschaft was dissolved due to a lack of members and the associated lack of capital. In the middle of the club settlement, a green main square was kept free at a Trinity column, which was later called Trinity Square, and is now called Josefsplatz. Kinner's successor as chairman, Johann Zwickl, resident at Vereinsgasse 12, died on November 26, 1895.

Recognitions

• 1928: Julius-Leopold-Kinner-Gasse in the Flugfeld district of Wiener Neustadt

literature

• Karl Flanner : From the club settlement to Josefstadt. The history of the first workers' building cooperative in 1869. Forewords by Mayor Hans Barwitzius and local councilor Othmar Trofer, Gutenberg publishing house, Wiener Neustadt 1979.
• Michael Rosecker: Julius Leopold Kinner (1837–1894): his life and work . Association of the Museum and Archive for Labor and Industry in the district under the Vienna Woods (documentation of the Industrial District Museum Wiener Neustadt), 1997
• Michael Rosecker: Between provincial and international. The early world of workers' associations using the example of Wiener Neustadt (Association Daily Publishing, 2002)

Web links

Commons : Julius Kinner  - collection of images, videos and audio files