Kurt Pfeiffer (businessman)

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Kurt Christian Theobald Pfeiffer CBE (born June 3, 1893 in Aachen ; † January 30, 1987 ibid) was a German textile merchant , co-founder and sponsor of the CDU Aachen as well as city ​​treasurer and co-initiator of the Charlemagne Prize .

Life

After graduating from the Aachen Realgymnasium, today's Rhein-Maas-Gymnasium Aachen , Kurt Pfeiffer began an agricultural apprenticeship, but was soon trained as a textile salesman in his father's clothing store . He then attended the secondary school again and made up his Abitur in 1913. He then studied agricultural science as well as philosophy and economics at the University of Bonn . After graduating, he received his doctorate in 1922 on the subject of the history of the Rhenish beet industry and its raw material supply . After his father died in 1915, Pfeiffer felt obliged to take over his parents' clothing business in 1923, despite other interests. A year later he founded the “Retail Association of West German Textile Entrepreneurs” and from 1929 to 1933 also took over the management of the Aachen Retail Association. In addition, he did an honorary job in the Chamber of Commerce and in 1930 became a member of the Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein , which organizes the CHIO Aachen every year .

At that time he showed great political interest in the Paneuropean Union founded by Richard Nikolaus Graf von Coudenhove-Kalergi and in the foreign policy of Gustav Stresemann, and then joined the German People's Party (DVP). After the fall of the party in the 1932 elections and when Hitler began to take power , Pfeiffer joined the NSDAP in 1933 at the insistence of party friends . But since he refused to sign a boycott call against Jewish shops that year, Pfeiffer was forced to resign from the chairmanship of the retail trade association. He then tried to emigrate to British Columbia , Canada , but the Canadian Immigration Service rejected the immigration application. So he stayed in Aachen and tried to keep the business of his clothing shop going.

After Aachen was taken by the Americans in October 1944, Pfeiffer was one of the nine selected citizens, along with Edmund Sinn , Hans Schwippert , Gerd Heusch and others, who were appointed and installed by the American military government as a civil interim government and all of whom call themselves “mayors” were allowed to. From November 1944 to March 1945, Pfeiffer was responsible for finances and assets under the direction of the also appointed Lord Mayor Franz Oppenhoff . Pfeiffer played a key role in the reconstruction of the city of Aachen and its clothing store and made the first political and cultural contacts. He was one of the most vehement preparers, co-founders and supporters of the city association of the CDU Aachen, founded in 1947, and its subdivisions. He was supported, among others, by his son Jost Pfeiffer , who above all helped to build up the Junge Union Aachen.

In 1946, he also founded the Corona Legentium Aquensis , an elite regional "reading and discussion group", in the context of which exhibitions and regular series of lectures with invited politicians, scientists and cultural workers from all over Europe were held, such as Werner Bergengruen , Theodor W. Adorno , Martin Heidegger or Werner Heisenberg . Pfeiffer's socio-political commitment was determined by the desire to make another military conflict in Europe impossible through the unification of the old continent. From the concept of this grouping and with reference to the writings of Arnold J. Toynbee and with reference to the empire of Charlemagne , the idea of ​​the Charlemagne Prize of the city of Aachen for contributions “in the service of Western European understanding, humanity and of world peace ”. To this end, Pfeiffer founded the “Society for the Awarding of the International Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen” in 1949 and proclaimed this new European prize at Christmas that same year. This award, which was first awarded in 1950, is the first political award from the still young Federal Republic of Germany in the post-war period and one of the most renowned, although based on new findings from the report by US intelligence officer Saul Kussiel Padover, it is both an American and an American award a British press release questioned the idea of ​​the Charlemagne Prize because of Pfeiffer's membership in the NSDAP and five other Nazi organizations as well as the members of the first Charlemagne Prize Board, who were also burdened with NS, the City Director and Mayor Albert Servais and University Professor Peter Mennicken , and also called this prize interpreted the supposed and inappropriate “mystification” of Charlemagne, his politics and his empire. Until 1968 Pfeiffer held the position of first speaker (chairman) of the Charlemagne Prize Board, which still consists of twelve high-ranking members from politics, science, industry and the Catholic Church and was initially identical to its founding members.

For his many achievements in the reconstruction of the city of Aachen, the establishment of the Aachen CDU and, above all, for his European idea, Pfeiffer has received several international awards.

Kurt Pfeiffer found his final resting place on Westfriedhof I in Aachen.

Honors

family

Kurt Christian Theobald Pfeiffer, son of retailer Louis Pfeiffer (1868–1915) and Anna Hecker (1870–1945), was married to Johanna Bode (1894–1973), daughter of high school teacher Louis Bode (1860–1941) and Fanny Auerbach (1864-1941). Together they had their son Jost Pfeiffer (1920-2010), a member of the City Council of Aachen from 1946 to 1970 and from 1972 to 1975, and long-time leader of the CDU parliamentary group in the city council. Jost Pfeiffer was also a member of the Charlemagne Prize Board and on January 20, 2001 was also made an honorary citizen of the city of Aachen. His daughter Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen (* 1954), married to a descendant of the Düsseldorf industrialist family Poensgen , is the current acting general secretary of the Kulturstiftung der Länder . His second daughter, Simone Pfeiffer-Bohnenkamp, ​​was the managing director of the Aachener Christen eV social work for several years

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rodney Atkinson : The Totalitarian founders of EU  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Chronicles, A Magazine of American Culture, March 18, 2008@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.chroniclesmagazine.org  
  2. ^ Blair's Charlemagne Prize created by Nazis , In: Breaking News, December 11, 2003

literature

  • Saul K. Padover: Experiment in Germany . New York 1946. German under the title: Liegendetektor. Examinations in defeated Germany 1944/45 , Frankfurt 1999 edition ( ISBN 3-8218-4174-5 ), pp. 189–192
  • Claudia Conrads: The Christian Democratic Union in Aachen - From the foundation to the consolidation. Dissertation. University of Bonn, 2006. ( online , PDF file; 1.55 MB)
  • Ch. Bremen and F. Bettin: 50 years of the Charlemagne Prize. In: Festschrift 50 years of the International Charlemagne Prize in Aachen. Aachen 2000.
  • Christian Bremen: Kurt Pfeiffer - initiator of the Aachen Charlemagne Prize: the rise 1893–1948 , Aachen: Verlag Mainz 2019 (Shaping the future - history in view; 1), ISBN 978-3-86317-040-0 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pfeiffer, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pfeiffer, Kurt Christian Theobald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German textile merchant, co-initiator of the Charlemagne Prize of the city of Aachen
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1987
Place of death Aachen