Heinz Levié

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Heinz Levié at the Frankfurt fur fair 1982 (front right)

Heinz Levié (born January 19, 1910 in Hofgeismar ; † October 22, 1983 in Nuremberg ) was a German lawyer and politician. From 1946 to 1949 he was mayor of Nuremberg and, as a smokers' merchant, was co-owner of the Franconian fur industry Märkle & Co , later Marco Pelzveredelungs GmbH , Fürth .

Career

Heinz Levié was born on January 19, 1910 in Hofgeismar as the son of a judge. He spent his youth in Herzberg (Elster) . On Humanities College in Luckau in the Niederlausitz he made his A-levels and then began to study law, at the age of 21, he passed the trainee exam at the Naumburg Higher Regional Court, 1931, he received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig to the doctor of law . As a so-called half - Jew , his father was a Jew, the Nuremberg Race Laws ended the civil service career of the A- 1 lawyer. Heinz Levié confessed to the Christian denomination. After the civil service was closed to him, he took up a position as private secretary for the owner of the publishing house BG Teubner . At that time, Levié, a fan of fast cars, suffered a serious accident in which he suffered a fractured skull base, cheekbones, jaws, feet and ribs. In 1936 he married the daughter of the tobacco retailer Lambro Nantzou, who specializes in fox skins, in Leipzig . Denounced to the Gestapo , he was arrested in 1940, sentenced to a long prison sentence by the Leipzig Special Court and taken to Waldheim prison.

An illness from pulmonary tuberculosis suffered in prison probably saved him from being transported to the gas chamber. The chief physician of the lung sanatorium next to the prison, Dr. Jochen Gräf, the father of the manager of the Frankfurt branch of his future tobacco company Marco. After the healing, he hid him from the Gestapo until Levié was liberated by American troops in April 1945.

In 1946 the Americans made him police chief of Leipzig. Why he was chosen is not exactly known; he only exercised this function for a short time. Before the Russians occupied Leipzig, he loaded his car with some furs and drove west. The Americans stopped him on the way to the lung sanatorium in the Bavarian mountains, and "after a few theatrical confusions" they appointed him First Mayor of Nuremberg. He held this position for three years.

In the previous year he took a share in the old fur trading and finishing company Märkle & Co, which later traded as Fränkische Pelzindustrie Marco GmbH . In addition to his work for the company, he was particularly involved in public relations and for the general interests of the smoking goods association. Thanks to his co-initiative, the first specialist class for apprentice furriers was set up in Fürth in 1952. In 1970 he received the Bavarian Order of Merit and in 1973 the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.

In October 1983 the joint company had to file for bankruptcy, in the opinion of the banks it would have "had to fire many more people much earlier and much more brutally". The day after the last, hopeless briefing, friends found Heinz Levié dead in his armchair, "very peaceful, as if nothing had happened". The latest police report said he died of natural causes, heart failure. However, the pistol found by his side sparked debate and speculation in the fur industry. He left a daughter.

Mayor of Nuremberg

In 1946, Heinz Levié was appointed mayor of Nuremberg by the American military government because of his previous legal knowledge. He carried out this task until 1948.

As a businessman, he was particularly committed to the reconstruction and economic upswing of the city in this position. At the time of the greatest housing shortage, he campaigned, among other things, for a hotel to be built so that merchants could come back to the traditional trading town. Another focus was denazification and the care of the victims of National Socialism.

Franconian fur industry - Marco Pelz

Heinz Levié (center) at a finishing meeting. Caption: The host, Dr. Levié, called on the German fur finishers to show even more solidarity (1979)

In 1945, Heinz Levié and his nephew Walter Kaiser took part in the continuation of the traditional smoking goods processing and trading company Märkle and Co. , founded by Waldemar Märkle and based in Taucha near Leipzig until the end of the Second World War . Since the transformation into a stock corporation, his brother, the tobacco product refiner Franz-Rudolph Märkle (* 1892; † 1961) has also been part of the company's management. At the beginning, the company, which moved to western Germany after the war, was located in the Schlossgut Chiemsee under the new name Bavarian Fur , then in Langenzenn . Finally, factory premises of the former Dynamit Actien Gesellschaft were rented in Fürth and, at the suggestion of the then mayor of Fürth Bornkessel , who benevolently supported the establishment of a fur industry in Fürth, renamed itself again to Fränkische Pelzindustrie Märkle & Co (Kronacher Straße 67). The company expanded rapidly and therefore soon had to change premises again, now to an area of ​​24,000 square meters at Karolinenstrasse 104-108, where there were already wells required for operation and at least later a rail connection to the railway. In its most successful period, the 1950s to 1970s, the company, which was renamed Marco Pelz GmbH & Co, Pelzindustrie KG in 1974 , employed over 1,000 people, and its peak annual turnover was DM 100 million, the most recently assumed DM 60 million. In Germany and worldwide there were a total of 18 branches or sales outlets, there was a branch in Weißenstadt in the Fichtelgebirge, and Marco Pelz AG was founded as a separate company for Switzerland in 1964. In 1970, Marco, with its vertically structured structure, described itself as the largest fur industry company in the world. There was a settlement company founded by the Marco House for the apartments of the employees and a pension fund.

The name Marco was the continuation of the trademark Marko (with "k") of the pre-war company Märkle & Co.

  • Marko trademark of the old Märkle company

  • Marco refiner stamp on the leather side of a Persian fur

The company included the fur wholesale, fur processing and model workshops, which also worked for private customers. The company, which was already extremely creative in the pre-war period, was also successful in experimenting with its successors, particularly with its fur trimming and finishing division. The Marco company created two color shades for Indian lamb skins, the colors sarok and sourire , which were very well received by the market , and thus promoted the prewar item Indian lamb to another main item in the fur industry in the time of Persian fashion. The Persian color Royal Dark , presented as the new black, also attracted a lot of attention.

With the increasing prosperity in the Federal Republic of Germany, the demand for the cheaper curly hair decreased rapidly and turned to the status symbol mink, which was now affordable for most workers. Sales of the Nutriaplez, which had been popular in Germany until then, had also declined considerably. These market changes, together with an insufficient and too late reaction to them, are likely to have been one of the main reasons for the bankruptcy of the company, which ultimately traded as Marco GmbH & Co, Pelzindustrie KG at the end of October 1983. These three types of fur were, not least because of their partly unrivaled quality, essential articles of Marco fur dressing and finishing.

Shortly after the bankruptcy, the finishing part of the company was sold to a Swiss financial group and renamed Marco Pelzveredlungs-GmbH ; The chief chemist Ing.Anton Ginzel (born October 8, 1909), who is known for his regular publications in the fur industry, joined the new company despite his advanced age. In addition to the preservation of jobs, the upcoming auction date in London was cited as a reason for the rapid establishment of the new company. Quote: "Because Marco is a great specialist in Persian refinement in all possible colors and variations and the loss of his refinement options would undoubtedly have had a negative impact on the November auction of Persians in London." Some of the foreign Marco branches remained receive. However, the New York branch also ran into financial difficulties in connection with the bankruptcy of the parent company that same year.

In 1986 the previous company shareholder, Rominor Holding AG , Stans / Switzerland, sold its share to the Ka-Be-TeG - Munk Group , Bad Nauheim-Rödgen, which took over the majority of the company. The Marco company, which had extensive real estate holdings, was estimated by experts at the time to be worth 18 million DM. It only dealt with the processing of tobacco products. With a 45 percent stake in the Hong Kong fur finishing company Poly Furs , Marco had re-established himself in the Far East market. Foreign sales totaled 30 percent.

The successor company from Fürth finally ceased operations in 1989, also after bankruptcy.

Poetry

The Franconian fur industry was so important in the industry in 1965 that the master furrier Adolf Nagel , owner of an exclusive Düsseldorf fur shop, praised it in one of his poems in his volume of poetry, “Plaudereien um Pelz”. The work bears the extremely branch-related heading " Half Persian ", the last stanza reads:

“ But what would have become of it
would have been missing?
This opened the gates to
a colorful, beautiful world!
Our "FRÄNKISCHEN" in Fürth deserves pioneer
status here ! "

- Adolf Nagel : Chatting about fur, spring 1965

Literature, web links

Commons : Heinz Levié  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Fränkische Pelzindustrie Märkle & Co  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b Ingeborg Heider: "Children, we are one big family". The Marco family is celebrating the 60th birthday of Dr. Heinz Levié . In: Die Pelzwirtschaft Heft 2, Berlin, February 1970, pp. 20-23.
  2. ↑ Without the author's name: Intermezzo einer Felzmannes . In Die Pelzwirtschaft , October 1965, pp. 56-58. Translation from Fur Review , August 1965, p. 28. Note: Here Levié describes how the unexpected and quite astonishing offer came about when he was actually only due to be mayor of Nuremberg because of a gasoline allocation.
  3. ↑ Vocational School Fürth: Kürschner ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) 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. Last accessed on July 10, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berufsschule1-fuerth.de
  4. ↑ a b Volker Schöps: Pontifex Maximus. On the death of Dr. Heinz Levié October 22, 1983 . In: The fur industry. 10/1983, pp. 55-56.
  5. ↑ Nuremberg City Archives: Days of Remembrance Last accessed July 1, 2013.
  6. ^ Arthur Heber & Co. (eds.): Biographical review of the German fur industry , sheet Märkle & Co KG, Taucha - Leipzig . Verlag für Handel und Industrie, date not known. Binder.
  7. ↑ Without indication of the author: Consul a. D. Franz-Rudolf Märkle † . In: Rund um den Pelz , No. 12 December 1961, Fulde Verlag Cologne, p. 11.
  8. ↑ a b Heinz Levié: 25 years of the fur fair, review and outlook . In: Marco - information from the Franconian fur industry, Märkle & Co , 32nd edition / 11th year, 1973
  9. ↑ Willi Treusch: "Chronicle". Exposé, 1973, p. 8 (G. & C. Franke collection).
  10. ↑ Without mentioning the author: Marco in Switzerland . In: Rund um den Pelz No. 1, January 1965, p. 26
  11. ↑ Irene Mayer-List: Bad luck with the funeral gown . November 18, 1983, Zeit-online Last accessed July 10, 2013.
  12. ↑ Without mentioning the author: Marco filing for bankruptcy and Dr. Heinz Levié passed away . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt. No. 718, October 28, 1983, Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 1-5.
  13. ↑ News from the commercial register . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt. No. 743 BC April 27, 1984, p. 2. Managing director Kunz Dieter, fur merchant and Kraus Rüdiger, leather technician; ( Winckelmann Pelzmarkt. February 10: … new Frankfurt domicile: Niddastraße 66-68 )
  14. ↑ Without an author's name: Marco's birthday party . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 253, September 27, 1974, p. 9.
  15. ↑ If the author is not stated: Marco Successor Pelzveredlung GmbH . In: Winckelmann International Fur Bulletin. No. 1917, November 25, 1983, Supplement iv
  16. ↑ Without mentioning the author: Marco-Veredlungsbetrieb taken over. 150 jobs will be retained. In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt. No. 722, November 25, 1983, Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 1-2.
  17. ↑ Without indication of the author: Marco Royal Dark, New York, requests a moratorium . In Winckelmann fur market. No. 795, August 17, 1984, p. 5.
  18. ↑ If the author does not state: majority share in Marco Pelz GmbH was taken over by Ka-Be-TeG - Munk Gruppe. In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 860, August 8, 1986, p. 5.
  19. ↑ Stadtmuseum Fürth: Time travel / 1950-1999 . Last accessed on July 18, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Levié, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, senior government councilor, mayor of Nuremberg and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Hofgeismar
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1983
Place of death Nuremberg