Moritz Böker

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moritz Böker (born September 15, 1853 in Remscheid , † January 7, 1933 there ) was a German engineer and was a member of the board of directors of Bergische Stahlindustrie AG. He is an honorary citizen of the city of Remscheid.

Life

Moritz Böker was the younger brother of the businessman Robert Böker . After he was 13 years old, he attended high school and the trade school in Cologne. He gained his first practical experience in Siegerland, and then completed a degree in Berlin as an engineer. On a trip through England he got an impression of the steel and iron industry there. From around 1879 he worked for the then largest Remscheid steel manufacturer Bergische Stahlindustrie (BSI), in 1885 he was already a director and then also a member of the board of the later stock corporation. He set up an in-house laboratory and focused the company's development more on the production of quality steels ( stainless steel ), which are increasingly required in the emerging automotive industry, than on large quantities of simpler types of steel ( mild steel ). He suggested the classification of steel according to degrees of hardness ; nickel and chrome-nickel steel were developed at the BSI. To train his employees, he advocated the municipal and, from 1895, royal technical school for the steel and iron industry, founded in 1882 .

In order to secure their own financial security and at the suggestion of the mayor and the savings bank , he obliged his employees to compulsorily save from around 1900. When they joined the company as an apprentice at the age of 14, part of their wages was deducted and placed in an interest-generating savings account on their behalf. They could only have access to this at the age of 25 or at their wedding, or of course they could also continue to save. It was a small provision for those affected, but compulsory saving was not popular.

Recognizing that a company can be more successful with satisfied employees, he tried to establish a good relationship between employers and employees in an association for the common good. He had living space created for the many new workers, including those who moved there. In 1887, at his suggestion, a non-profit building association was established and he took over as chairman. The association acquired land in 1896 on Honsberg and in 1897 on Loborn. 111 houses had been built there by 1905 and 183 houses by 1919, also known as Bökers houses .

He provided a settlement association founded in 1920 with building materials and wooded land acquired by the city at today's Bökerhöhe . These plots were cleared by the settlers and from 1922 onwards, houses were largely built on their own and in organized groups according to the plans of the city building councilor Ludwig Lemmer . By 1923, 30 houses could be moved into, and by 1929 129. Moritz Böker had agreed, however, that 75% of the apartments should be inhabited by his employees. To prevent property speculation, the city had registered resale clauses.

Together with other employers, he founded a factory owners' association. Together with two other founding members, a representative building, originally owned by Georg Halbach, was acquired on Elberfelderstrasse as a club house for the factory owners' association, in which an exhibition of products from Remscheid companies was set up from 1891 to 1914.

Moritz Böker also tried to open up foreign sales markets, so he was in the United States of America in 1891, 1895 and 1903. He undertook the trip in May and June 1903 together with the Minister Freiherr von Rheinbaben , whom he accompanied on his private trip at his request. He presented the knowledge gained on August 10, 1903 at a joint meeting of the boards of directors of the Association of German Ironworkers , the north-western group of the Association of German Iron and Steel Industries and the Association for the Protection of Common Economic Interests in Rhineland and Westphalia . He found the American organization of trusts and the associated financing of industrial companies, the strong union system of the Trade Unions and the well-developed transport system with the railroad particularly worth mentioning .

Moritz Böker was a respected member of the city council of Remscheid from 1909 to 1924. In 1887 he became a member of the Remscheid Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and was its president during the difficult years from 1919 to 1923. He was a member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank until 1926. Numerous private foundations can be traced back to him. From 1930 to 1933 he was a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science.

Honors

Moritz Böker was awarded the honorary title of a secret commercial councilor , as well as the title of Dr. Ing. E. H. (honorary), which was awarded to him by the Faculty of Mining at RWTH Aachen University in 1922 during his time as General Director of the BSI . On September 15, 1925, he was made an honorary citizen by the city.

Publications

  • Economic and Industrial Conditions in the United States of America , in: "Stahl und Eisen", 1903, No. 16, pp. 913–917.

literature

  • Will Rinne: Moritz Böker - A Bergisch business leader - After diaries, letters, speeches and essays , (Forays through the Bergische economic life - 2nd volume), Verlag für Sozialpolitik, Wirtschaft und Statistik P. Schmidt, Berlin 1940, 198 pages with 17 Drawings and 40 pictures, maps, plans and manuscripts
  • Ders .: Moritz Böker (1853–1933) , in: Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien, Volume VI. Aschendorff, Münster 1954, pp. 81-92.
  • Hans Jürgen Roth: History of our city, Remscheid with Lennep and Lüttringhausen , RGA-Buchverlag, Remscheid, 2009, ISBN 978-3-940491-01-5 , pp. 246–248, 155, 158, 161, 220, 283, 290
  • Paul Windgassen:  Böker, Moritz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 398 ( digitized version ).
  • Reinhard Thom: Bergische entrepreneurs in self-administration. For their 125th anniversary ed. from D. Bergischen Industrie- u. Remscheid Chamber of Commerce . Remscheid 1965, pp. 81-87

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chronicle of the employers' association of Remscheid und Umgebung eV, 1990
  2. ↑ Lecture , given on August 10, 1903 in Düsseldorf, 46 pages, digitized at the University of Göttingen, viewed on March 16, 2010
  3. ↑ Annual report  ( 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. of Deutsche Bank for 1925 on bankgeschichte.de, as seen March 16, 2010 (PDF)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.bankgeschichte.de  
  4. ↑ List of members in the archive of the Max Planck Society, viewed March 16, 2010
  5. ↑ Entry in the finding aid for the RWTH Aachen University Archive, on archive.nrw.de, viewed March 16, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Böker, Moritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer and industrialist, honorary citizen of Remscheid
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Remscheid
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1933
Place of death Remscheid