Oscar Arnold
Max Oscar Arnold , modernized Oskar Arnold , (born March 29, 1854 in Neustadt bei Coburg ; † January 27, 1938 ibid) was a German entrepreneur and politician. At the beginning of the 20th century he was one of the most famous personalities in the Coburg region .
Life
Oscar Arnold was the second of eleven children of master dressmaker Karl Arnold and his wife Berta. After attending the primary school in Neustadt, he was apprenticed in his parents' business and attended the Neustadt industrial and trade school, where he took drawing and modeling lessons. On December 8, 1878, he married Emilie Dorn, who gave birth to seven sons and two daughters. The fourth child, the son Karl Arnold , was best known as a draftsman of Simplicissimus .
One day after getting married, Arnold started a company that made doll clothes . The doll's clothes were designed by his wife. The doll manufacture expanded rapidly in the following years and was expanded to include doll production as early as 1884 under the company name M. Oscar Arnold Factory and Trade (MOA). The high-quality products were mainly exported to the United States of America. In 1895 a new, three-story factory building was opened, later Plant I, which was located at Neustadt train station. During this period, the banker Georg von Siemens was also involved in the company. In 1900, when his eldest son Ernst joined the company as an authorized signatory, his sons began to take part in the company's management. With up to 1000 employees, Arnold & Co developed into one of the largest companies in the strongly export-oriented doll industry and one of the most important employers in Neustadt. The company had a reputation for good working conditions and good earnings.
During the First World War , Arnold successfully converted his factory, which had up to 2500 employees at the time, to the production of bullet baskets and, later, stick grenades . The company expanded in 1916 and 1917 with the new construction of Plant II at Neustädter Bahnhof and in 1919 with Plant III, the porcelain factory of the Knoch Brothers, located south of the station. In addition, there was Plant IV in Neustadt, a sawing and cutting factory.
Since the doll industry still did not have a sufficient sales market after the First World War, Arnold was forced to switch production again. He decided to reposition his company by manufacturing furniture and electrotechnical supplies from technical porcelain. In 1925, MOA still employed 900 people. Because of high losses, the Bayerische Staatsbank, as the main creditor, ordered the “business supervision to avert bankruptcy” in November 1925. In 1926 there was a settlement with the creditors. However, the consequences of a major fire in the factory in 1927, a lack of bank loans and a thorough restructuring that did not materialize led to the closure of the company on October 12, 1928.
Oscar Arnold and his son Ernst had to bring their entire private fortune into the ensuing foreclosure. The Bayerische Staatsbank bought the entire property for 400,000 RM, whereby the real estate alone was valued at twice the value. In the ten years that followed, until his death, Arnold lived withdrawn and penniless.
Services
Arnold was socially and politically very involved.
From 1884, he was a member of the Coburg state parliament , belonging to the Liberals , and became its vice-president in 1897. In 1904, he was finally elected President of the Coburg State Parliament, making him also Vice-President of the joint State Parliament of the Duchies of Coburg and Gotha . Between 1914 and 1918 he represented the Duchy of the Progressive People's Party as a member of the German Reichstag in Berlin. In 1919 the Coburg elected him to the state assembly of the Free State of Coburg , of which he became vice president. Finally, after the merger of the Free State of Coburg with Bavaria, from 1920 to 1924 membership in the Bavarian state parliament as a member of the DDP .
After the administrators of the Niederfüllbacher Foundation , founded by the Belgian King Leopold II. , Had given almost the entire foundation assets to the Belgian state in early 1911 , Arnold invested a lot of time and money in legal opinions for the return of the assets for the benefit of the Coburg region. In 1915 he was appointed to the new foundation board. Due to the First World War and the subsequent defeat of Germany, however, he had to give up all efforts against the Belgian state.
As a politician, Arnold was particularly keen to join the Free State of Coburg with the Free State of Bavaria in 1920 and had participated intensively in the negotiations in 1919. In a referendum in November 1919, the Coburgs decided against joining the new state of Thuringia and thus joining Bavaria. In the following years he was a member of the board of the newly established Coburg State Foundation .
Arnold was actively committed to improving the infrastructure of the Coburg region. In particular, the railway connection between the Coburg towns in the Steinach Valley and his hometown Neustadt was close to his heart. This was finally crowned with success with the inauguration of the Steinachtalbahn in 1920. He was also heavily involved in the construction of the Coburg rural hospital . From 1904 to 1920 he was the chairman of the hospital's administrative commission, which was supposed to oversee economic operations in particular.
In addition, he was one of the initiators of the restoration of the Veste Coburg and a member of the committee for the restoration of the Veste, for which he donated 40,000 marks. According to the plans of the architect Bodo Ebhardt , the landmark of the Coburg region was completely renovated and redesigned from 1909 for 6.9 million marks. The completion inauguration organized by Arnold took place on September 7, 1924 as part of a local festival with 50,000 participants.
Honors
Arnold was an honorary citizen of his hometown Neustadt bei Coburg. In 1950 a memorial was inaugurated in his honor on Arnoldplatz. The Arnold-Gymnasium Neustadt , a hiking trail from Arnoldplatz to Arnoldhütte on the Muppberg and, since 1995, the Max-Oscar-Arnold-Kunstpreis for contemporary puppet art bear his name .
literature
- Arnold, Oskar M. Go. Kom.-R. , in: Herrmann AL Degener : Degeners Who is it? Berlin 1935, p. 36
- Esther Reinhart: Max Oscar Arnold (1854-1938) . Volume 21 of the series of publications of the historical society Coburg eV, Coburg 2007, ISBN 3-9810350-3-8 .
- Helmut Scheuerich: Max Oscar Arnold: A life for home . Neustadt near Coburg 1996
Web links
- Oscar Arnold in the parliamentary database at the House of Bavarian History
- Arnold, Oskar in the database of members of the Reichstag
- Biography of Oskar Arnold . In: Heinrich Best : database of the members of the Reichstag of the Empire 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich Hess: History of Thuringia 1866 to 1914 . Verlag Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1991, ISBN 3-7400-0077-5 . P. 473
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Arnold, Oscar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Arnold, Oskar; Arnold, Max Oscar (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneurs and politicians (German Liberal Party, Progressive People's Party, DDP), MdR |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 29, 1854 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Neustadt near Coburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 1938 |
| Place of death | Neustadt near Coburg |