Otto Rheinhold
Otto Rheinhold (also: Otto Reinhold ; born March 14, 1855 in Oberlahnstein ; died August 16, 1937 in Hanover ) was a German manufacturer , founder and patron . In particular through his commitment to helping the homeless, according to the historian Peter Schulze, he is "one of the few people whose economic, social and cultural life's work achieved social significance in their time and can still claim it today."
Life
Otto Rheinhold was born in 1855 into a Jewish family based in Oberlahnstein in the Rhineland and was brought up according to Jewish tradition . He completed an apprenticeship as a " clerk " and settled in the city of Celle in 1874 at the age of 19 . There he and his older brother Sartorius initially dealt with supplying the military units stationed on site.
On February 7, 1886, Rheinhold married Elise (born July 30, 1865 in Celle; died August 23, 1942 in Theresienstadt) from the long-established Jewish family Daniel , the youngest of three daughters and one of four children of the merchant and banker Philipp Daniel (died 1899) and his wife Elise, née Meyer (died 1902 in Hanover and buried in the Jewish cemetery in Celle ).
In 1887 the brothers Otto and Sartorius Rheinhold founded the mining company Vereinigte Kieselguhr- und Korksteingesellschaft , which, in addition to the production of cork stone , was supposed to mine the regionally found kieselguhr . These Stone Age deposits of diatoms, the Rhine holds developed various insulation for the machine industry at home and abroad, according to a display in 1900 in particular, "Isolirungen of locomotive boilers and similar steam vessels ". Thanks to the raw materials processed, the company soon became a major manufacturer of heat and cold protection.
Even before the real oil boom set in in the Lower Saxony town of Wietze , the Rheinhold brothers participated in the founding of a drilling company, from which the first German oil company emerged in 1900, the " Hannoversch-Westfälische Erdölwerke ".
"Photographie-Verlag" by Otto Braackmann, around 1910
Soon after, the brothers also involved in the 1905 founded " potash Prinz Adalbert neighboring village" in the village Wietze Oldau . In 1908, the two entrepreneurs had a rest home set up in Südwinsen for the children of their workers.
In the meantime Otto Reinhold had moved to Hanover with his wife Elise and their two sons Paul and Walter in the 1890s , where he had acquired the Hanoverian citizenship and lived in a good bourgeois neighborhood, initially on Arnswaldtstrasse and later on Erwinstrasse. Especially after the death of his brother, the Berlin sculptor Hugo Rheinhold , Otto Rheinhold devoted his time and assets to both charitable and non-profit purposes. In 1902 he established the Hugo Rheinhold Foundation from his brother's estate with the aim of promoting “ethical and social endeavors”.
Although Otto and his wife Elise Rheinhold left Judaism , Otto followed the example of his older brother Sartorius, who remained a member of the Jewish community and made generous foundations for both Jewish and general purposes. Otto and Sartorius "Reinhold" were also members of the Esra Association , an association to support agricultural Jews in Palestine and Syria. But Otto Rheinhold's personal charitable commitment far exceeded the “occasional willingness to donate for the benefit of charity” expected by the wealthy at the time. Although there is no personal evidence of the motives for Otto Rheinhold in particular, the historian Peter Schulze sees Rheinhold's action oriented towards practice “in the sense of a moral obligation to practice charity and to support those in need”.
After Otto Rheinhold had initiated the establishment of the "Hanoverian Asylum Association for the Homeless" in 1907, in 1910 he promoted its association with the "Association against House Begging", which had existed since 1879, to become the "Association against House Begging and Homelessness". As its chairman, he built the “Werkheim” in Büttnerstrasse.
In 1914 Otto Rheinhold was one of the co-founders of the "Aid Association for Jobless Merchants and Other Typists".
After the start of the First World War , the Rheinholdsche company began making voluntary payments to the families of employees and workers drafted for military service, while the holiday home in Winsen was made available as a hospital . In addition, the Rheinhold family made donations to the Hanover city war welfare organization and the Red Cross .
After Rheinhold's son Paul fell in France on August 10, 1914, Otto Rheinhold had the architect Hermann Schaedtler erect a family grave in the Stöcken city cemetery by 1915 . In addition, Otto Rheinhold offered the Hanoverian magistrate the donation of a memorial for the Stöcken warrior grave department. A sculpture to be created of a grieving woman, wrote Otto Rheinhold, was supposed to express "the grief brought about by the unfortunate war". But the magistrate - completely in line with the self-image of the bourgeoisie striving for “peace in victory” and annexation - preferred martial symbols such as armored fighters with mighty swords. Rheinhold countered such ideas by donating the sculpture, which the city of Hanover finally accepted after lengthy negotiations. Rheinhold's “Mourners” was not placed in the center, but only on the edge of the warrior's grave department.
In 1917 Rheinhold was accepted as a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society . In March 1918, the Hanoverian police chief Rudolf von Beckerath - referring to Otto Rheinhold's entrepreneurial successes, his diverse charitable commitment and, last but not least, "his loyal sentiments" - to honor Rheinhold with the award of the title of " Kommerzienrat ". However, with the end of the monarchy that soon followed, von Beckerat's motion became irrelevant.
After the seizure of power in 1933 Otto Rheinhold had to resign the chairmanship of the "Association against House Begging and Homelessness" at the request of the National Socialists; he died four years later and was buried in the family grave at the Stöcken city cemetery, section A 17, on the south-west bank of the pond.
His widow Elise Rheinhold was forcibly committed to the so-called “ Judenhaus ” at Ohestrasse 9 in September 1941 , where up to 200 other people were temporarily cooped up in a confined space. After the evacuation of the “Judenhaus”, Elise presumably first came to the former Israelite Horticultural School in Ahlem , which was converted into a collection point, and was later - like her oldest sister Anna - deported to Theresienstadt . There she died after four weeks on August 23, 1942 at the age of 77. An inscription on the family grave in the Stöcken cemetery today commemorates her and her name on the memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover .
Walter Rheinhold, the younger of the couple's two sons, survived Nazi rule. In the post-war period in Germany he was a long-time member of the board of the “Werkheim eV” association, a local homeless aid organization, and in this way continued the charitable commitment his father had started.
Honors and commemorations
- In 1952, a publicly visible stone plaque was installed at the entrance to the Werkheim on Büttnerstrasse in Hanover in honor of the co-founder of the “Asylum Association for the Homeless” and long-time chairman of the “Association against House Begging and Homelessness”, the association that supports the Werkheim. The panel shows Rheinhold's profile as a relief with the text “Otto Rheinhold 1855–1937. Founder of the Werkheim ”.
- In 1993, the newly created Otto-Rheinhold-Weg in the district of Vahrenwald from Karl-Imhoff-Weg to Straße Im Othfelde was named after the manufacturer and founder of Werkheim.
- On September 18, 2013, two stumbling blocks were laid for Otto and Elise Rheinhold in front of the house at Erwinstrasse 7 in the Mitte district of Hanover .
See also
literature
- Heat Protection Scientific Releases . Magazine , ed. von Rheinhold & Co., United Kieselguhr and Korkstein Society, Thermal Protection Science Department, Berlin, 1924–1930
- United German Kieselguhrwerke GmbH Hanover. August 1, 1900 - August 1, 1925 , Hanover: self-published, 1925
- Rheinhold & Co. United Kieselguhr and Corkstone Society, Berlin . Monograph, head section (2 pages) from the Archive for Industry and Commerce , [1930]
- Albert Lefèvre: Kieselguhr , in: ders .: The contribution of Hanoverian industry to technical progress. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , New Series 24 (1970), pp. 176-179, v. a. P. 178f.
- Sabine Maehnert : Two important Jewish entrepreneurs. Sartorius and Otto Rheinhold . In: Winser history sheets: Contributions to the history of the community Winsen (Aller) . Ed .: Winsen (Aller) community, archive. Winsen (Aller), 2000
- Peter Schulze: Portrait of a founder. Otto Rheinhold (1855-1937). Manufacturer and philanthropist . In: "... and you took me in": Festschrift for the 125th anniversary of the Werkheim eV Ed .: Werkheim eV, Hanover. Editorial team: Arno Dinse et al , Hannover, 2004
- Wolfgang Buhr: The Jewish entrepreneurs Sartorius and Otto Rheinhold. Two pioneers in the diatomite and petroleum industries . In: Celler Chronik: Contributions to the history and geography of the city and the district of Celle , ISSN 0177-719X, 2007
- Tim Wegener: ... where the Jews' houses are known to be. Tour of the Jewish history of Celle (= small writings on the history of the city of Celle ; Volume 16), ed. from the city of Celle. Celle, 2016
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Helmut Zimmermann : Hanover's street names - changes since 1991. In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , Neue Reihe 51 (1997), pp. 351-360; here: p. 358; limited preview in Google Book search
- ↑ a b o. V .: Directory of members. In: Festschrift for the twenty-fifth anniversary of "Esra". Association for the support of agricultural Jews in Palestine and Syria, together with a report for the years 1906, 1907, 1908 , Wittenberg: Herrosé & Ziemsen, 1909; Pp. 37-56; here: p. 47; Digitized from the Freimann Collection of the Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Peter Schulze: Otto Rheinhold (1855-1937) manufacturer and philanthropist / portrait of a founder on the page whhannover.de [ undated ], last accessed on 16th January 2019
- ↑ a b c o. V .: Anna Hess, Martha Enoch, Elise Rheinhold - Bahnhofstrasse 7 on the celle.de page [ undated ], last accessed on January 16, 2019
- ^ Helmut Knocke : Schaedtler, Hermann. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 356; limited preview in Google Book search
- ↑ Chemiker-Zeitung , Vol. 41 (1917), p. 396; limited preview in Google Book search
- ↑ n.v . : Beckerath, Rudolf von in the database of Niedersächsische Personen (new entry required) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library in the version of July 8, 2009, last accessed on January 16, 2019
- ↑ a b c d e o. V .: Rheinhold, Otto in the database of Niedersächsische Personen (new entry required) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library in the version of December 1, 2017, last accessed on January 16, 2019
- ↑ above: Relocated stumbling blocks in Hanover / sorted by surname. Status: November 2018 . Ed .: Urban culture of remembrance, Central Affairs Culture, Rundestraße 6, Hannover: LHH, 2018; as a PDF document
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rheinhold, Otto |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Reinhold, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German manufacturer, founder and patron |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 14, 1855 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Oberlahnstein |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 16, 1937 |
| Place of death | Hanover |