Richard-Eugen Dörr

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Richard-Eugen Dörr (born February 14, 1896 in Offenburg , † August 11, 1975 in Mölln ) was a German engineer , chemist and industrialist .

Live and act

School time, participation in the war and studies

He was the son of the construction secretary Anton Dörr and his wife Christine, née Ullrich.

After passing the high school he enlisted immediately after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 as a volunteer , was in France used while wounded twice. On February 21, 1918 Dörr was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross II. Class of the Order of the Zähringer Lions with Swords, as adjutant of the II. Department of the field artillery regiment "Grand Duke" (1st Badisches) No. 14 Dismissed from military service.

He completed his studies in mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Karlsruhe on October 5, 1920 as a Dipl.-Ing. with the grade "good". He then worked there as an assistant until March 31, 1921. Dörr then studied law for another three semesters at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg .

Career start at BASF / IG Farbenindustrie AG

In 1923 Dörr took up a position as a chemist at BASF in Ludwigshafen am Rhein . In 1928 he was promoted to senior engineer there. From 1929 to 1931 he was commissioned by IG Farbenindustrie AG to set up two dye plants in the USA . This task took him considerably less time than had been given. He received an annual salary of 40,000 Reichsmarks for managing this foreign subsidiary of the IG Farben Group . Because of anti-Nazi attitudes, membership in a Masonic lodge and alleged espionage for the USA, he was dismissed by BASF in 1933 without notice.

In 1934 Dörr moved to the hometown of his wife Lena, née Kiehn, in Mölln, after he had successfully sued his dismissal and obtained a compensation payment.

Phrix-Werke AG

Registered share of 1000 RM of Phrix-Werke AG from October 1941

Due to his patents for the production of cellulose based on grass , straw and pine wood as well as other novel processes for the production of rayon and cellulose he was awarded by the III. Richly conscripted. By 1940 he built - financed by wealthy textile manufacturers - pulp mills in Hirschberg , Küstrin , Wittenberge , Krefeld and Siegburg , which worked according to his patents. The cities of Hirschberg and Wittenberge made him an honorary citizen . Kurmärkische Zellwolle und Zellulose AG , under the management of Dörr, was merged with several other leading companies in the pulp industry to form the Holding Phrix-Werke AG with headquarters in Hamburg in order to ensure improved research through cooperation.

On the premises in Wittenberge, the first branch was sub-camp of Auschwitz concentration camp Neuengamme erected. In order to compensate for the labor shortage caused by the war, Dörr, as chairman of the board of Phrix-Werke AG, turned to the head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, Oswald Pohl , to request concentration camp prisoners to work for the Wittenberge production facility.

Due to the incipient impairment of work in some Phrix factories by enemy action, in 1943, at the instigation of Dörr on Lindenweg in Mölln near the Elbe-Trave Canal, a 14- acre alternative for the activities of company experts and for the safe storage of Company documents and patents established. Even Dörr's private hunting lodge in Wittenberge was dismantled, transferred to Mölln and completely rebuilt. During this transition period, Dörr used it as an office; today there is a kindergarten there.

The Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Breslau awarded Dörr an honorary doctorate on December 16, 1942 with the following laudation: "The outstanding specialist in the field of fiber chemistry who has understood how to bring scientific knowledge to bear with great success in industry." The Association of Pulp and Paper Chemists recognized Dörr's abilities on January 14, 1943 by awarding him the Dr. Edmund Thiele commemorative coin “in recognition of his work to improve rayon and his great merits in the use of pine wood and straw for production of pulp for the synthetic fiber industry ”.

Anti-National Socialist "Freedom Committee North"

In 1943 the anti-Nazi "Freedom Committee North" was founded under the direction of Richard-Eugen Dörr. For many months, members of this committee hid several people from access by the Gestapo on the alternative site of the Phrix works in Mölln . The committee procured weapons and ammunition. Likewise, bridges over the Elbe-Trave Canal were prevented from being blown up by removing ignition devices. Furthermore, the disarming of the Hitler Youth , which had been in possession of over 100 bazookas , was successful . On the night of April 28-29, 1945, 9,000 leaflets were distributed before the Allied troops marched in, calling on the population to use white flags for the Möllner district. By establishing contact with the British section commander of the vanguard via telephone and personally escorting the English advance command and the main troops over bridges and roads, the committee finally succeeded in handing the section between Elbe and Lübeck over to the Allied troops without a fight. The events mentioned were checked and documented by the British military police after the invasion of the Allied troops . In reports from the then mayor of the city of Mölln from 1949 it says about these events: If our city looks as if no war of destruction and annihilation had gone on over the German lands, if in Mölln not a tile fell from the roof, but in If its old beauty continues to bloom, then we owe this to the goodness of fate that allowed this city to exist here in the north of our fatherland, to the commitment of some courageous men, citizens and friends of our city who are concerned about their homeland. It was you who took care of Dr. RE Dörr and Rudolf M. Michelsen had gathered. And one more thing that today's generation should not forget: Thanks to the courageous intervention, 6000 worn-out German soldiers without ammunition were able to end the war in Mölln without getting involved in senseless fights and without loss of human life. Perhaps there were also fathers of those to whom our warning is addressed today!

Reconstruction of the Phrix-Werke AG after the end of the war

After the loss of the Hirschberg, Küstrin and Wittenberge plants and the destruction of the West German production facilities in Siegburg and Krefeld, the Phrix Group's business came to a standstill after the end of the war. For a symbolic annual salary of one Reichsmark, Dörr had the West German works rebuilt between 1946 and 1948 with the support of wealthy textile manufacturers and also founded the Möllner Textilwerke (MTW). In 1949 Dörr founded Orgatex AG in Zurich , which, although externally operating as an independent company, was actually a pure subsidiary of the Phrix Group.

In 1952 Dörr left the Phrix to work as an independent consulting engineer.

Art patron

Eulenspiegelbrunnen on the Möllner Rathausplatz

In 1950 Dörr donated two works by his friend Karlheinz Goedtke to the town of Mölln , the Eulenspiegel fountain on the market in Mölln and the moving brook on Waidmannsplatz, now Uhlenkolk. In 1951 Dörr managed to bring Goedtke to Mölln permanently. Dörr donated all of the costumes for the Eulenspiegel Festival, which takes place every three years in Mölln. The city of Mölln awarded Richard-Eugen Dörr on January 1, 1952 the city badge "In appreciation and recognition of his special services to the city of Mölln." The Technical University of Karlsruhe appointed Dörr on November 24, 1952 for services to the development of chemical engineering and his great interest in the Fridericiana University of Technology. an honorary senator .

"Drying process"

From 1957 to 1960 he was in one of the longest German economic trials, which lasted over 249 days, in the dock of the Hamburg Regional Court . The indictment alone comprised 824 pages, the trial files contained 19,200 pages of minutes. Dörr was accused of breach of trust under stock corporation law , foreign exchange offenses and fraud to the detriment of the Phrix group he heads. Over a hundred witnesses were heard, including several bank directors. The pleading of the two public prosecutors extended over nine meeting days. In the end, however, most of the charges were dropped against him and Dorr was only because of continued currency offenses taking into account the ten months detention to fifteen months imprisonment on probation convicted.

Richard-Eugen Dörr died on August 11, 1975 in Mölln. In 2001 the "Dr.-Richard-Dörr-Strasse" was named after him there.

Honors

  • 1942: Awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wroclaw
  • 1943: Awarded the Dr. Edmund Thiele commemorative coin
  • 1952: Award of the honor plaque of the city of Mölln
  • 1952: Appointment as honorary senator of the Technical University of Karlsruhe
  • 2001: Name of the "Dr.-Richard-Dörr-Straße" in Mölln

Works

Fonts

  • Cellulose and rayon - a cellulose problem. In: Angewandte Chemie . Volume 53, No. 1-2, January 6, 1940, pp. 13-17.

Patents (selection)

  • with Ernst Wachendorff: Process for the production of a matured alkali cellulose by alkalizing moist cell pulp from July 25, 1937
  • with Hugo Koch and Helmut Bock: Process for the extraction of resins, fats and turpentine oil from resinous woods from September 26, 1939
  • with Hans Höfelmann: Process to improve the spinnability of cellulose hydrate fibers from August 20, 1941
  • with Hugo Koch, Ingo Jurisch and Heinz Vollenbruck: Process for the production of a pulp suitable for viscose production from annual plants rich in pentosan from December 23, 1941
  • with Hugo Koch: Process for the production of a cellulose suitable for the production of synthetic fibers from pinewood from January 10, 1942

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Andreas Anders: Montessori children are now playing in Lindenweg. ( Memento from February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Herzogtum Direkt. dated April 29, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Alfred Flögel: Mölln's Eulenspiegelbrunnen is celebrating its birthday . In: Sunday market. September 15, 1990.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Dörr process: Swiss tours. In: Der Spiegel . No. 8/1960 of February 17, 1960.
  4. ↑ a b Process for the production of pulp from pine wood suitable for synthetic fiber production , on the Google Patents website .
  5. ↑ a b Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 , p. 539ff. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ a b c d e On May 1st, 25 years ago, at 9:30 a.m. sharp, the English moved into Mölln! In: Lauenburgisches Tageblatt. dated April 30, 1970.
  7. ↑ a b Honorary Senators of KIT. In: Website of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology .
  8. ↑ a b company / Phrix-Werke AG. Naked and bare. In: Der Spiegel. No. 33/1970, August 10, 1970.
  9. ↑ a b c The marathon negotiation. In the "Dörr trial": the prosecutors pleaded for nine days. In: The time . November 6, 1959.
  10. ↑ Process for the production of a matured alkali cellulose by alkalizing moist cell pulp , on the website Google Patents .
  11. ↑ Procedure for the extraction of resins, fats and turpentine oil from resinous woods , on the Google Patents website .
  12. ↑ Process for improving the spinnability of cellulose hydrate fibers , on the Google Patents website .
  13. ↑ Process for the production of a pulp suitable for the production of viscose from annual plants rich in pentosan , on the website Google Patents .
personal data
SURNAME Dörr, Richard-Eugen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, chemist and industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Offenburg
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1975
Place of death Mölln