Richard Winkler (entrepreneur)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Winkler

Richard Winkler (born October 24, 1898 in Heilbronn , Baden-Wuerttemberg ; † January 6, 1972 in Rengsdorf , Rhineland-Palatinate ) was the senior partner and personally liable partner of Winkler & Dünnebier for many years .

Life

Professional career and World War II

Richard Winkler was born in 1898 as the youngest son of a working-class family from Heilbronn in modest circumstances. When his father, Alfred Winkler (1872–1945), went into business for himself in 1913 together with his business partner Max Dünnebier (1878–1950) and founded the mechanical workshop Winkler & Dünnebier in Neuwied , Richard Winkler became the young company's first apprentice.

After completing an apprenticeship as a machinist in 1916 , Richard Winkler served as a simple soldier in the First World War . The French captivity was followed in 1919 by studying mechanical engineering at the Rheinisches Technikum in Bingen (today Bingen University of Applied Sciences ). With the engineering certificate in his pocket, Richard Winkler worked for three years from 1923 at the machine tool factories Wanderer Werke , Chemnitz , and Ludwig Loewe & Co. , Berlin , until he returned to Neuwied in May 1926.

The former backyard company Winkler & Dünnebier with three employees had meanwhile become a sizable mechanical engineering company with over 200 employees. Richard Winkler was sent by the company to Germany and abroad to sell their machines for the production of envelopes under the Helios brand and to ensure their maintenance. He was appointed in late 1938 attorney promoted.

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Winkler & Dünnebier was increasingly committed to the production of military equipment and manufactured gauges , measuring tools and test devices for the armaments industry. As a member of the management, Richard Winkler not only had to cope with this change, but also had to deal with the consequences of a shortage of materials, the drafting of employees into the Wehrmacht and, from 1944, intensified air raids.

Reconstruction and the economic miracle

When his father, Alfred Winkler, died shortly after the end of the war in 1945, Richard Winkler became managing partner of the company alongside Max Dünnebier and, after his death in 1950, sole, personally liable partner .

During this time, not only had the largely destroyed factory facilities to be rebuilt and the machine tool park that had been lost due to dismantling replaced, the foreign markets that had completely collapsed during the Second World War also had to be opened up again, which was no easy undertaking due to the horrors of the war. In addition, the workforce, which had been greatly decimated as a result of the war, had to be rebuilt.

At first, Winkler & Dünnebier kept afloat economically with the delivery of spare parts and the refurbishment of machines severely damaged by the effects of the war. Even can sealing machines were made. But as early as mid-1946, Richard Winkler managed to obtain approval from the French occupying forces to build a certain number of envelope machines for foreign countries. The reconstruction was further facilitated by the currency reform of 1948 and the associated economic revival. Financial aid from the Marshall Plan helped with the acquisition of new machine tools.

As early as 1949, plants I and II in Neuwied and the iron foundry in Hangelar were not only completely rebuilt, but also equipped with a modern machine tool park. New designs in the areas of envelope and confectionery machines and participation in numerous international exhibitions (including Drupa since 1951, Interpack since 1958, World Exhibition in Brussels 1958) quickly helped Winkler & Dünnebier regain international recognition. On the company's fiftieth anniversary in 1963, the company could proudly point to the fact that it exports to more than 50 countries and thus achieved around three quarters of its sales .

Richard Winkler's long-standing corporate policy of largely reinvesting profits in the company allowed Winkler & Dünnebier to grow rapidly. In 1961 a plant in Nisterhammer (district of Nister , Rhineland-Palatinate ) was leased and in 1967 the first foreign production facility was set up in Anoeta (near Tolosa , Spain ). In 1970, the Bruno Pahlitzsch company ( Berlin ), the last significant competitor in the field of envelope engineering, was taken over. While the number of employees was only 253 at the end of the war in 1945, it reached almost 2000 in the early 1970s, including around 220 trainees in an in-house training workshop.

social commitment

Coming from a humble background, Richard Winkler never forgot to use part of the company's profits for non-collective bargaining and social benefits for employees. In addition to a company-owned housing association for the benefit of employees, there was a pension fund from which every employee received a supplementary pension after ten years of service in retirement or in the event of premature incapacity for work , without having to pay contributions to the fund themselves.

There was also obstetrics, support in the event of death and special occasions, anniversary gifts and loyalty rewards. In addition to a works doctor and several works paramedics , there was a works cobbler's shop and a works canteen , which offered their services to employees at heavily discounted prices.

Richard Winkler died unexpectedly of a heart attack on January 6, 1972 . He is buried next to his two wives in the cemetery of the Evangelical Church in Rengsdorf. His successor as managing director and personally liable partner of the company Winkler & Dünnebier was his nephew Dr.-Ing. Alfred Doderer-Winkler (1929-2019).

Honors

Honorary positions

  • Member of the main board of the Association of German Mechanical Engineering Institutions in Frankfurt am Main ;
  • Chairman of the Rhineland-Rheinhessen regional group in the Association of German Mechanical Engineering Institutes.
  • Chairman of the Food Processing Machinery Association in Düsseldorf ;
  • Member of the board of the paper processing machines department of the Printing and Paper Machines Association in Frankfurt am Main;
  • Honorary member of the board of the Association of the Iron and Metal Industry Rhineland-Rheinhessen.
  • Member of the Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank .

Family and private

Villa Winkler in Rengsdorf. Built by the architect Curt Karl Rüschhoff

Richard Winkler was the youngest son of Alfred Winkler (1872-1945) and Karoline Heinrich (1871-1913). In his first marriage he was with Käthe Schommertz (1899–1953) and in his second marriage with Dr. rer. pole. Margarete Haape (1911–1972) married. Both marriages remained childless. Through his second wife, Winkler was close friends with the business journalist Robert Platow .

After Richard Winkler's house in Neuwieder "Bahnhofstrasse" was bombed out during the Second World War, he lived for rent in Rengsdorf at Andreestrasse 23. After the war, he bought a house at Bürgermeister-Wink-Straße 7 that had been destroyed by the war and had it rebuilt by the Neuwied architect Curt Karl Rüschhoff (1887–1969). This house was built by Rüschhoff together with neighboring houses in the 1930s.

In addition, Winkler owned a holiday home in Morcote (Arbostora district, Ticino , Switzerland ), which he had acquired in 1966 from the composer Gerhard Winkler (1906–1977) (not related).

literature

  • 25 years of Helios machines. Edited by Winkler & Dünnebier machine factory and iron foundry, Strüdersche Buchdruckerei, Neuwied 1938.
  • 50 years of Winkler + Dünnebier, 1913–1963. Edited by Winkler & Dünnebier machine factory and iron foundry, Hoppenstedts Wirtschafts-Archiv publishing house, Darmstadt 1963.
  • "50 years of Winkler & Dünnebier", in "Heimatkalender des Landkreis Neuwied - 1964", p. 133.
  • "Welcome to Winkler & Dünnebier", ed. Winkler & Dünnebier, Druck Strüder KG, Neuwied 1966
  • Festschrift Richard Winkler for his 70th birthday. Edited by Winkler & Dünnebier machine factory and iron foundry, Neuwied 1968.
  • 75 years of Winkler + Dünnebier, 1913–1988. Edited by Winkler & Dünnebier Maschinenfabrik und Eisengiesserei, Neuwied 1988.
  • Klara van Eyll , Renate Schwärzel: German Economic Archives. Volume 1, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-515-06211-4 , p. 304.
  • Hermann-Joseph Löhr: "Production started 100 years ago in the backyard: Alfred Winkler and Max Dünnebier founded an envelope factory in 1913", in "Landkreis Neuwied: Heimatjahrbuch - 2013", pp. 310-314.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Winkler, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Winkler, Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Heilbronn
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1972
Place of death Rengsdorf