Robert Artur Holst

Robert Artur Holst (born December 9 ^{. Jul} / 21st December  1885 ^greg. In the rural community Kambja , Livonia ; †  19th April 1943 in or near Tavda , Sverdlovsk Oblast , Soviet Union ) was one of the most influential Estonian entrepreneurs of the interwar period .

Entrepreneurship

Robert Artur Holst was born the son of a businessman in what is now southern Estonia. He graduated from secondary school in Tartu (German Dorpat ). He then studied law at the University of Tartu . He was a member of the Estonian Students Association ( Eesti Üliõpilaste Selts - EÜS ).

From 1909 Holst headed his father's business. In 1921 the Rob company relocated. Holst & Ko moved to the Estonian capital Tallinn ( Reval ) and became a public limited company . Robert Artur Holst was its director.

Holst became one of the owners of the company AS Silva after Estonian independence was declared . Founded in 1919 during the Estonian War of Independence , the company specialized in wood trading and wood processing. It was one of the largest economic enterprises in the Republic of Estonia and one of the most important export companies of the young republic. The company bought large pieces of forest in Estonia and operated numerous sawmills. The trade in agricultural equipment and fuels was added later. AS Silva was Shell's exclusive agent in Estonia. The corporation was also a leader in importing cars from the USA ( Studebaker and Erskine cars and Brockway trucks). The bankruptcy of the company in 1930/31 as a result of the global economic crisis hit the Estonian economy hard.

In March 1921 Robert Artur Holst founded the Estonian airline Aeronaut together with the Estonian aviator Jakob Tillo . In 1926 Tillo was killed in a plane crash, and the company filed for bankruptcy a year later.

From 1923 to 1940, Holst was a co-owner of OÜ Systema , an importer of office machines, bicycles and US vehicles for the company Hudson Motor Car Co. He was also a shareholder in the Tartu corporation AS H. Tõnisson & Ko , the Tartu credit union and director of Tallinn Aktienbank. In 1927, Holst founded the successful Riola confectionery factory . For some time Holst worked in the Ministry of Food and in the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Republic of Estonia. From 1920 and 1930 he was a member of the influential Tallinn Stock Exchange Committee ( Tallinna Stock Exchange Committee ).

From 1922 to 1932 Holst was Honorary Consul of the Republic of Austria in Tallinn.

Arrest and death

With the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Holst was arrested on June 14, 1941 and deported to Siberia . On July 1, 1942, an NKVD tribunal sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment. He died less than a year later in captivity in Sverdlovsk Oblast .

Web links

• CV (Estonian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.rotary.ee/index.php?frm_app_page=6&frm_app_action=1&frm_app_id=416
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.