Robert Kabelac

Robert Kabelac (born October 19, 1894 in Vienna , † October 28, 1976 in Braunlage ) was a German shipyard director.

biography

Kabelac was the son of a building councilor. He graduated from secondary schools in Brno and Vienna and studied shipbuilding and marine engineering at the Vienna University of Technology . During the First World War he served in the Joint Army of Austria-Hungary . In 1919 he obtained his diploma as a shipbuilding engineer. From 1920 to 1922 he worked at the Frerichswerft (from 1930 part of Deschimag ) in Einswarden and from 1922 to 1935 at AG Weser . In 1935 he became director and head of the mechanical engineering department at the Bremer Vulkan shipyard . He became a German citizen in 1935, but was not a member of the NSDAP . As a military economist and member of the main shipbuilding committee , he played an important role in arming the armed forces . Especially with the Vulkan subsidiary Vegesacker Werft , he converted the company into an efficient armaments company. During the Second World War , the Vegesack shipyard delivered 74 submarines of various types to the Navy . The Valentin submarine bunker, which he also initiated for building the Type XXI submarines , could not be completed by the end of the war in 1945 .

After the war, Kabelac organized the reconstruction of the Vulkan shipyard and was the managing director of the shipyard until 1960 . Fishing vessels and cargo ships, especially for Roland-Linie GmbH , a Lloyd subsidiary, initially determined the new building activity, before the company turned to large shipbuilding and also dealt with non-shipping orders. In 1958/59 he was President of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce . He was also a member of the supervisory board. a. at Flensburger Schiffbaugesellschaft, Bremer Straßenbahn AG , Germanischer Lloyd and Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt . He was a member of the Maritime Transport Advisory Board of the Federal Ministry of Transport . After leaving the board of directors, he was a member of the board of directors for Bremer Vulkan until 1965.

Since 1954 he was a commercial member of the Haus Seefahrt Foundation in Bremen and in 1965 founding president of the new Rotary Club in Bremen - Vegesack .

The ship M / S Robert Kabelac carried his name from 1962 to 1975.

Denazification process

The rapid denazification u. a. von Kabelac and the former AG Weser director Franz Stapelfeldt led to a scandal in the Chamber for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism in 1947 and to Hermann Prüser's (KPD) withdrawal from this body. Prüser, who was elected full-time employee of the Chamber at the suggestion of Wilhelm Kaisen , saw Kabelac and Stapelfeldt in their leading positions in the armaments industry under the Hitler regime as "jointly responsible for the catastrophic effects of Hitler's policy of robbery in all European countries" and refused from the fact that those responsible for industry should avoid conviction in the arbitration chamber proceedings , while “small, nameless and economically impotent officials and business people are punished”. Kabelac and Stapelfeldt therefore wanted to classify Prüser in the category of the main accused and accused and then found themselves under massive pressure within the committees because of this view. Thereupon he informed Kaisen on March 15, 1947 of his withdrawal from the chamber.

literature

• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Peter Kuckuk (ed.): Bremen large shipyards in the Third Reich . (Contributions to the social history of Bremen 15), Edition Temmen, 1993, ISBN 3-86108-203-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Haus Seefahrt website: merchants and guests of honor - guest list 1952–1966 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Jörg Wollenberg: Labor disputes and political strikes of the Bremen shipyard workers. Franz Stapelfeldt - from Hitler's supporter to resistance fighter? Democratic Publishing Cooperative (DVK) / Socialist Politics and Economy (spw), Berlin West / Bremen 1984, p. 78.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Hermann Prüser: Letter to the American military government, the Bremen Senate and the main committee for the liberation from National Socialism and militarism of March 15, 1947. in: Jörg Wollenberg: Labor disputes and political strikes of the Bremen shipyard workers. Franz Stapelfeldt - from Hitler's supporter to resistance fighter? Democratic Publishing Cooperative (DVK) / Socialist Politics and Economy (spw), Berlin West / Bremen 1984, p. 79.
4. ↑ Hermann Prüser: Letter to the American military government, the Bremen Senate and the main committee for the liberation from National Socialism and militarism from March 15, 1947. in: Jörg Wollenberg : Industrial strikes and political strikes of the Bremen shipyard workers. Franz Stapelfeldt - from Hitler's supporter to resistance fighter? Democratic Publishing Cooperative (DVK) / Socialist Politics and Economy (spw), Berlin West / Bremen 1984, p. 78ff.