Robert Knoll

Robert Knoll (born January 26, 1912 in Vienna , † September 21, 1985 in Herrenberg ) was a German furniture and textile manufacturer.

Life

Robert Knoll was the eldest son of Walter Knoll and his wife Maria Knoll, nee Vollmöller, born in Vienna in early 1912. His mother was a sister of the poet and playwright Karl Gustav Vollmoeller , daughter of Kommerzienrat Robert Vollmöller .

After the outbreak of the First World War, at the beginning of August 1914, Robert Knoll returned to Stuttgart with his parents. He grew up in the Vollmoeller Villa on the Hasenbergsteige and at Hohenbeilstein Castle . Initially teaching privately, he was one of the first students to join the newly founded Schloss Salem boarding school in 1922, with his younger brother Hans Knoll , whose founders Kurt Hahn and Max Reinhardt with the Knoll and Vollmoeller families, particularly close to Robert Knoll's uncle , Karl Gustav Vollmoeller were friends.

After completing boarding school, Robert Knoll went to the USA from autumn 1934 until the end of 1935, where he spent several months in Hollywood at the invitation of Karl Vollmoeller, and got to know Josef von Sternberg , Erich von Stroheim , Greta Garbo and other Hollywood greats. On the east coast, Henry visited Ford , in whose company he did an internship on the assembly line. He returned to Germany via New York in 1935.

At the beginning of 1936 he joined his father's furniture factory, completed an apprenticeship as an upholsterer before he received a commercial apprenticeship. In mid-1937 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht , where he embarked on an officer career like his father. Robert Knoll experienced his first assignment in Czechoslovakia, which was occupied by the National Socialists. Here he finished his military training. With the rank of lieutenant he was used in the Russian campaign in 1941. After the Battle of Stalingrad, his company was transferred to Bessarabia and fought in Romania, the Balkans and Hungary. Robert Knoll saved several persecuted Jews in Russia and Romania and helped them to flee to South, Central or North America. Robert Knoll became a prisoner of war near Budapest in 1945, but was not taken to Siberia like his soldiers because of his critical health condition (TB), but was released.

In 1946 he re-entered his father's factory, which had been badly damaged by the war. In 1951 Robert Knoll left the company to work as managing director of "Knoll International Germany", the company of his brother Hans Knoll. In the same year Robert Knoll was one of the reform-oriented forces within the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Together with like-minded people he founded the "Working Group for Industrial Design". After his brother Hans had a fatal accident in Cuba in 1955, Robert Knoll left his company. In 1956 he took over his late mother's shares in "Walter Knoll Möbelfabrik" and in Vollmoeller AG . As a partner at Walter Knoll, he became a member of the management team; at Vollmoeller AG he was a member of the supervisory board. The chairman of the supervisory board was Deutsche Bank banker Trudbert Riesterer, who was later involved in the donation affair surrounding Merkle, chairman of the Bosch foundation board.

In 1959 Robert Knoll became a member of the Rotary club . In 1962 he took over the foundation of the Stuttgart Rotary Club as chairman. In this voluntary activity he proved to be a fundraiser, sponsor and sponsor of countless young scholarship holders. In his private life, like his grandfather Robert Vollmöller and his uncles Kurt and Karl Vollmoeller, he was an art collector and promoter of art and literature. His collection included important pictures by his uncle Hans Purrmann and his aunt Mathilde Vollmoeller . After Robert Knoll's death, most of these pictures became the property of the Purrmann Foundation. He often organized donation and purchase campaigns for artists and writers in need.

After the death of his father Walter Knoll, Robert Knoll took over his company shares in 1971. He also bought back the shares of his brother Hans Knoll, which were in the hands of his children. From autumn 1971, Robert Knoll led the Walter Knoll company as majority shareholder and managing director. At the same time he sold his block of shares in Vollmoeller AG. In 1983 Robert Knoll handed over the management of his company to his eldest son Michael Knoll. Together with Stephan Combe, the son of the minority shareholder Walter Combe, both continued the business.

After several months of serious illness, Robert Knoll died on September 21, 1985 in his house in Herrenberg, where he was buried in the family grave on September 24.

literature

• Donatella Cacciola: Modern classics: the rediscovered time - the re-editions of seating furniture in Germany and Italy and their reception. Dissertation. University of Delft, 2008.
• Christopher Oesterrich: Good Form in Reconstruction - On the History of Product Design in West Germany after 1945. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2000.
• Arno Votteler, Heinz Eilmann (eds.): 125 years of Knoll. Four generations of seating furniture design. Stuttgart / Zurich 1990.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christopher Oesterrich: Good Form in Reconstruction - On the History of Product Design in West Germany after 1945. Lukas Verlag, Berlin.
2. ↑ See Die Zeit of November 15, 1956.
3. ↑ See obituary v. September 25, 1985 Gäubote ; Obituaries September 25, 1985 Gäubote , Stuttgarter Zeitung .