Robert Pferdmenges

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Robert Pferdmenges in 1961 in the Bundestag

Robert Paul Pferdmenges (born March 27, 1880 in Mönchengladbach , † September 28, 1962 in Cologne ) was a German banker and politician ( CDU ).

family

Robert Pferdmenges was the second of nine children of the textile industrialist Wilhelm Albert Pferdmenges (1844–1898) and his wife Helene, nee. Croon, (1851-1930). In 1909 he married Dora geb. Bresges (1887-1970); The marriage resulted in two children, Heinrich "Heinz" Pferdmenges (1910–2010) and Ilse Bscher (1919–1992), mother of Thomas Bscher .

His sister-in-law Emma b. Croon was married to the factory owner Hermann Engels, brother of the economist and socialist social theorist Friedrich Engels .

Life and work

After attending school and doing military service with the Leibdragonern in Darmstadt, Pferdmenges completed an apprenticeship at the Bergisch-Märkische Bank . From 1901 he worked in the London branch of the Disconto-Gesellschaft , after a few years he became branch manager there. In 1913 he moved to the Antwerp branch of the same bank . Shortly afterwards he was committed to the reserve regiment of the Darmstadt Leibdragoner, again assigned to Antwerp for civil administration and returned to Cologne in 1919 as a cavalry master.

From 1919 to 1929 he was a member of the board of A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein Actiengesellschaft in Cologne; as chairman of the board of directors, he played a key role in the merger of Disconto-Gesellschaft with Deutsche Bank AG and became a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank. In 1931, at the instigation of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning , Pferdmenges became deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Dresdner Bank AG, and a year later he was also a member of an expert commission to set up state banking supervision. In 1932 he became a member of the General Council and the Central Committee of the Reichsbank, but resigned from the body a year later. Since 1921 he was chairman of the Association of Banks and Bankers in Rhineland and Westphalia; when the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he gave up the office.

In 1931 he moved to the Cologne bank Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. , of which he was a partner and personally liable partner from 1929 to 1953. In 1938, Nazi propaganda launched a newspaper campaign that gave the bank the choice of either giving up the Oppenheim name or being expropriated. At the beginning of 1938 the political and business pressure during the Aryanization became so strong that it was decided on May 20, 1938 to change the company to “Bankhaus Pferdmenges & Co.”. In May 1938, the bank informed its customers that "we will continue to run our company, which has existed since 1789, unchanged under the name Bankhaus Pferdmenges & Co". Robert Pferdmenges steered the bank through the turmoil of the Second World War . Waldemar and Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim remained co-owners and formally co-managing directors. But they no longer appeared on the outside. Between 1938 and 1947, Pferdmenges served as a placeholder for the owners of Jewish origin, the bank traded under the name Robert Pferdmenges & Co. and was thus able to continue the business of the bank for the owner family through the National Socialist period and place it again under the actual company name in 1947. In 1954, Pferdmenges retired from active business life at Sal. Oppenheim.

During the Nazi era, Pferdmenges belonged to a large number of supervisory boards of other companies, some as chairman of the supervisory board. After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he was arrested as part of the Grid Action and put by the Gestapo in the Berlin prisons on Lehrter and Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. He was banned from practicing his profession and placed under house arrest on his Lindenberg estate and under the supervision of an SS department. During the Weimar Republic, he was a member of the German Men's Club , an influential association of high-ranking conservative personalities.

In 1946, Pferdmenges was elected President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Cologne by the American occupation authorities , but was soon deposed by the British occupying power, which temporarily forbade him to hold any public office. In 1947 he was fully rehabilitated. From 1948 to 1951, he and Hermann Josef Abs ran the Flick Group in trust for Friedrich Flick . From 1951 to 1960 he was President of the Association of German Banks .

Robert Pferdmenges was a committed Protestant Christian all his life. He was close to the Confessing Church . From 1928 he was church master in the presbytery of the evangelical community in Cologne-Bayenthal and later a member of the provincial synod of the Rhineland. In addition, he was a member of the Kronberger Kreis , a circle of Protestant leaders as well as chairman of the supervisory board of the Evangelical Hospital Cologne-Lindenthal, member of the board of the General Association of Evangelical Churches in Cologne, member of the finance committee of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, member of the central committee for the internal mission of the German Evangelicals Church and member of the board of directors of the deaconry.

Pferdmenges was a member or chairman of the supervisory board in the following companies (as of 1954):

  • Aachen and Munich Fire Insurance Company, Aachen
  • General Electricity Company Berlin Colonia Kölnische Versicherungs AG, Cologne
  • Concordia Lebensversicherungs-AG, Cologne
  • Demag AG, Duisburg
  • Deutsche Centralbodenkredit AG, Cologne
  • Felten & Guilleaume Carlswerk AG, Cologne-Mülheim
  • Gladbacher Feuerversicherungs AG, M.-Gladbach
  • Gladbacher Wollindustrie AG, formerly L. Josten, Mönchengladbach
  • Harpener Bergbau AG, Dortmund
  • Kabelwerk Rheydt AG, Rheydt
  • Klöckner-Werke AG, Cologne
  • Kölnische Glas-Versicherungs-AH, Cologne
  • Cologne Reinsurance Company, Cologne
  • "National" Allgemeine Versicherungs AG, Lübeck
  • Nordstern Allgemeine Versicherungs AG, Cologne
  • August-Thyssen-Hütte AG
  • Rheinisch-Westfälische Boden-Credit-Bank, Cologne
  • Schoeller's worsted yarn spinning mill Eitorf AG, Eitorf (Sieg)
  • Rückversicherungs AG Colonia, Cologne
  • Nordstern Rückversicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft
  • United Stahlwerke AG, Düsseldorf
  • H. Bahlsen's Keksfabrik KG, Hanover
  • Pfeifer & Langen, sugar factory, Cologne-Elsdorf
  • United Seidenwebereien GmbH, Krefeld
  • Evangelical Hospital, Cologne-Lindenthal
  • Directorate of the Diakonie-Anstalten, Bad Kreuznach

He was previously a member of the supervisory board or chairman of the supervisory board in the following companies (as of 1954):

  • Mining AG Ewald - König - Ludwig
  • Deutsche Kabelwerke AG, Rheydt
  • Non-profit corporation for housing construction, Cologne
  • Central German steelworks, Berlin
  • Rheinische AG for lignite mining and briquette factory, Cologne
  • Rheinische Kunstseide AG, Krefeld
  • Köln-Bonner Eisenbahnen AG, Cologne
  • AG for mining, lead and tin production in Stolberg and in Westphalia, Aachen
  • Phoenix AG for mining and metallurgical operations, Düsseldorf
  • Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks AG, Essen
  • Rheinische Stahlwerke, Essen
  • Mechanical engineering companies AG, Duisburg
  • United Westdeutsche Waggonfabriken AG, Cologne
  • Stellawerk AG, Homberg on the Lower Rhine
  • Vigognespinnerei Pferdmenges & Herren AG, Mönchengladbach
  • United Spinnerei AG, Rheydt
  • Carl Schmöller & Co. AG, cotton spinning and twisting mill, Rheydt
  • Spinnerei und Weberei AG, Grevenbroich
  • Viersener AG for spinning and weaving, Viersen
  • Seiden AG, formerly Gebr. Liebmann and Oehme and M. Borchardt Nachfl., Cologne
  • Rheinischer Aktienverein für Zuckerfabrikation, Cologne

Political party

After the end of the war in 1945, Pferdmenges and his friend Konrad Adenauer were among the founders of the CDU in the Rhineland. In October 1946 he and Johannes Albers took over the leadership of the program committee of the Rhineland regional association of the CDU. He was a co-designer of the Ahlen program .

In 1954 he took part in the founding of the Citizens' Association of Cologne eV , the aim of which was to collect party donations for the CDU.

MP

Pferdmenges became a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1947 and represented the CDU in the Frankfurt Economic Council of the Bizone from 1947 to 1949 . From May 13, 1948, he was chairman of the committee for American business and a member of the preparatory committee for the National Union Bank, which was involved in the deliberations on currency reform.

On January 12, 1950, Pferdmenges replaced the late Günther Sewald in the German Bundestag . He then belonged to parliament as a member of parliament elected on the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia until his death in 1962. After Pferdmenges after the federal election in 1957 by Konrad Adenauer (CDU) and Marie Elisabeth Lueders ( FDP ) is the third oldest Member of the German Bundestag had been, he was transferred to the federal election in 1961 interim president of the 4th Bundestag since Konrad Adenauer because of his position as chancellor on renounced this dignity and the associated opening of the constituent session of parliament. From 1961 until his death he was chairman of the electoral committee according to § 6 of the law on the Federal Constitutional Court .

Along with Karl Atzenroth (FDP) and Willi judge ( SPD ) was Pferdmenges instrumental in the development of co-determination law (1951: Montan Co-Determination Act , 1952: Works Constitution Act : 1953 Personalvertretungsgesetz involved).

Robert Pferdmenges was considered Konrad Adenauer's most influential financial advisor and until his death remained the only close friend of the Chancellor whom he had known since 1919 and with whom he had been friends since the 1930s.

honors and awards

Fonts

  • The tasks of the banks in the current industrial situation . Kölner Verlagsanstalt, Cologne 1926.
  • The German economy. How it is and how it should be . DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1931.

Documentation

  • Jean-Michel Meurice: Black Kassen , documentary, ARTE France, Maha and Anthracite (2008, 70 min), France 2008

literature

  • Peter Fuchs: Only a few people from Cologne have ever seen Pferdmenges . In: Cologne themes . Greven, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7743-0292-8 .
  • Nikolaus Jakobsen: Robert Pferdmenges . Olzog, Munich 1957.
  • Christoph Silber-Bonz: Pferdmenges and Adenauer . Bouvier, Bonn 1997, ISBN 978-3-416-02714-4 .
  • Gabriele Teichmann:  Pferdmenges, Robert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 331 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Wilhelm Treue: The fate of the Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie and its owners in the Third Reich . Steiner, Wiesbaden 1983.
  • Wilhelm Treue: Robert Pferdmenges (1880–1962). In: Cologne entrepreneurs in the 19th and 20th centuries. (Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien, Volume 13.) Aschendorff, Münster 1986, pp. 203–222.
  • Volker Woschnik, Jan Wucherpfenning: Robert Pferdmenges, banker in turbulent times . In: Witnesses to the Urban Past . Volume 24. Mönchengladbach 2006, ISBN 3-936824-24-X .

Web links

Commons : Robert Pferdmenges  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Pferdmenges: Money out of the window , Der Spiegel 5/1954 of January 27, 1954, accessed on December 26, 2019
  2. ↑ a b c d e Teichmann, Gabriele, "Pferdmenges, Robert" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 20 (2001), pp. 331-332 , Deutsche Biographie , accessed on December 26, 2019
  3. ^ Historical seminar at the University of Cologne: History in Cologne , Volume 10, 1984, p. 171.
  4. ↑ Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz: Cologne and Rhenish Judaism: Festschrift Germania Judaica, 1959-1984 , 1984, p. 155
  5. ↑ Manfred Pohl, Sabine Freitag (eds.): Handbook On The History Of European Banks , 1994, p. 454 ( books.google.de ).
personal data
SURNAME Pferdmenges, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pferdmenges, Robert Paul (baptismal name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker and politician (CDU), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Mönchengladbach
DATE OF DEATH September 28, 1962
Place of death Cologne