Robert Wetzlar

Robert Wetzlar

Robert Wetzlar (born May 12, 1847 in Aachen , † September 1, 1912 in Eupen , today East Belgium ) was a German entrepreneur and founder.

Live and act

Robert Wetzlar was the son of the spa doctor Lazarus Wetzlar (1810–1880) from Bonn , who worked in Aachen and whose parents had run a general store there. The family was of Jewish descent and had taken the name of the Hessian town of Wetzlar , where they originally lived.

After completing school, Robert Wetzlar first completed a commercial apprenticeship in Aachen. Then he took part in the years 1870/1871 with the 2nd Guard Regiment in the Franco-German War . A year later he joined the Wilhelm Peters & Cie cloth factory in Eupen, which at the time was part of the German Empire . Peters quickly recognized his abilities and took him on January 1st, 1873 into the commercial management of the company and made him a partner. In 1880 Wetzlar married the twenty-year-old Mathilde Peters (1860–1936), the daughter of the company's founder Wilhelm Peters, for whom he converted from Judaism to Protestantism. The marriage remained childless.

Main building of the Kammgarnwerke AG

Under the leadership of Wetzlar, several regional textile entrepreneurs founded Kammgarnwerke AG in 1906 , which became one of the most modern worsted yarn spinning mills in Europe and was elected chairman of the supervisory board. In doing so, Wetzlar repeatedly showed a feeling for the concerns of the workers not only in his factory, but also in the other plants in the city. He was called on several times as a strike mediator whenever there were protests or work stoppages in any plant.

In addition, Wetzlar had been a member of the city council since 1886 and had been a member of the Eupen Chamber of Commerce since 1879 , which he headed as president from 1890 to 1912. Several times he resisted attempts to merge with the Aachen Chamber of Commerce . During his tenure he intensified himself for the local cloth and cable industry and the expansion of several light rail connections , including the steam Vizinalbahn from Eupen to Dolhain in 1897 and the tram connection to Aachen in 1906. The latter was electrified in 1910 and to Herbesthal as well later extended to Verviers . The Prussian Eupen was thus connected to the Belgian railway network, which was of particular importance for the regional economy.

Wetzlar School in Eupen

In 1905 Robert Wetzlar donated a technical and commercial college for boys and girls to the city of Eupen , combined with a housekeeping school . Like his wife and a large part of the family, he has been part of the school board from the very beginning and personally takes care of the organization, teaching content, teaching staff and students. After the First World War and the subsequent cession of the Eupen and Malmedy districts to Belgium as a result of the Versailles Treaty , the future of the school was uncertain, also because the Aachen Association for the Promotion of Labor had cut the annual funding for the maintenance of the school due to the Belgian takeover. Thereupon Robert Wetzlar's wife and meanwhile widow Mathilde Wetzlar-Peters arranged that the endowment of the Robert-Wetzlar-Foundation was to be dissolved on June 25th, 1919 and, after long negotiations, transferred to the city of Bonn, which set up a new school there with the money. This was inaugurated on October 1, 1921 as the Robert Wetzlar School and is now officially called the Robert Wetzlar Vocational College of the City of Bonn . At the same time the widow sold the former school building in Eupen of the Belgian Army, which this under the name of Caserne Sous-Lieutenant Antoine took in the 1929 to 1940 the 2nd and 4th Regiment of Carabinieres Cyclistes and since 1947 the Royal Military Institute of Physical Education moved .

Gravesite Robert Wetzlar and Mrs. Mathilde

In addition, in 1911 Robert Wetzlar donated a piece of land in the Hilltal to the city of Eupen as well as the necessary capital from the Wetzlar Foundation , which should be used for the construction of a swimming pool and bathing establishment. Politically and economically difficult times before, during and after the First World War, however, meant that the city of Eupen was only able to build the planned outdoor pool in 1934 with significant support from Kammgarnwerke AG , which was eventually given the name Wetzlarbad . After Belgium was annexed by the National Socialists of Germany, the bath was temporarily called Waldbad from 1940 onwards by Robert Wetzlar because of its Jewish past , but was given its old name again after 1945. This bath was closed in 2014 in order to be converted into a modern combination bath in the future .

Thanks to his entrepreneurial success and his foundation, Robert Wetzlar was appointed secret councilor of commerce in 1905 . In 1911, a year before his death, the city of Eupen granted him honorary citizenship. In 1975 a street in Eupen was named after him.

Robert Wetzlar, like his wife Mathilde later, found his final resting place in the city cemetery in Eupen.

literature

• Marga van den Heuvel: The fine cloth: Ups and downs in the cloth industry using the example of the Wilhelm Peters family of textile entrepreneurs from Eupen and Aachen from 1830 to 1970 , Grenz-Echo Verlag, Eupen 2014, ISBN 978-3-86712-089-0 .
• Sabine Haring: Who was Robert Wetzlar , in: Geschichtliches Eupen , Volume XL, Eupener Geschichts- und Museumsverein (ed.), Grenzecho Verlag Eupen 2006, p. 51/52.
• Sabine Haring: Mathilde Wetzlar: the woman at his side , in: Geschichtliches Eupen, Volume XL, Eupener Geschichts- und Museumsverein (ed.), Grenzecho Verlag Eupen 2006, pp. 53-58.

Web links

• Leo Kever: 100 years ago Robert Wetzlar died in Grenz-Echo on February 8, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Leo Kever: Eupener Kammgarnwerke; Robert Wetzlar's plan was realized 100 years ago ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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. in Grenz-Echo from September 20, 2008 
2. ↑ Volker Klinges: 200 years IHK in Grenzecho from April 29, 2004
3. ^ Robert Wetzlar Vocational College Bonn
4. ↑ Eupen.be: Former trade school used as a barracks ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 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. 
5. ↑ The Wetzlarbad in Eupen , on saarland.de
6. ↑ The Eupener Wetzlarbad was an attraction for decades , in: Ostbelgien direkt from April 2, 2013
7. ↑ Honors of the city of Eupen ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2015 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.