Rudolf Gelpke (engineer)

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Rudolf Arnold Gelpke (born October 5, 1873 in Basel , † January 12, 1940 in Waldenburg ) was a Swiss engineer , shipping pioneer , politician and publicist .

Life

Rudolf Gelpke attended grammar school and upper secondary school in Basel. As a machinist, Gelpke had sailed the Rhine himself on barges and ships wherever the river was already navigable in his day. From 1892 to 1896 he studied at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum in Zurich (among others with Conradin Zschokke ) and graduated in 1896 as a civil engineer. He worked as a civil engineer in tunnel construction and in shipping at home and abroad. The writings of the Ticino engineer Giovanni Rusca were formative for him.

On June 2, 1904, he took the tugboat “Knipscheer IX” with the barge “Christina” to Basel to prove that the Upper Rhine was navigable. He supplied the St. Johann gas works with coal. In cooperation with the Association for Shipping on the Upper Rhine , he was a driving force behind the construction of the Rhine ports of St. Johann (1906–1911) and Kleinhüningen (until 1922).

He campaigned for shipping all his life and also initiated the establishment of the Basler Personenschifffahrts-Gesellschaft , which was made in 1924 by the aforementioned association. The cooperative could not withstand the competition with Basler Rheinschifffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft and had to be liquidated after four years. In 1968 BPG was re-established as a public limited company .

As a member of the bourgeois progress party and, from 1919, the farmers, trade and citizens' party , Rudolf Gelpke was also politically active. From 1908 to 1912 he was a member of the Basel Grand Council , and after the parliamentary elections from 1917 to 1935 he was a member of the National Council .

Gelpke fountain 1946, by Willy Hege (1907–1976), fountain inscription “The pioneer of Swiss Rhine shipping Rudolf Gelpke”
Willy Heges Gelpke fountain from 1946

In 1920 Gelpke was awarded an honorary doctorate from the TH Karlsruhe . The Gelpke fountain at the Swiss Transport Hub Museum and our way to the sea was created in 1941–1943 by Willy Hege on behalf of the Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt . On the occasion of the conclusion of the international shipping conference in 1945, the Gelpke fountain in the Rheinhafen Kleinhüningen was unveiled. The stone sculpture shows a figurehead as they once "rushed forward" on the bow of old sailing yachts. It is intentionally set up up the Rhine and is supposed to show how, on behalf of Gelpke's will, it also fights against the current. The fountain is intended to be a reminder of Gelpke, who was a great sponsor of large shipping on the Upper Rhine. The inscription on the fountain reads "To the pioneer of Swiss Rhine shipping Rudolf Gelpke". Thanks to his ambitious efforts, shipping on the Upper Rhine has not been discontinued in favor of the emerging railway. He co-founded the Swiss Maritime Association.

Gelpke's son was the Islamic scholar and journalist Rudolf Gelpke .

literature

The connections

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Rhine shipping and the Basel ports. 1914. The Bern Week in words and pictures, accessed on June 27, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Basler Brunnenführer: Gelpke-Brunnen. Retrieved May 21, 2016 .
  3. ^ Roland Brechbühl: Rudolf Gelpke. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . January 11, 2018 , accessed May 21, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Gelpke, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gelpke, Rudolf Arnold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss engineer, shipping pioneer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1940
Place of death Waldenburg