Rudolf Rempel (industrialist)

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Rudolf Rempel

Rudolf Rempel (born May 31, 1815 in Bielefeld , † August 28, 1868 in Kissingen ; full name: Rudolf Heinrich Clamor Friedrich Rempel ) was a German businessman , entrepreneur and local politician .

Life

The son of Hieronymus Friedrich Rempel (1772–1825) and his first wife Auguste Friederike Rempel born. Schwarz (1781–1835) was baptized Protestant on June 14, 1815 in Bielefeld-Neustadt.

Rempel learned the trade at the Bielefeld trading company Bertelsmann & Sohn and after completing his apprenticeship worked there for three years as a commercial clerk. At the age of 21 he started his own retail business . He later ran a linen business with a partner and took a stake in the Reese & Co. glass factory and, as a co-founder, in the Baer & Rempel sewing machine factory (“Phoenix sewing machines”).

In addition to his commercial activity, Rempel was very involved in local politics. He was the financier of the left-democratic to early socialist weekly Das Westphälische Dampfboot . He specifically campaigned for an improvement in the living conditions of the linen weavers, who had got into great hardship due to the advancing machine production.

He devoted himself to the enhancement and promotion of industrial life and in 1847 founded the company “Eintracht Bielefeld” e. V., in which all of Bielefeld's estates were represented without distinction and of which he remained director until his death.

Inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution , he wrote numerous articles for various newspapers and magazines in the Ravensberg region , in which he strongly represented his republican sentiments. He put the weekly magazine Der Volksfreund published by him under the motto “Freedom, prosperity, education for everyone”. In his demands for popular sovereignty and a constitution on the broadest democratic basis , Rempel went to the extreme limit in the German Revolution of 1848/1849 . He was soon known as the "Robespierre of Bielefeld". In exchange for a reward of 200 Reichstalers , he was wanted on a wanted list. He escaped his arrest by fleeing to Paris . Rempel was in correspondence with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and probably knew both of them personally.

A year later (1849) acquitted by the jury in Münster , he returned to his hometown Bielefeld. Around 1862 he led the Bielefeld Liberals. A celebratory event on October 18, 1862 "closed with a cheer for the solidarity of the bourgeoisie and peasant class against the feudal nobility and junkerism " .

Rempel stood up for the well-being of the city of Bielefeld as a long-time city ​​councilor , district councilor and multiple chairman of the city council assembly. In the city's school board of trustees, he participated in the expansion and improvement of the Bielefeld school system.

Rempel married Minna geb. Vaerhof (born September 8, 1819 in Ummeln , † November 20, 1867 in Bielefeld). His son was the chemist of the same name Rudolf Rempel (1859–1893), the inventor of the mason jars.

Rempel died at the age of 53 during a spa stay in Kissingen and was buried in the old cemetery in Bielefeld.

Honors

In 1963, a reorganization of the commercial vocational schools in Bielefeld resulted in the Rudolf-Rempel-Schule , named after Rempel , today the Rudolf-Rempel-Berufskolleg , a commercial school with around 4800 students.

Rudolf Rempel Award

The Association of Friends of the Vocational College has been awarding the Rudolf Rempel Prize for outstanding democratic and social engagement in the spirit of Rudolf Rempel since 2009 . The sponsorship award is endowed with 200 euros, based on the 200 Reichstaler.

Prize winners:

  • 2009: Lukas Schröder

literature

  • E. Friedr. Schnake: In memory of Rudolph Rempel. Character image of a folk man. Krüger'sche Buchdruckerei, Dortmund 1869.
  • Reinhard Vogelsang, Henrich Wiethüchter: Rudolf Rempel (1815–1868). In: Wolfhard Weber (ed.) Bielefeld entrepreneurs from the 18th to the 20th century. (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien , Volume 14.) Aschendorff, Münster 1991, pp. 143–162.
  • Uwe Synowski: "Against lies and hypocrisy". Rudolf Rempels journalistic activity in Vormärz (1844-1848). In: 77th Annual Report of the Historical Association for the County of Ravensberg, 1989, pp. 45–70 (digitized city archive Bielefeld). Retrieved February 23, 2019 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herford District Gazette from October 22, 1862.
personal data
SURNAME Rempel, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rempel, Rudolf Heinrich Clamor Friedrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman, entrepreneur and local politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Bielefeld
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1868
Place of death Kissingen