Theodor Stiebel

Theodor Hermann Friedrich Stiebel (born February 28, 1894 in Braunschweig ; † September 9, 1960 in Holzminden , suicide) was a German entrepreneur and founder of the Dr. Theodor Stiebel Werke GmbH & Co. KG based in Berlin and later in Holzminden (Lower Saxony).

Life

Family and schooling

Theodor Stiebel was the only child of the district carpenter Hermann Friedrich Christian Stiebel (born November 30, 1856 in Ahlum , † 1915 in Braunschweig) and his wife Hermine Auguste Stiebel, nee. Beckmann (born July 8, 1868 in Brooklyn, USA ).

The father's family was based in Groß Denkte and Ahlum in the Wolfenbüttel district and worked in agriculture and crafts. His father worked as a district carpenter during the economic boom in the Duchy of Braunschweig and benefited from the brisk construction activity at the time. His mother's family owned a damask linen weaving and tailoring shop in Gandersheim ; emigrated to the USA and returned to Germany after 10 years. When Theodor Stiebel was three years old, his parents moved into a house they had built at Kalandstrasse 6 in Braunschweig in 1897. In 1908 Theodor Stiebel was confirmed in the St. Martini Church in Braunschweig.

From 1900 to 1904 he attended the Bürgerschule and then the Gaußschule , where he received his Abitur with distinction in the spring of 1913 . In 1913 he began studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig .

First World War

When the First World War broke out , he had to break off his studies and was drafted into the recruit depot of the Royal Prussian Railway Regiment No. 3 ( railway troops ) in Hanau on October 5, 1914 . The unit was commanded to Galicia , in the south of Poland, to Latvia and to Radviliškis in Lithuania and on January 22, 1915, the trip to the Eastern Front in East Prussia took place against the Imperial Russian Army . During this time his father died in his homeland. On July 27, 1916, Stiebel was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve. At the end of 1916 he was transferred to the fortress railway company No. 1 (EBetrK) , which was involved in the counter-offensive in Romania . Within a short time Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian troops conquered a large part of Romania. On December 6, 1916, the Central Powers took the Romanian capital Bucharest. From January 1917, Stiebel was assigned to the railway repair shop in Ploieşti , Romania, as a "machine officer" . From October 30, 1917, he then served as an adjutant in the Railway Special Company 6 in Syria . The unit built locomotive sheds and material depots for the Baghdad Railway, among other things, and was responsible for laying German full-gauge locomotives over the field gauge of the Anatolian Railway for use on the full- gauge width of the Baghdad Railway. Until the end of the war, Stiebel was mainly used along the Baghdad Railway ( Adana , Aleppo , Muslimiyya, Kurt-Kulac and Tall ar-Rifat). After the Battle of Megiddo (1918) and the Turkish armistice in October 1918, the withdrawal of German troops took place. Stiebel was first transported by motor vehicle and then by the Baghdad Railway, where (?) It did not arrive until November 16, 1918. This was followed by the onward journey with the Anatolian Railway to Istanbul Haydarpaşa Station , where his unit was interned by the Allies on November 21, 1918. On January 16, 1919, the billeting took place on the 1910 built steamer Lilly Rickmers . After taking in around 2,600 German soldiers, the ship left Constantinople on March 1, 1919 and arrived in Hamburg on March 22, 1919. On April 30, 1919, Stiebel was dismissed from the army and in the same year published the book The German Locomotive Driver in World Wars together with Georg Fodermayer and Josef Popper (both from Munich) . A book of honor for the German locomotive and workshop staff , published by Georg Koenig-Verlag in Berlin.

Study and company formation

Due to financial difficulties after the First World War, the parental home in Braunschweig had to be sold in 1919. His mother stayed in Braunschweig and moved to Kalandstraße 17, later to Campestraße 26 (today Ottmerstraße 9). Through the sale, Stiebel was also able to finance the resumption of his studies. In 1920 he graduated from the Technical University of Munich as a graduate engineer and, after an internship in Nuremberg in 1921, studied business administration at the Technical University of Berlin . From February 1, 1922 to March 31, 1924 he was assistant at the chair for machine tools and factory operations at the Technical University of Berlin and at the same time was doing his doctorate in political science and economics (Dr. rer. Pol.) At the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin . with the dissertation on "learning on a scientific basis as a factor in German economic life". In October 1923, Stiebel contacted his uncle Carl Reese in Holzminden and offered him the custom-made product for cooking appliances and electric radiators, which the Reese company then also produced until 1944. Working with Reese in construction planning and development resulted in the business idea of ​​a ring immersion heater instead of the piston immersion heater previously available on the market, which overheated very quickly.

On April 1, 1924, Theodor Stiebel then founded the company ELTRON Dr. with 20,000 Reichsmark starting capital in Berlin-Kreuzberg , Reichenberger Straße 143. Theodor Stiebel . According to the commercial register, the start of business was given on May 5, 1924. The borrowed capital for this came from his uncle Hermann Stiebel , who ran a hotel in Hamburg, and from his uncle Carl Reese , who owned a metal processing company (can factory) in Holzminden. With his patented invention of the first ring immersion heater as a hollow cylinder with a wall thickness of 3 millimeters, which was admired by visitors at the Leipzig spring fair in 1924 because of its fast heating-up and short cooling-off times , he laid the foundation for large-scale production and other products, which began in 1925. Carl Reese in Holzminden still produced the first hundred test samples for the fair. His cousin Paul Reese designed the first company logo.

→ Main article : Stiebel Eltron

Stiebel married for the first time in 1930 and divorced again in 1944. The marriage remained childless. In 1947 he married again and had a daughter with Margret Stiebel in his second marriage and the two later company heirs Frank Stiebel and Ulrich Stiebel (born September 10, 1949). In 1960 Theodor Stiebel committed suicide at the age of 66. His wife Margret later married the businessman Kurt Schön, who was also the managing director of Stiebel Eltron in the 1970s.

On his 60th birthday, Theodor Stiebel received the Federal Cross of Merit in 1954 .

literature

• Michael Birke: Stiebel Eltron - a medium-sized company. in: Niedersachsenbuch 2004. P. 134 f., Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport , Sales CW Niemeyer Druck, Hameln, ISSN  0946-5588 .
• Documentation 100 years of Theodor Stiebel 1994 - Stiebel Eltron 70 years. Frank and Ulrich Stiebel, February 28, 1994.

Web links

• Literature from and about literature from in the catalog of the German National Library