Valentin Pfeifer (entrepreneur)

Valentin Pfeifer, born in Düren, around 1865

Valentin Pfeifer's grave in Muffendorf

Valentin Pfeifer (born December 22, 1837 in Düren , † November 14, 1909 in Cologne ) was a German entrepreneur in the sugar and engine industry ( Deutz gas engine factory ). The Pfeifer & Langen company has been family-owned since it was founded.

Life and family

Valentin Pfeifer was the second child of Düren paper manufacturer and later Cologne sugar -Fabrikanten Emil Pfeifer , born and his first wife Maria Emma, born Hoesch (1814-1845) in Düren. Maria Emma came from the mining and smelting works family Hoesch . Valentin studied philosophy in Berlin and economics in Bonn. He married on May 12, 1866 in Berlin , born Hedwig Amalie Adelheid, born Matzerath (born March 4, 1866 in Berlin, † 27 November 1911 in Cologne ). Hedwig's parents were Christian Joseph Matzerath from Linnich and Amalie Auguste Pauline , born in Berlin , was born. Leo (1821-1853). Christian Joseph Matzerath was a secret councilor and member of the management of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company .

Valentin and Hedwig had four children:

• Max Valentin (1867–1871) died of complications from dysentery.

• Pauline Elisabeth (1869–1953) married Joseph Mayer (1857–1914) in 1890, son of a wealthy family in and near Cologne. There were four children from this marriage.

• Pauline Marie (1872–1953) was the third child. In 1891 she married Dr. Carl Joest (1858–1942), who came from an old Cologne family who were among the pioneers of the Rhenish sugar industry. From this marriage there were four children.

• Max Valentin Eugen (1875–1942), born in Ossendorf , married Wilhelmine Else , née Andreae (1879–1962), daughter of the manor owner Paul Christoph Andreae and his wife Emmy, née Peltzer, who was born in Belgium in 1903 .

From this marriage there were four children:

• Hedwig Irene Adelheid (1904–2000) was born on the Sittarder Hof near Elsdorf . She remained unmarried and was active in charitable services.

• Herbert Valentin (1905–1943) was born on the Sittarder Hof. He married Margarete Jankowski in 1937, the marriage remained childless. Herbert joined Pfeifer & Langen in 1932 , where he became the second director at the Elsdorf plant after an induction period. He died in the Soviet Union during World War II .

• Hedwig (called "Heidy") Margot Eugenie Anna (1907–1972) was born in Cologne. In 1929 she married Dr.-Ing. Conrad Freiherr von Gienanth (* 1903) from Eisenberg / Pfalz . He fell on the Eastern Front on May 12, 1942. This marriage resulted in three children.

• Max Joachim Friedrich August (1915–2000) was born in Cologne. In 1939 he married the Swiss woman Gabrielle de Courten from Sion . This marriage resulted in two sons, Marco in 1940 and Manfred in 1942. Joachim joined the Pfeifer & Langen company in 1943, became head of the Elsdorf plant in 1945 and joined the management team in 1956.

In 1903, Max Pfeifer became a personally liable partner at Pfeifer & Langen, where he was a member of the management committee until his death. Like his father and grandfather, he was a shareholder in Deutz AG , but he did not hold any offices there.

In 1910 Max inherited the Sittarder Hof near Elsdorf, which his mother had brought into the family. Max had the property expanded into a representative mansion by Paul Otto August Baumgarten . (The Sittarder Hof was evacuated in 2010 and fell victim to lignite mining.)

Residences

In addition to his villa in Rochusstrasse near Frohnhof in (Cologne-) Ossendorf on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring (No. 31), Pfeifer had a representative palace that he had built for himself by the Cologne architect Hermann Otto Pflaume . It was demolished around 1931 because building and land speculation no longer allowed such properties on the rings. The Frohnhof was bought by the city in 1934 and the park was turned into a public green area, which, owing to the zeitgeist, was called Richthofen Park .

At the end of 1898, Pfeifer and his son-in-law Joseph Mayer bought the former Kommende Muffendorf in Muffendorf, above Bad Godesberg . During the summer months, the families took up quarters in Muffendorf. In the last years of his life, the representative castle became his summer residence. Valentin's half-brother Eugen Pfeifer also acquired a manor in the Bonn district of Friesdorf in 1897/98 - called the "Tusculum" family - the Annaberg house

Valentin Pfeifer and his wife Hedwig are buried in the cemetery near the church of Alt St. Martin in Muffendorf / Bad Godesberg (today Bonn ). The grave site is looked after by the family and is a protected nature and monument.

Act

In 1865 he became a partner in his father Emil's company in Cologne, and the company also hired the young engineer Eugen Langen as technical director. In 1870 these three founded the company Pfeifer & Langen , based in Cologne, which set up a modern beet sugar factory in Elsdorf and a little later (1879) in Euskirchen . The two young partners of about the same age, Valentin and Eugen, harmonized well with the experienced senior Emil Pfeifer. As early as 1872, these three took part in the Deutz gas engine factory of the engineer Nicolaus Otto . Valentin Pfeifer also managed the family's agricultural goods, in particular the Frohnhof in Cologne-Ossendorf and the former Sittarder Hof in Elsdorf, where mainly sugar beets were grown.

He showed political commitment from 1874 to 1888 as a member of the council of the Müngersdorf mayor , which was still independent until 1888 , to which the still small Ossendorf belonged.

Foundations

Memorial at the cemetery in Sommerau, erected on April 24, 2019

Valentin Pfeifer (1763–1840), born in Sommerau

• In 1903/1904 Valentin Pfeifer financed the construction and establishment of a public library in Cologne-Ehrenfeld.
• In 1905, Valentin Pfeifer donated 100,000 marks to the “Pfeifer-Stift” in Elsdorf for the care of the elderly and the sick. It still exists today in a modified form and with new buildings as a retirement home.
• In 1906 Valentin Pfeifer donated 10,000 marks - although not Catholic - for the new building of the Catholic parish church St. Laurentius in Sommerau , the birthplace of his grandfather Valentin Pfeifer . His three siblings Marie Hoesch, Eugen Pfeifer and Johanna von Gescher also contributed 3,500 marks to this summer church project.

Honors

• Like his father Emil , Valentin Pfeifer was appointed councilor of commerce in 1894 .
• A street in Elsdorf is named after the industrialist.
• In 1907 he became an honorary citizen of Sommerau because of his financial contributions for the new church building .

Literature / sources

• Ulrich S. Soenius, Jürgen Wilhelm (Hrsg.): Kölner Personen-Lexikon (entry Pfeifer, Valentin) . Greven, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 .
• Heinrich Philip Bartels: 100 years of Pfeifer & Langen (1870–1970) . Pfeifer & Langen, Cologne 1970.
• Heinrich Philip Bartels: Chronicle of the Pfeifer family , around 1975 (only published in the family circle)
• Otto Pfeifer: Historical house book of Sommerau. Hinckel-Druck, Wertheim, ed. Markt Eschau, self-published, 2010.
• Otto Pfeifer: The history of the parish and the churches of St. Laurentius Sommerau. Hinckel-Druck, Wertheim, ed. Markt Eschau, self-published, 2012.
• Otto Pfeifer: Chronicle of the Pfeifer Sommerau family. , Self-published, 2017.
• Godesberger Heimatblätter, Issue 29 (1992), pages 164-165, Association for Homeland Care and Local History Bad Godesberg .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hope for the copper beech , Heribert Rösgen, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, August 13, 2010 (accessed June 2016)
2. ↑ Note: The mayor's office was founded as Mairie in the French era in the canton of Weiden .
3. ↑ Alexander Karpf: Von Sommerau in die Welt In: Spessart, May 2019, pp. 6-15.