Victor Weidtman (lawyer)

Viktor Weidtman

Victor Weidtman (born September 18, 1853 in Elberfeld (today in Wuppertal ), † December 17, 1926 in Berlin ) was a German industrial lawyer. Above all, he campaigned for the miners' associations.

Life

Weidtman's parents were the legal counsel Joseph Wolfgang Hubert Weidtman and his wife Margaretha geb. Wallerath . A distant relationship to Julius Weidtman, the founder of Maschinenfabrik Deutschland, and the descent from the Ratinger organ building family Weidtman is suspected.

Victor Weidtman attended the Elberfeld grammar school , the Rheinbach municipal grammar school and the Engelbert Kaempfer grammar school in Lemgo . He then studied law at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn , the Universität Leipzig and the Friedrichs-Universität Halle . He was a member of the Corps Lusatia Leipzig , Rhenania Freiburg and Guestphalia Bonn . He received his doctorate in law (Dr. jur.). After completing his military service, he took up the position of court trainee on June 9, 1877. On November 22, 1882, he was appointed court assessor at the Barmen District Court .

Then he settled as a lawyer in Elberfeld. In the administration of indirect taxes in Cologne and Aachen, he worked in 1884 in the rank of government assistant . In 1885 he moved to Saarbrücken and took up the position of legal advisor at the Royal Mining Directorate in Saarbrücken . In 1887 he was named a mountain ridge. On January 1, 1888, he became the first legal advisor to the Oberbergamt Dortmund .

He was married to Adele Grach (1862–1944), daughter of the Trier Supreme Court President Emmerich Grach and his wife Franziska Holinglus-Pypels. The couple had three daughters and two sons together. The daughter Maria (* 1886) married the district judge Hugo Cadenbach , whose son was the later Aachen private banker and diplomat Hugo Cadenbach . One of the two sons was Hans Weidtman , who later worked for Deutsche Bank in Sofia and Istanbul . The Weidtman family acquired Rahe Castle in Laurensberg in 1908 , which remained in the family until 1979.

Adele Weidtman was made an honorary citizen of Laurensberg in 1932 as a benefactor and sponsor of what was then the Laurensberg home association , and a street was named after her.

Victor Weidtman died at the age of 73 and was buried in Aachen.

Services

The miners' strike of 1889 broke out shortly after he took office at the Dortmund Oberbergamt . Weidtman was asked to investigate the causes. He also supervised the miners' support organizations and in this function contributed to the merger of the Märkisches, Essen-Werden'schen and Mülheimer Knappschaftsverein to form the Allgemeine Knappschafts-Verein zu Bochum in 1890. The transfer of the disability and employee insurance under the Reich law to the association also goes back to Weidtman. On behalf of the Prussian Ministry of Commerce, he acquired the Waltrop and Vereinigte Gladbeck collieries , for which he was awarded the title of Secret Mountain Ridge in 1901.

On July 1, 1893, he left civil service and became director of the Schüchtermann & Kremer machine factory in Dortmund, which primarily produced machines for mining. At the same time he was appointed to the board of the General Knappschaftsverein. In 1895 he assumed duties as a general representative of the Schüchtermann-Schiller'schen Family Foundation, which included the company assets of the Schüchtermann & Kremer machine factory. Not far from the factory was the Dortmund zinc smelter of the mining and zinc factory in Stolberg and in Westphalia under the direction of Wilhelm von der Heydt, who was also from Elberfeld. To what extent Weidtman was active there at this time is doubtful, but a commemorative publication from the Dortmund Chamber of Commerce and Industry names him as a representative of the zinc smelter and not of the Schüchtermann factory.

Weidtman was appointed honorary secretary at the Dortmund Chamber of Commerce on December 8, 1897, and on September 22, 1903 he was elected to the unpaid Dortmund city council. Politically, he was active in the German People's Party . As early as November 11, 1903, he resigned his office at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce because he wanted to leave the Schüchtermann & Kremer company. His successor was Ernst Schweckendieck.

On January 1, 1904, he moved back to Elberfeld and thus also lost his mandate in Dortmund. In Elberfeld he became managing director of the Bergisch-Märkische Bank . In April 1906 he became chairman of the General Miners' Association, in July of the same year he became director general of Society of Mining and zinc production of Stolberg and Westphalia to Aachen , where he spent 20 years, most recently as a member of the Supervisory Board . In Aachen, too, he again took on tasks in the local chamber of commerce.

At the same time he made great contributions to the welfare of the miners' insurance . In recognition of these activities, he became a member of the Prussian mansion in 1910, out of “the highest of confidence for life”. In 1916 he succeeded in merging all of the Prussian miners 'associations to form the miners' reinsurance association. After the First World War he prepared the draft law for the Reichsknappschaftsgesetz . In 1919 he was elected to the Weimar National Assembly as a member of the Cologne-Aachen constituency. With the adoption of the Reichsknappschaftsgesetz in 1923, he was appointed Reich Commissioner for the implementation of the Reichsknappschaftsgesetz. Despite his old age, he accepted this honorary position, just as he became President of the Aachen Chamber of Commerce and Industry a year later .

Victor Weidtman held several supervisory board mandates, primarily in the coal and steel industry , but also for example at Deutsche Bank . He belonged to the Association for Mining Interests in the Upper Mining District Dortmund and the Zechenverband .

Awards

The Technical University of Aachen awarded him an honorary doctorate in engineering (Dr.-Ing.Eh). In 1923 he received an honorary doctorate in medicine (Dr. med. H. C.) From the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn for his services to the health of miners.

literature

• Eduard Arens, Wilhelm Leopold Janssen : Club Aachener Casino , new ed. by Elisabeth Janssen and Felix Kuetgens . 2nd Edition. Druck Metz, Aachen 1964, pp. 212-213.
• Herrmann AL Degener (Ed.): Who is it? Our contemporaries . 9th edition. Degener, Berlin 1928.
• Cuno Horkenbach (Ed.): The German Reich from 1918 to today . Publishing house for press, economy and politics, Berlin 1930.
• (Title unknown) . In: Association for mining interests, German mining technology for raw materials, energy, environment (ed.): Glückauf . tape 128 . VGE Verlag, July 9, 1992.

Web links

• Victor Weidtman in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 93 , 563; 35 , 42; 12 , 801.
2. ↑ Aachener streets and their stories .
3. ^ ^{A b c} Barbara Gerstein: Weidtman, Victor. In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund. Volume 2. Klartext Verlag, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-677-4 , p. 138 ff.