Walter Albert Bauer

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Walter Albert Bauer (born November 6, 1901 in Heilbronn , † November 1, 1968 in Fulda ) was a German entrepreneur and industrialist .

Life

Bauer was the son of a leather dealer. In his hometown Heilbronn he attended the secondary school there , which he left with the secondary school leaving certificate in 1917 , and then completed a commercial apprenticeship and a bank traineeship at the Handels- und Gewerbebank Heilbronn .

From 1920 he studied economics in Freiburg im Breisgau , Berlin and Tübingen , initially as an associate student . He made up for his Abitur towards the end of his studies. 1926 Walter Bauer was at the University of Tübingen Dr. rer. pole. PhD. In 1924 he joined the Berliner Verkehrs- und Handels AG as an assistant manager. The company belonged to the Czech lignite magnate Julius Petschek and served as the management company for his numerous holdings in Germany. As early as 1928, Bauer was promoted to a member of the company's management board. In the same year he also became managing director of the Thuringian coal and briquette sales company in Leipzig.

Bauer was a leading member of the DDP and belonged to various committees and bodies of the party until its self-dissolution . As a trustee of the Julius Petschek heirs, he managed the sale of the family's German shareholdings to Friedrich Flick in 1937/38 . Then in 1938 he started his entrepreneurial independence as the main shareholder of Hutstoffwerke Fulda Muth & Co. in Fulda and other small companies.

During the time of National Socialism , Walter Bauer joined the opposition Confessing Church and worked there in the provisional management. He also became a member of the Freiburg Bonhoeffer Circle . In 1942 he participated in the drafting of the memorandum Political Community Order of the Bonhoeffer Circle. After the Hitler assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Walter Bauer was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo . He was charged with high treason and treason before the People's Court and was imprisoned from October 1944 to April 1945. Due to the chaos of the war, there was no longer any conviction.

As a politically unencumbered businessman and also a close friend of Theodor Heuss , who later became the first German Federal President , Walter Bauer soon took on important tasks in the reorganization of the West German economy after the end of the war in 1945. In 1946/47 he was a member of the economic council at the state council in Stuttgart and from 1946 to 1951 general trustee for the group-bound coal trade in the US-American zone of occupation . From 1952 until his death in 1968, Bauer served as CEO of Valentin Mehler AG in Fulda, and from 1967 he was also the main shareholder. In 1966 he co-founded the working group of Protestant entrepreneurs and was its first chairman. Bauer donated the Creation Window (northern choir window) created by Charles Crodel to the Kilian's Church in Heilbronn and the paraments designed by Crodel for the Nikolaikirche there .

Since the late 1940s, Walter Bauer held leading positions in numerous associations and organizations, including from 1949 to 1968 as a member of the Synod , the Chambers for Public Responsibility and Social Order, and since 1967 of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) . From 1959 to 1967 he was a member and from 1960 to 1967 chairman of the advisory board of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation . From 1957 to 1968 he was President of the Fulda Chamber of Commerce and Industry .

Awards

The University of Tübingen appointed Bauer 1952 Honorary Senator , the University of Freiburg in 1957. On his 60th birthday president awarded him Lubke the Federal Cross of Merit . The city of Fulda made Bauer an honorary citizen in 1967 and named a street after him.

literature

  • Theodor Eschenburg : Without office and mandate. Walter Bauer, who was always quiet politically, is sixty years old. In: Die Zeit , November 3, 1961.
  • Johannes Michael Wischnath: Bauer, Walter Albert . In: Baden-Württemberg biographies . Volume 2. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 978-3-17-017332-3 , pp. 16-19 ( online at www.leo-bw.de )
  • Christhard Schrenk (ed.) Entrepreneur Walter Bauer in: Heilbronner Köpfe VIII. Life pictures from the 19th and 20th centuries, Heilbronn City Archives 2016, ISBN 978-3-940646-22-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heilbronn in the Ruhr authority . In: Heilbronner Voice , October 22, 1949
  2. ^ Nils Goldschmidt: Economy, Politics and Freedom. Freiburg economists and the resistance. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 473.
  3. ↑ Bernd Ottnad: Baden-Württemberg Biographies. Volume 2. Kohlhammer, 1996, p. 17.
  4. ↑ Walter Bauer Munzinger Archive , accessed on November 29, 2019
  5. ^ Frieder Günther: Theodor Heuss, Privatier and Elder Statesman. Berlin, Boston 2014, p. 533.
  6. ^ Nils Goldschmidt: Economy, politics and freedom: Freiburg economists and the resistance. Tübingen 2005, p. 473
  7. ^ Ernst Wolfgang Becker: Theodor Heuss, educator for democracy. Munich 2007, p. 505
  8. ↑ Without office and mandate in: Die Zeit (No. 45/1961) of November 3, 1961. www.leo-bw.de , accessed on September 9, 2015.
  9. ↑ 75 years ago secret conference: AEU recalls Protestant roots of the social market economy , idea.de, article from November 18, 2017.
  10. ↑ Large Federal Cross of Merit for Dr. Walter Bauer . In: Heilbronner Voice , November 8, 1961
personal data
SURNAME Bauer, Walter Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bauer, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and industrialist
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Heilbronn
DATE OF DEATH 1st November 1968
Place of death Fulda