Walter Kruspig

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Walter Kruspig (born November 4, 1894 in Erfurt , † September 16, 1939 in Kronstadt , Kingdom of Romania ) was a German entrepreneur in the mineral oil industry .

Life

Kruspig was a son of the businessman Karl Hermann Kruspig (1863-1929) and his wife Emma Pauline, née Sperlich († 1934). He completed his academic training with a doctorate to become a Dr. rer. pole. from. During the First World War, he worked in war economic organizations. At the end of the war, he joined the Stern-Sonneborn AG (Ossag) oil works in Hamburg as a lawyer and became assistant to director Otto Stern († 1946). This company specialized in lubricating oils . In 1920 Kruspig married Helene "Ellen" Blohm (1900–1950). The couple had a daughter.

In 1924, the Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij , the Dutch subsidiary of the Shell Group , took over the majority of the shares in Ossag from the previous major shareholder Jacques Sonneborn (1863-1936). Kruspig, who worked at the Ballinhaus headquarters at the time , had the task of preparing the merger of Ossag with Mineralölwerke Rhenania AG to form Rhenania-Ossag . This served in particular to be able to survive better in competition with the German-American Petroleum Company (DAPG, later Esso, today ExxonMobil ). The association came about in 1925. In 1927 Kruspig was appointed to the management of Rhenania-Ossag under Heinrich Späth (1869–1940). This involved moving to Düsseldorf . There he was initially responsible for administration and personnel issues. In 1930, at the age of 35, he followed Späth as general manager of the company.

Shell logo, Rhenania-Ossag product brand , 1927

Under Kruspig's leadership, the former Rhenania fuel brand “Stellin” took over the international brand name “Shell”. In 1927 he persuaded the Shell Group to build what was then the largest refinery in the German Reich in Harburg . The large refinery, which opened in 1929, mainly processed Venezuelan crude oil and used it to produce not only fuels and heating oil, but also bitumen for road construction, which was on the rise . 1930 suggested Kruspig the establishment of the working group of the bitumen industry on the participation of six participating oil companies. He took the chair.

In 1927 the Kruspig couple met the Düsseldorf artist Werner Peiner and his wife in the Späths house . A close friendship developed from the contact, which favored the economic situation, social networking and the young artist's plans. The couple went on vacation trips together. Kruspig had been a member of the NSDAP since 1933 . Kruspig's relationship with Nazi politician Hermann Göring enabled Peiner to set up the Hermann Göring Master School for Painting in Kronenburg in the Eifel region from 1936 .

Emil Fahrenkamp : House for Dr. Walter Kruspig , 1930–1931, Harvestehuder Weg 45, Hamburg

Other Düsseldorf artists who were sponsored by Kruspig were the architect Emil Fahrenkamp , who built the Shell House on Tirpitzufer in Berlin from 1930 after an intense competitive phase between 1924 and 1929 , and the architect Rudolf Brüning , who built a corresponding administration building for Rhenania-Ossag on the Alsterufer in Hamburg from 1929 to 1931. Fahrenkamp was also commissioned to build a thatched country house for Kruspig in Kronenburg, Peiner's residence, and in 1930 in Hamburg-Harvestehude a luxurious, multi- story brick house in the New Objectivity style .

In the 1930s, Kruspig directed his company to the area of ​​the lubricating oil business. In this sector his company rose to become the largest manufacturer and exporter in Germany by 1934. Together with DAPG, he acquired stakes in the "Gesellschaft für Erdölinteressen mbH" Hamburg ( Brigitta union , Hanover) and in the German petroleum refinery union (Deurag, Misburg near Hanover). At the end of the 1930s, Kruspig's company began producing synthetic gasoline . To this end, he founded Hydrierwerke Pölitz AG in Pölitz near Stettin together with DAPG in 1938 .

On the eve of the Second World War, mineral oil procurement became an increasingly important concern. The focus was on the then important oil industry of the neutral Kingdom of Romania. Kruspig was able to fall back on old relationships with Otto Stern, who from 1930 headed the Shell subsidiary Astra-Română SA in Romania. Shortly before the beginning of the war, this connection threatened to be severed. Romania refused to continue delivering most of its oil to Germany. Kruspig therefore traveled to Bucharest in the first days of the war on behalf of the Reich Ministry of Economics. He managed to arrange a larger delivery of crude oil. On the way back he had a fatal car accident.

When Kruspig died at the age of 44, Rhenania-Ossag had reached its highest workforce with 11,000 employees. His successor as the company's general manager was Erich Boeder (1897–1976).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rainer Karlsch , Raymond G. Stokes: Factor oil. The mineral oil industry in Germany 1859–1974 . Munich 2003, p. 161
  2. ^ John Donovan: Robert Finn, another Nazi Director of Shell , website on the portal royaldutchshellplc.com , accessed on February 23, 2020
  3. ^ Dieter Pesch, Martin Pesch: Werner Peiner - seducer or seduced: art of the Third Reich . Disserta Verlag, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-95425-393-7 , p. 20 ff. ( Google Books )
  4. ↑ Dieter Pesch, Martin Pesch, p. 25 (illustration)
  5. ↑ Nikola Doll: Patronage and Art Promotion under National Socialism. Werner Peiner and Hermann Göring . VDG, Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-89739-621-0 , p. 78 f.
personal data
SURNAME Kruspig, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH September 16, 1939
Place of death Kronstadt , Kingdom of Romania