Walter Pahl (member of the cooperative)

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Plaque in Mannheim's Melchiorstraße to commemorate the presentation of the World Habitat Award to Walter Pahl

Walter Pahl (born February 16, 1923 in Mannheim ; † January 16, 2011 ) was a German business economist, politician and former president of the cooperative section in CECODHAS, the European liaison committee of the European associations of the housing industry in Brussels .

Life

After completing a commercial apprenticeship and at the same time attending evening school at the business school in Mannheim in 1941, Pahl completed his national labor service and was drafted into military service in 1942. In February 1945 he married, but had to go back to Italy for his unit. There he was taken prisoner by the Americans in April, from which he was released three months later. The marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter.

For about two years he worked as a clerk at GBG (formerly a non-profit housing company). In 1947 he became managing director and from 1953 board member of the Gartenstadt-Genossenschaft Mannheim eG and played a key role in helping to rebuild the heavily damaged housing stock in Mannheim. The garden city cooperative was involved in many larger construction projects in Mannheim, including the development of Waldhof-Ost , the Herzogenried area and the Vogelstang . In Pahl's time, the cooperative's housing stock increased by over 3,000 rental apartments in almost all Mannheim districts. In addition to his professional activity, he studied at the Rhine-Neckar Administration and Business Academy and obtained his business diploma in 1959.

As a specialist in the housing industry, he found recognition far beyond Mannheim. Among other things, he was chairman of the Association of Baden Housing Companies in Karlsruhe , member of the board of the General Association of Housing Companies (GdW) in Cologne in 1968, and from 1974 to 1991 deputy chairman. Co-founder and member of CECODHAS (European Liaison Committee of Housing Associations to the EU), alternating President of the Cooperative Section in Brussels. Member of the Housing Committee and Executive of the ITUC (International Federation of Cooperatives) in Geneva .

In 1960 Pahl became a member of the SPD . He was a member of the Mannheim municipal council from 1965 until he left in 1989, nine years of which as deputy chairman and eleven years as chairman of the SPD parliamentary group. From 1974 he was also a member of the district executive committee of the Mannheim SPD, at the same time he belonged to the regional association Rhine-Neckar and the spatial planning association of the triangle (Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse).

From 1960, until his statutory resignation in 1988, he was on the supervisory board of Volksbank Mannheim , from 1970 as chairman of several companies in the city and in which the city has a stake, up to gas supply southern Germany GVS, Stuttgart, Pahl was on the supervisory board involved in decision-making.

After his retirement in 1988, Pahl founded the Ludwig-Frank eG rental cooperative in Mannheim and at that time prevented the planned demolition of 400 social apartments, which were extremely ailing due to neglect in maintenance and formed the breeding ground for a social hotspot. Around 100 apartments were empty. The apartments and buildings were quickly made rentable again and renovated. Thermal insulation, renewal of windows and doors, renovation of the stairwells were the top priorities of the necessary work. Until 1995 he was chairman of the board. When he left the board of directors, he was appointed honorary chairman. In 1993 the cooperative was awarded the World Habitat Award at the UN headquarters in New York for the exemplary example . The award was presented by the Speaker of Parliament, Samuel R. Insanally , after the first lady, Hillary Clinton , who was scheduled to do so, was prevented by a debate about proposed health care reform. The award went to Germany for the first time.

Honors (selection)

Publications

  • The garden city - visions and reality using the example of the garden cities of Dresden-Hellerau and Mannheim. State Museum for Technology and Work, Mannheim 2000
  • Mannheim² and its Bloomäuler. Mannheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-023506-1
  • Festschriften about the garden city cooperative . Mannheim 1950 and 1960
  • Ancestors and reminiscences . Mannheim 1999
  • Mannheim before the city was founded, Part II, Volume 2 . Contribution by Waldhof, Luzenberg, Gartenstadt 2008

literature

  • Wolfgang Brach: The Mannheim City Council 1945–1984 . Mannheim 1984, ISBN 3-87804-162-4
  • Klaus ER Lindemann - Info - Profiles of the region, Walter Pahl, Karlsruhe 1988

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lothar Jacob: An idea makes history: 75 years of the Mannheim Garden City Cooperative . Hamburg 1985
  2. ↑ Presentation of the project and the reasoning behind the World Habitat Award
  3. ↑ List of medal recipients 1975–2019. (PDF; 180 kB) State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg, accessed on June 12, 2019 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pahl, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD) and business economist
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 2011