Walter smell

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Walter Rieches tombstone in Bernburg

Walter Rieche (born September 17, 1904 in Bernburg (Saale) ; † July 13, 1986 there ) was a German pharmacist and owner of the chemical factory “Dr. A. Rieche & Co. GmbH ”in Bernburg.

Life and family

Walter Rieche was the son of the chemist and factory owner Karl Louis Berthold Alfred Rieche (1868–1929) and his wife Margarete Julie Fanny (called Grete), born. Baum (1880-1904); he grew up in Bernburg. His mother died shortly after his birth of childbed fever, which was almost incurable at the time . The father Alfred then married Käte Rieche , b. Bechmann (1884–1965), from this marriage the daughter Ilse Rieche emerged, who later ran the independent seed breeding company Meisert in Könnern (Saale) with a sales branch in Bernburg together with her husband . Walter Rieche's older brother was Alfred Rieche , industrial chemist and professor.

The Rieche family initially lived in Dortmund and moved to Bernburg (Saale) in 1903, where the father Alfred Rieche established his own chemical factory here in 1903/1904 “Dr. A. Rieche & Co. GmbH ”. In 1907/1908 he had the production and administration buildings of his chemical factory and the residential building for his family built at the end of Wettiner Strasse .

Walter Rieche attended the Karls-Realgymnasium in Bernburg and from 1923 studied at the University of Erlangen with a major in pharmacy and a minor in chemistry . Towards the end of his studies, his father suddenly died of appendicitis. Rieche therefore took over responsibility for his father's factory from 1929 at the age of almost 25.

Rieche was married to Marga Rieche (1912–1952) until her death , the couple had the children Gudrun Rieche (* 1941), married. Neumann , and Gunnar Rieche . In his second marriage he married Grete Rieche , their children are Ute Rieche (* 1962) and Beate Rieche (* 1965).

The Bernburg Rieche family also includes Helmut Rieche , who was mayor here for 18 years after German reunification .

Rieche was buried in the Rieche family grave of the Bernburg cemetery Parkstrasse, which is located directly in the entrance area of ​​the cemetery to the left of the cemetery wall.

The enterprise

Dr. Smell China-Peptoman (bottle, page 1)
Dr. Smell the China-Peptoman (bottle, page 2)
Dr. Smell the China-Peptoman (bottle, page 3)

Since it was founded shortly after 1900, the company's products have been oriented towards the market needs of pharmacies. This was a high time for sugar research , in which, for example, Emil Fischer was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1902 for his fundamental work on sugar chemistry and in 1904 the Institute for the Sugar Industry was given its own new building together with the Sugar Museum in Berlin . Scientifically and economically, peptides and proteins as well as their applications as health products came into the focus of the young pharmacist and chemist Alfred Rieche . He developed and produced his product Peptoman Rieche , which he sold throughout Germany, with which this newly founded chemical-pharmaceutical factory “Dr. A. Rieche & Co. GmbH “soon became known beyond the region.

“Peptoman Rieche” was produced and supplied in three different recipes: Peptoman , China-Peptoman and Arsen-Peptoman .

Under the responsibility of Walter Rieche, the solidly managed company by his father was able to sustainably consolidate its good reputation in the region between Magdeburg and Halle / Leipzig as well as far beyond. This is shown by an approx. 100-year-old original Peptoman bottle found by Dirk Dreyer in an old medicine cabinet in Boppard on the Middle Rhine , which has been in the possession of Werner Kriesel in Leipzig since 2019 .

These bottles, with the company name embossed in the glass, had the following inscription on the label around the First World War :

Dr. Smell China - Peptoman

(Name protected by law)

For anemia, bleaching, nervous diseases, loss of appetite and the like. Proven weaknesses.

On the side of the bottles, there was an advertising text on the label:

China-Peptoman is Dr. Smell's Manganese-Iron-Peptomat, mixed with the effective components of cinchona bark. Its excellence has been confirmed by six thousand professors and doctors.

After the Second World War , the need for convalescent drugs was relatively high. Rieche therefore produced its corresponding preparation under the traditional name “Peptoman Rieche”, which this chemical factory “Dr. A. Rieche & Co. GmbH “had built up and successfully continued its line of tradition.

Furthermore, Rieche also manufactured nasal drops under the name "Rhinosan" with his factory . For his own use in his production as well as for the regional pharmacies, which at that time still produced a great number of preparations themselves, he produced distilled water in sterile quality for medical purposes using the evaporation process. He also maintained a larger glass warehouse for his own use and for the distribution of medical jars and bottles to pharmacies and hospitals.

The traditional company fell victim to a wave of expropriations in the GDR in 1972 without compensation . After German reunification , the Treuhandanstalt only offered the heirs the option of buying back the property, which was also used with regard to the residential building. The outdated factory facilities were later dismantled and the former factory site was used for garage construction.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Volker Ebersbach : History of the City of Bernburg, Volume 2. Anhaltische Verlagsgesellschaft, Dessau 2000, p. 60, ISBN 3-910192-79-3 .
personal data
SURNAME Smell, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist, entrepreneur and factory owner
DATE OF BIRTH 17th September 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Bernburg (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1986
Place of death Bernburg (Saale)