Wilhelm Euler

Wilhelm Julius Euler (born January 23, 1847 in Lorsch ; † May 18, 1934 in Bensheim ) was a German entrepreneur ( paper manufacturer) and politician . He was a member of the Hessian state parliament and a city councilor in Bensheim, where he also emerged as a patron and initiator of numerous institutions and associations and was therefore an honorary citizen .

Life

Wilhelm Euler was the son of the Lorsch regional judge Wilhelm Euler and his wife Luise Euler nee Königer. He completed a commercial apprenticeship in Nuremberg and then spent some time in Madrid and Paris before founding a company in Remscheid . In 1871, at the age of 24, he came to Bensheim and became head of Otto Heumann's paper factory, which he took over in 1873. He quickly expanded the company, Wilhelm Euler GmbH , through commercial foresight and the conversion of the production of straw as a raw material to the newly discovered cellulose . When he took over the paper mill, he employed around 20 workers and operated three steam engines; twelve years later there were already 50 workers, and around 1900 the workforce numbered 100. The patriarchal entrepreneur was very socially minded and left many buildings and facilities to the city of Bensheim as a patron. Among other things, he initiated the construction of the Bismarck Tower on the Hemsberg and the swimming pool and fought for a long time to build a railway to Lindenfels. He founded one of the first company health insurance funds for his workforce and in 1905 had a "foreman 's house" built. He had this and almost 40 other buildings, in addition to factories and villas, planned by the Bergstrasse architects Heinrich and Georg Metzendorf between 1896 and 1922. For Heinrich Metzendorf, Euler was a paternal friend and patron.

On April 19, 1875, he married Anna, born Horst (1855–1926) in Bensheim, the daughter of the Ministerialrat in the Hessian Ministry of Finance and President of the Oberbaudirektion Darmstadt, Johann Christian Horst and his wife Caroline Horst, born Wissell. With Anna he had two sons: Wilhelm, called "Willie", (* 1876) and Karl († 1933; father of Friedrich Wilhelm Euler and Horst Euler ). Both sons later worked in their father's company.

Wilhelm Euler was a member of the Darmstadt Chamber of Commerce and co-founder and deputy chairman of the Association of German Paper Manufacturers. In 1899 he was awarded the title of Kommerzienrat , and the city of Bensheim made him an honorary citizen .

Politically, he was active as a city councilor in Bensheim and a member of the district council in the Bensheim district . In the 29th to 32nd electoral term (1893-1905) he was a member of the second chamber of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse . In the estates he represented the constituency of Starkenburg 11 / Zwingenberg . He was a member of the National Liberal Party (NLP) .

Wilhelm Euler died in 1934 at the age of 87.

The paper mill in Bensheim stopped production in 2007.

Posthumous honors

Wilhelm-Euler-Strasse in Bensheim is named after him.

literature

• Hans Georg Ruppel, Birgit Groß: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse (2nd Chamber) and the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse (= Darmstädter Archivschriften. Vol. 5). Verlag des Historisches Verein für Hessen, Darmstadt 1980, ISBN 3-922316-14-X , p. 97.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Euler: Wilhelm Euler (1847–1934) and his ancestors. In: Archive for Family Research , Volume 70, C. A. Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1978.

Web links

• Euler, Wilhelm Julius. Hessian biography. (As of January 30, 2017). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Headlines from Bensheim on the 175th anniversary of the "Bergsträßer Anzeiger" 2007. (pdf 8.61 MB) The work of Wilhelm Euler. P. 52 , archived from the original on October 5, 2016 ; accessed on December 28, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Christine Will: History of the Euler Family . In: Bergsträßer Anzeiger from February 13, 2015.