Wilhelm Köhler (entrepreneur)

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Wilhelm Köhler (born May 17, 1897 in Offenbach am Main , † January 17, 1962 in Rome ) was a German entrepreneur .

Life

Wilhelm Franz Heinrich Köhler was born on May 17, 1897 in Offenbach as the youngest child and only son of Wilhelm Köhler senior. (1847–1917), senior physician on and since 1887 administrative director of the Offenbach Municipal Hospital, born. His mother Emma Weintraud (1858-1935) was the daughter of the secret councilor Franz Ernst Weintraud (1833-1908), who came from a Jewish family. 1908 Wilhelm Köhler sen. retired and the family moved to Darmstadt the following year. Wilhelm Köhler, who entered the humanistic grammar school in Offenbach in 1906, switched to the Ludwig-Georgs-grammar school in Darmstadt and was a classmate of Carlo Mierendorff and Theodor Haubach . After graduating from high school , he joined the First World War as a volunteer in November 1914 and was deployed in Poznan and on the Russian Eastern Front. After his promotion to Lieutenant in the Reserve, he was transferred to the Western Front in 1917. Due to a gas poisoning in April 1917, which affected him for his life, the front service was terminated. He then worked in the workshop of the artillery regiment from January 1918 until the end of the war.

After the war, from March 1919, he studied medicine in an urgent procedure in Frankfurt / M., Heidelberg, Gießen and Marburg. He graduated in 1922 with the Dr. med. from. Since hyperinflation had greatly decimated parental assets and there were no paid assistant positions, he joined the Gandenberger machine factory Georg Goebel (entrepreneur) (1830-1900) in Darmstadt as a trainee on the mediation of his friend Wilhelm Goebel . The Goebel company was v. a. A leading manufacturer in the field of ticket machines, precision machines for the paper roll industry and printing machines. Wilhelm Köhler took over the management of the Goebel company as early as 1924. After the company was converted into an AG in 1927, he was appointed to the board alongside Wilhelm Goebel. The supervisory board was headed by Ernst Busemann . Goebel sold his shares as early as 1928, resigned from the executive board and switched to the supervisory board. From July 1, 1928 until his retirement, Köhler was the sole director.

Wilhelm Köhler was married to the doctor Irma Schmidt (1898–1985), daughter of the chemist Albrecht Schmidt (chemist) (1864–1945), chairman of the board of directors of the Hoechst paintworks. The couple met while studying medicine in Frankfurt am Main. The daughter Lotte Köhler (* 1925) emerged from the marriage.

The role of Wilhelm Köhler in the time of National Socialism is controversial. Köhler did not join the NSDAP because of his Jewish ancestors and for a long time resisted an excessive alignment of the Goebel company's production with the arms industry interests of the NS regime. According to his daughter Lotte, Köhler is said to have campaigned for the release of his friend Carlo Mierendorff on a joint boat trip with Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger in 1937 . This took place a few months after this intervention.

Nevertheless, forced laborers were also employed in Koehler's company . He took part in the armaments program of the Nazi regime, had been his company's defense officer since 1938/39 and in 1945 he was a departmental officer in the main machinery committee. After he was confronted with allegations of alleged involvement with the Nazi regime in November 1945, he resigned as President of the Darmstadt Chamber of Commerce. In April 1948, Köhler was acquitted in the arbitration chamber proceedings.

1945–46 and 1947–49 he was President of the Darmstadt Chamber of Commerce . After a dispute about responsibilities in the IHK, Köhler resigned after a short time and left the IHK. From 1948 to 1952 Köhler was a member of the city ​​council in Darmstadt for the LDP / FDP .

In 1956, for health reasons, Köhler transferred from the management of Goebel AG to the shareholders' meeting and the supervisory board. In 1958 he moved his retirement home to Bad Wiessee am Tegernsee.

Wilhelm Köhler held numerous offices: he was a member of the board of the employers' association, member of the main board and the close board of the Association of German Mechanical Engineering Institutions (VDMA) and chairman of the printing machinery research company.

In this position, he supported the establishment of the Institute for Printing Machines and Printing Processes at the TH Darmstadt in 1952/53 at the beginning of the 1950s . Köhler organized numerous donations from the field of business to set up this institute.

From 1948 to 1958, Köhler was chairman of the Association of Friends of the Technical University of Darmstadt , which he had been a member of since 1931. During this time he played a key role in the development of the university after the severe destruction on September 11, 1944, and supported numerous research and teaching projects. The TH Darmstadt honored him on the occasion of his 60th birthday on May 17, 1957 by renaming the university auditorium in the main building on Hochschulstrasse (today: the old main building) to "Wilhelm-Köhler-Saal".

On a trip to Italy, Wilhelm Köhler died in Rome in January 1962 as a result of the long-term effects of poison gas injuries from the First World War. His urn was buried in the old cemetery in Darmstadt.

Honors

literature

  • Josef Schmid: Freedom and social responsibility. The entrepreneur Wilhelm Köhler from 1897–1962, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8353-1978-3 .
  • Ulrich Eisenbach (Ed.): From the beginnings of industrialization to the engineering region. 150 years IHK Darmstadt. Rhein Main Neckar, Darmstadt 2012.
  • Lotte Köhler (Ed.): From pen to merchant and other autobiographical texts by Dr. med. Wilhelm Köhler (1897–1962). Darmstadt 2009.
  • Wilhelm Köhler In: Stadtlexikon Darmstadt. Stuttgart 2006, p. 507f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Sonnabend: “ Man is a mutually created being ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / stiftungen.stifterverband.info archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. " . In: Festschrift. Focus on people. 20 years of the Lotte Köhler Foundation. 2007, p. 8, accessed December 27, 2013
  2. ↑ From creative apprentice to board member in FAZ from November 12, 2016, page 42
personal data
SURNAME Koehler, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and association official
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Offenbach am Main
DATE OF DEATH 17th January 1962
Place of death Rome