Willy Scharnow

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Mathilde van Elsen and Willy Scharnow

Willy Scharnow (full name Wilhelm Friedrich Karl Scharnow , born July 13, 1897 in Bremen , † March 18, 1985 ibid) was a German travel company . The "pioneer of modern tourism " is considered to be the initiator of package tours and mass tourism , for a time operated the second largest tourism company in Germany and played a key role in the establishment and organization of the Touristik Union International (TUI).

Life

family

Willy Scharnow was the son of council servant Carl Friedrich Scharnow (1865-1943) from Ragow ( Beeskow district ), son of Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Scharnow and Caroline Peuke , and Elise Josefine Friederika Lisette (1868-1942), daughter of Fritz Bratmann and the Auguste Beu . He married Erika (1907–2002), who was born in Bremen and was an office assistant, in Bremen in 1939 , a daughter of Wilhelm Hellweg and Anna Grote . His marriage was childless.

Career

Willy Scharnow attended elementary school and high school in his hometown of Bremen , then completed an apprenticeship as a freight forwarder and then took part in the First World War as a soldier from 1914 to 1918 .

1919 Scharnow took the position of a chief clerk at a Bremen port - forwarding , before he was six years later in 1925 founded his own company, the travel agency Scharnow , which he a trucking company and a concert agency angliederte. Now his travel agency organized “social trips ” initially for holidaymakers in Bremen, for example to Helgoland or the Harz Mountains .

Scharnow married in 1939 and in 1944 for the World War II again to conscientious convened. In the meantime, his travel agency in Bremen was destroyed by aerial bombs in the Allies' air raids . Scharnow himself was taken prisoner by the Americans after the end of the war, but was released again at the end of 1945. Although Willy Scharnow had contracted a serious illness, he rebuilt his travel agency , initially in the building of the Bremen Cotton Exchange.

In 1950, Scharnow's company became "THE German travel agency representation" and at the same time an IATA International Air Transport Association agency . In addition, Willy Scharnow was committed to the entire German travel industry, for example as a co-founder of the DRV Deutscher Reisebüro und Reiseveranstalter Verband e. V.

In 1953 Willy Scharnow founded "Scharnow-Reisen GmbH & KG" together with Walter Kahn and Walter Bangemann , which quickly developed into the second largest tour operator in Germany. Also in 1953, the entrepreneur founded the "Willy Scharnow Foundation" named after him for training and promoting young talent in the tourism industry, which was later renamed the Willy Scharnow Foundation for Tourism , awards research contracts and has awarded the Willy Scharnow Prize since 1984 .

In the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany, Scharnow's early efforts to specifically develop new places for holiday offers were groundbreaking for the entire German travel industry, for example the development of the Waging am See market in Upper Bavaria in the mid-1950s .

Since Scharnow expected Germany to be reunified soon , he relocated his company headquarters to Hanover , from where he wanted to “operate from the heart of Germany”.

As early as 1956 - initially on the basis of mutual participation - Scharnow-Reisen cooperated with TOUROPA . And again it was Scharnow's initiatives that led to the inclusion of Hummel Reise GmbH , through which he came into contact with Hugo Strickrodt , as well as Dr. Tigges trips led to the founding of TUI in Hanover, from where the company soon grew into the largest tourism group in Europe .

Willy Scharnow held various positions at TUI until his death, first as chairman , then as deputy chairman of the supervisory board, and finally and honorary member of the TUI supervisory board.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Died: Wilhelm Scharnow. In: Der Spiegel , No. 13/1985 of March 25, 1985 ( online ).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Christoph Haehling von Lanzenauer:  Scharnow, Willy. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 576 ( digitized version ).
  3. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Stickrodt, Hugo. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 352.
  4. ^ Honorable namesake ( memento from February 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) on werder.de , last accessed on February 22, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Scharnow, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scharnow, Wilhelm Friedrich Karl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German travel company, most recently at TUI
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1985
Place of death Bremen