Albert Reimann Jr.

Albert Reimann (entrepreneur)

Emil Albert Reimann (born August 31 , 1898 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein – May 26 , 1984 in Heidelberg ) was a German chemical entrepreneur ; National Socialist and a prominent supporter of the Nazi Party during the Nazi era .

Biography
life
Albert Reimann junior came from the Reimann family of entrepreneurs and is the great-grandson of Karl Ludwig Reimann . His father was the chemist and National Socialist Albert Reimann senior of the same name , his mother Emma Wilhelmine Elisabetha Andersen (1874–1962). Reimann was a co-owner of the chemical company Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. After graduating from high school in 1916, he volunteered for the Yellow Dragoons in Bruchsal, was deployed in Lithuania during World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross , Second Class, as a non-commissioned officer. He studied chemistry in Munich and Heidelberg. In 1926 he received his doctorate from Theodor Curtiusto the Dr. phil. of course in Heidelberg. As early as 1921 he became a personally liable partner in the open commercial company Joh. A. Benckiser. When his uncle Arthur Reimann, Karl Ludwig Reimann's third eldest son, left the OHG in 1923, he left his shares to him. In 1929 he joined his father's company, took over management at Benckiser in the mid-1930s and inherited the entire company in 1954 after his father's death. [1]

Under Albert Reimann's aegis, the family business developed into a group of companies from 1954. [2] With the change in product portfolio from industrial chemicals to household and industrial detergents and the development or acquisition [3] of brands such as Calgon (1956), Kukident (1962), automatic dishwashing detergent Calgonit (1964) and Quanto (1966) [1 ] he laid the foundation for the wealth of the Reimann family. Reimann invented the Calgon water softener . [4] He also launched other brands such as Sagrotan . [5]After 50 years in the family business, Albert Reimann, as the majority shareholder, general manager and representative of the fifth generation of the company, handed over responsibility to his previous deputy Martin Gruber (1930-2016) on September 1, 1978. [6]

In his first marriage, on September 14, 1935, Reimann married Adelheid Clementine Pauline Alexandra Löwis of Menar (1907–2000), the daughter of Karl Reinhold Max von Löwis of Menar and Else von Löwis of Menar . The marriage ended in divorce in 1938. [7] On September 3, 1938, he married Paula Reimann, née Frey (1897–1983) in Mannheim. [8] [3] Around 1941, the then 19-year-old Emilie Landecker (1922–2017) applied to the company and was hired as a secretary. Reimann fell in love with her and had a relationship with her, even though she was “ half Jewish ” according to Nazi ideology . On April 24, 1942, Emilie's father, Albert Landecker, was kidnapped by the Nazis in the Izbica ghettointerned and killed in a concentration camp . [9] 1951 saw the birth of the first of three children, Renate Reimann-Haas , Emilie Landecker, who was baptized a Catholic, and Albert Reimann; Wolfgang Reimann was born in 1952 and Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli in 1956. [10] In 1965 he adopted these three children. Albert Reimann adopted two more children ( Stefan Reimann-Andersen and Matthias Reimann-Andersen ) from a cousin because of Paula Reimann's infertility. [11]

Albert Reimann junior was laid to rest on June 1, 1984 in the mountain cemetery in Heidelberg . [12]

The legacy
Throughout his life, Reimann did not tell his children that he was a co-owner of Benckiser. The children assumed the father was an employee of the company. [13] After his death in 1984, each of the nine children was granted the same inheritance share in Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH. The four children of the Reimann-Dubbers line ( Günter Reimann-Dubbers , Volker Reimann-Dubbers , Hans Gerhard Reimann-Dubbers and Hedwig-Else Dürr , nee Reimann-Dubbers), who Albert Reimann from his sister Elisabeth Emma (short: Else) Dubbers adopted, had their shares paid out in 1997 in order to go their own way. [14] [15] [16] [17]Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli, a biologist, was also paid out and now lives in the USA. [18]

The siblings Renate Reimann-Haas and Wolfgang Reimann and their half-siblings Matthias Reimann-Andersen and Stefan Reimann-Andersen remained involved in Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH, which has been JAB Holding since 2012 and is based in Luxembourg. Today the proportion is around 90 percent. [19] [20]

National Socialist Commitment
Father and son were convinced National Socialists and profiteers from the regime. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the then medium-sized company set itself up as a Nazi model company . In July 1937 he wrote to the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler : “We are a purely Aryan family business that is more than a hundred years old. The owners are unconditional followers of racial theory.” [21] During the Nazi era, the company expanded threefold, not least because of the large number of forced laborers. In 1943 there were 175 in number. Reimann was known for his brutal treatment of these people. He later told his children that the forced laborers loved the company and shed tears when the war was over and they had to leave. After the Second World War , he presented himself as a victim of the Nazis. From July 1945 to March 1946, he remained in the internee camp for Nazi-incriminated persons in Württemberg-Baden in Kornwestheim and was classified as a follower in the denazification process . The chemical factory was placed under American receivership until June 30, 1950, so that father and son Reimann were not allowed to enter the plant until July 1950.

The processing of the National Socialist history of the company and the person only took place very late, namely from 2016. In post-war Germany, on the other hand, Reimann had been awarded the Great Cross of Merit by the Federal Republic. The first publications on his past appeared in 2019, which brought criticism to the group and the Reimann descendants and led to the establishment of the Alfred Landecker Foundation . [22] The confidant of the family and head of JAB Holding, Peter Harf , said in 2019: "Reimann senior and Reimann junior were guilty. The two entrepreneurs committed crimes, they actually belong in prison." [23]

cf.: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Reimann_(Unternehmer)

&: https://www.alfredlandecker.org/de/article/wer-war-alfred-landecker