Paul Henry Rickmer Rickmers (born August 6, 1873 in Bremerhaven; died October 31, 1946 in Clarens) was a German shipowner and shipyard owner.
Life and work
editPaul Rickmers was born in Bremerhaven as the son of shipowner Peter Rickmers[1] and went to school there. He then completed an apprenticeship at the Siedenburg, Wendt & Co. sailing ship shipping company in Bremen, worked in the family business and went abroad for a few years. From 1894, he worked at Rickmers Reismühlen Rhederei und Schiffbau AG, founded by his grandfather Rickmer Clasen Rickmers, and joined its management in 1898.
In the years following his arrival, there was a long-lasting conflict between the owners over the company's strategy: while Paul Rickmers was in favor of expanding the shipping business towards East Asia, his uncle Andreas Rickmers preferred the rice trade. In 1904, Paul Rickmers left the management of the company and opened the trading company Rickmers & Co. in Hamburg a year later. Together with his brother Robert Rickmers, he persuaded his uncle to withdraw from the company in Bremerhaven in 1910. The new focus of this company was on voyages to East Asia and secondarily on a shipyard in Geestemünde, which mostly produced ships for its own use. He discontinued the rice trade and moved the shipping business to Hamburg after 1910. Having prevailed over his siblings with his strategy, Paul Rickmers ran the business as sole owner from 1917.
Rickmers modernized the fleet of ships and invested in the shipyard, but lost the ships during World War I.[1] After the end of the war, the shipping company started an independent liner service to the Far East. The company profited from arms exports to the Republic of China, where civil wars had been raging since 1919. As Rickmers concentrated on the shipping company's business and the economic situation in shipbuilding was poor, he suspended shipyard operations from 1924 to 1937, but also profited from the rearmament of the German Reich once operations resumed.
Paul Rickmers enthusiastically supported the Nazi party though he did not formally join. He openly professed anti-Semitism.[1] During the Second World War, the company buildings were destroyed. Paul Rickmers initiated the reconstruction of the shipyard, but died shortly afterwards in Switzerland. His sons Peter (1914-1974), Bertram (1917-1971) and Claus (1920-1991) continued the business. They had to cease shipyard operations in 1986 and the shipping company was acquired by Hapag-Lloyd in 1988. The grandson Erck Rickmers was later a member of the Hamburg Parliament.
Literature
edit- Christian Ostersehlte: Rickmers, Paul. In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biografie. Band 6. Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4, S. 269.
References
edit- ^ NDR. "Rickmers: Eine norddeutsches Schifffahrtsunternehmen mit Tradition - 1834 gegründet". www.ndr.de (in German). Retrieved 2024-12-11.
"Paul Rickmers war von Hitler sehr angetan. Er hat geglaubt, dass wir einen Führer bräuchten, der Deutschland wieder nach vorn bringen würde", berichtet Enkel Erck Rickmers später. In einer Festschrift zum 100-jährigen Bestehen des Unternehmens nennt sich Paul Rickmers "Führer seiner Gefolgschaft".
[[Category:Men]] [[Category:1946 deaths]] [[Category:1873 births]] [[Category:German people]] [[Category:Businesspeople from Hamburg]] [[Category:20th-century businesspeople]] [[Category:People from Bremerhaven]]