Engelberg, Alexander von

entrepreneur

Born: 20.06.1894 in Mannheim

Died: 07.01.1960 in Grindelwald (Switzerland)

His father was the lawyer Friedrich von Engelberg, who was a civil servant in Baden and ran the Mannheim state prison from 1892 to 1909 and then worked as a ministerial councillor in the Baden Ministry of the Interior. Alexander von Engelberg's mother Karoline came from the Dyckerhoff family of entrepreneurs. Her father was Rudolf Dyckerhoff, who founded the Portland cement factory Dyckerhoff & Sohne in Mainz-Amöneburg in 1864 together with his father Wilhelm Gustav Dyckerhoff and his brother Gustav Dyckerhoff.

Alexander von Engelberg attended the humanistic grammar school in Mannheim from 1903 to 1909. After his father became a ministerial councillor in the Baden Ministry of the Interior in 1909, he transferred to the humanistic grammar school in Karlsruhe, where he graduated in July 1912. On October 1, 1912, he joined the Baden Leibdragoner Regiment No. 12 as an ensign.

In 1914, von Engelberg passed the officer's examination at the war college in Metz and was promoted to lieutenant. During the First World War, he was wounded in his right hand during a cavalry attack near Landres in eastern France. During his recovery, von Engelberg trained as a pilot at the flying school in Freiburg im Breisgau. During a training flight in which he was taking part as an observer, his plane crashed. He suffered a spinal injury and broke both his feet. Due to these injuries, von Engelberg was no longer able to serve at the front. During his convalescence, he began studying history, literary history and dramaturgy in Munich in 1916.

However, due to the general shortage of officers, von Engelberg returned to the army in the same year and was given a command in the political police of the military administration in Bucharest. Due to his state of health, von Engelberg moved to the post of courier in the office of the German military attaché in Bern, where he remained until the end of the war in 1918. Alexander von Engelberg was awarded the Iron Cross II Class and the Order of the Zähringer Lion, an order of merit from Baden, for his military service during the First World War. In 1918, he received the Baden Wounded Badge. In 1935, he was also awarded the Cross of Honor for Frontline Combatants of the First World War.

After the end of the First World War, von Engelberg took up a commercial career. After temporary employment in the banking industry and in paper manufacturing, he joined his grandfather's company, Portland-Cementfabrik Dyckerhoff & Sohne GmbH, in 1922, during the turmoil of inflation. In 1928, he was appointed managing director. In 1931, the company merged with Wicking'sche Portland-Cement- und Wasserkalkwerke AG to form Portland-Zementwerke Dyckerhoff-Wicking AG, which was renamed Dyckerhoff Portland-Zementwerke AG in 1936. Alexander von Engelberg was a full member of the Board of Management of this newly founded stock corporation.

In addition to von Engelberg, the Board of Management of the newly formed joint stock company included his brother Fritz von Engelberg as Chairman of the Board of Management and Dr. Walter Dyckerhoff as a further ordinary member, responsible for production and technical matters. In 1936, Josef Kellerwessel and Hans Dyckerhoff were added as deputy board members. Alexander von Engelberg was responsible for finance and association matters within the board. The Board's work was characterized by close contact and exchange with colleagues. In addition, Alexander von Engelberg held a not inconsiderable amount of shares in the company.

After the National Socialists came to power, Alexander von Engelberg became a member of various Nazi organizations. As a former military pilot and private pilot, he was a member of the National Socialist Flying Corps from 1933 to 1942. From 1934 to 1945, the entrepreneur was a member of the German Labor Front, i.e. the unified association of employees and employers in the Nazi state and, from 1935, also a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare. Between 1935 and 1939, he was also a member of the Victims' Ring of the NSDAP Gauleitung Hessen-Nassau. The NS-Opferring was a party organization that served to collect donations and other contributions for the NSDAP. Party membership was not required. The amount of payments made by von Engelberg to the NS-Opferring is unknown. Alexander von Engelberg became a supporting member of the SS in 1933. The supporting members of the SS formed a sub-organization of the SS, which non-NSDAP members could also join and which served to collect donations for the establishment and expansion of the SS. The financial contributions, which were usually paid monthly, were not linked to any formal service in the SS. The amount of the payments that Alexander von Engelberg made to the SS is also unknown.

Despite his numerous memberships, Alexander von Engelberg came into conflict with the Nazi state due to the Nazi racial laws, as his wife Hedwig was a "half-Jew" or "Jewish half-breed of the first degree" in the eyes of the Nazis.

In 1938, von Engelberg wanted to make himself available as a reserve officer in the newly founded Luftwaffe. This wish was not granted because of his "non-full Aryan" wife.

"Jewish half-breeds" living in the German Reich were less affected by the Nazi persecution of Jews than so-called "full Jews"; in particular, the systematic deportation and murder in the SS extermination camps from 1941 did not apply to them. They were also not required to identify themselves as Jews, for example by wearing a "Jewish star". Nevertheless, they were also subject to increasingly severe discrimination, for example in their choice of profession. This also affected Hedwig von Engelberg and her children.

Alexander von Engelberg also came into contact with the Nazi persecution of Jews in another context. He was honorary Royal Swedish Vice-Consul from 1932 to 1945. The tasks and influence of the Swedish vice consulate in Wiesbaden were naturally limited. The Swedish consulate was housed in von Engelberg's home in Wiesbaden-Biebrich and was not responsible for actual consular matters, such as entry visas to Sweden. This responsibility lay with the Swedish consulate in Frankfurt am Main. In addition, "Reich Germans" were not required to obtain an "entry visa" for Sweden.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Alexander von Engelberg had reported on the arrest of "Polish-Jewish" citizens in Wiesbaden. He was asked for support and assistance for the Jews from the neutral state. He tried to improve the situation by making representations to the Wiesbaden Gestapo. He was informed from Sweden that nothing could be done for the Jews.

During the Second World War, Dyckerhoff Portland-Zementwerke AG used forced labor to maintain its production due to the increasing shortage of personnel caused by conscription into the Wehrmacht. Between 1939 and 1945, at least 63 forced laborers from Italy, 38 from Belgium, four from the Netherlands, 24 from Poland, two from Czechoslovakia and 59 so-called Eastern workers, i.e. workers from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states, were deployed at Dyckerhoff. These people were housed in the Kalle camp, among other places. In 1943, Dyckerhoff submitted a building application to the city of Mainz for the construction of two barracks to house so-called Eastern workers on the company premises. The type RL IV/2 barracks applied for could be occupied by a maximum of 70 so-called Eastern workers. One of the requested barracks was built, but was destroyed in an air raid in the summer of 1944.

Forced laborers were not only used in concrete and cement production, but also in agriculture on the Hessler-Hof farm in Mainz-Amöneburg, which belonged to the company and Dyckerhoff family.

The allocation and deployment of forced laborers, like all central processes in the company, was brought to the attention of the Board of Management and thus also Alexander von Engelberg, who made the final decision. The shortage of labor was the central problem in production until the first major bomb damage to the factory in 1944. It remains to be seen who was responsible for recruiting forced laborers in the Group and whether and what scope of influence Alexander von Engelberg had as the board member responsible for finance and associations.

Alexander von Engelberg was part of the company's top management and a relevant shareholder of the company, indirectly responsible for the war-related increase in production to record levels and the associated use of forced labor.

After the German capitulation on May 8, 1945, Alexander von Engelberg distanced himself from Nazi rule both within the company and vis-à-vis the American occupying power. In his denazification proceedings, Alexander von Engelberg also positioned himself as distanced from the Nazi regime and emphasized above all the situation of his wife and children.

Von Engelberg's reference to his diplomatic activities for neutral Sweden and his family situation did not remain without effect and, from the point of view of the US occupation administration, relativized his Nazi memberships and his leading position in a company that was important for armaments. No proceedings were opened against him.

In the post-war period, Alexander von Engelberg was a member of the Board of Management of Dyckerhoff Portland-Zementwerke AG until his departure in 1959. He was one of the most important players in the German construction industry in the post-war period. On his initiative, the cement industry united in the Cologne Cement Association in 1948, of which he was also a member of the Board of Directors.
Between 1948 and 1959, he was chairman of the Federal Association of Stone and Earth. In addition, von Engelberg was a member of the Consultative Committee of the Coal and Steel Community in Luxembourg and Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of the Portland cement factory in Bonn and Chemische Werke Albert (opens in a new tab) in Wiesbaden.

He was also a member of the supervisory boards of Dresdner Bank, DAMCO Scheepvaart-Maatschappij NV Rotterdam and Kraftwerke Mainz-Wiesbaden AG (opens in a new tab). Alexander von Engelberg was Honorary President of the German Cement Association and the German-Dutch Chamber of Commerce in Frankfurt am Main. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955 and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit with Star in 1959. The DAMCO shipping company gave one of its ships his name in 1959.

In the Mainz-Amöneburg district, a street was named after the company leader by resolution of the city council on February 24, 1966.

The Historical Expert Commission appointed by the City Council in 2020 to review traffic areas, buildings and facilities named after people in the state capital of Wiesbaden recommended renaming Alexander von Engelberg because of Engelberg's membership of various National Socialist organizations (NSFK, supporting member of the SS, DAF, NSV, NS-Opferring). As a member of the Dyckerhoff Board of Management, von Engelberg was responsible for the use of forced labor within the company. Between 1939 and 1945, forced laborers from Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechoslovakia and so-called Eastern workers were deployed at the company's sites. Von Engelberg was thus involved in the deliberate harming of other people between 1933 and 1945.

[This text was written by Dr. Rolf Faber for the 2017 printed version of the Wiesbaden City Dictionary and revised and supplemented by Dr. Katherine Lukat in 2024].