Company
founder Carl Reuther never forgets that he himself started on a shoestring. His
employees’ welfare matters a lot to him.
As early as 1884, he had established extensive social facilities and a company health insurance plan. That was a really new idea – the statutory basis for the establishment of health insurance funds was created just one year before under Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the German Empire at that time.
In 1893, Carl Reuther sets up a foundation for the support of his workers.
He builds company-owned dwellings for the workers and donates a building plot for a communal kitchen.
The first of a total of 112 company-owned dwellings were erected in connection with the relocation of the factory from Mannheim’s Neckarvorstadt district to Mannheim’s suburb of Waldhof. From 1937 on, more housing for the growing number of employees was created with the foundation of the Carl Reuther Estate and the beginning of the construction of 10 semi-detached and 5 detached houses.
Even the class-conscious leftist press referred to him as “one of the most humane factory owners of Mannheim”.
