Carl Gruhl

Bergrat Carl Gruhl (born November 16, 1862 in Weißenfels , † April 26, 1947 in Brühl ) was a German mining company. He was the first relevant, academically trained entrepreneur in industrial lignite mining in the Rhineland .

Origin, family and education

Carl Gruhl was born when his father Hermann Gruhl and his uncle Karl were employed by Werschen-Weißenfelser Braunkohlen AG in the Central German lignite mining area , Hermann Gruhl as a supervisory officer. His mother Ida Franziska nee Voigt (1841–1908) was the daughter of a master coppersmith from Döbeln. Carl had three younger brothers and two sisters.

While his father had received his training in mining at the trade school in Erfurt , Carl went to the Bergakademie Berlin and, after passing his state examination, worked as a mining assessor in the Clausthal district of Upper Mining from 1891 . Carl was married twice, first to Marie born Schmidt (1873-1903) from Helmstedt and from 1911 to Margarethe born Eger (1873-1949), daughter of a factory owner from Hamburg-Harburg . From 1903 Carl lived in the Gruhl'schen Villa on Kaiserstraße, which leads from the Kaiserbahnhof near his factory in Kierberg to Brühl Castle . In 1945, shortly before his death, the family, although they were opponents of National Socialism , was expelled from the villa by the British occupying forces , and they were initially assigned to the miners . The villa was sold by the heirs after 1951 and later converted into a residential complex. The house is a listed building .

Gruhl's Villa, Kaiserstr. 15th

Carl Gruhl was buried in the south cemetery in Brühl.

Entrepreneurial activity

The "Iron Man" in the Gruhlwerk

When his father came into contact with Hermann Bleibtreu , he was also involved in the newly up-and-coming Brühl district of the Rhenish lignite district, first at its Bleibtreu lignite union , which did not go into production, then through share acquisition and as a consultant at the Roddergrube of Friedrich Eduard Behrens , which on March 1, 1877, pressed the first briquettes with two briquetting presses using the Extersian process in the Rheinische Revier. After Bleibtreu's death, Hermann Gruhl bought his fields near Heide and Kierberg and other Brühl mine fields in 1882 . In 1889 he set up his own briquette factory near Kierberg, which started operations on September 2, 1892 as the Gruhlwerk . The son Max took over the commercial management of the mine and factory. In 1894 Carl took over the technical management. The father himself stayed in Halle until 1899 , when the stately Art Nouveau villa was completed for the family in Brühl by the Leipzig architect Georg Wünschmann . The first usable cutting or scraper excavator with a cutting height of 15 meters in vertical section , which, according to his information and the constructional documents of Christian Steg , had been built by the Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft and in 1907 as an iron man in his pit , became significant for lignite mining Was put into operation. In an enlarged form, it soon became the standard in the lignite mines. The Gruhlwerk was steadily expanded, so that at last six factories were producing in a row north of Kierberg. The majority of the Kuxe of the Donatus mine near Liblar had already been acquired by Carl Gruhl in 1894 and merged with his Brühler Gruhlwerke in 1907. A short time later, in 1908, the merger with Fortuna AG to form the Rheinische AG für lignite mining and briquette manufacturing (RAG) took place and Gruhl joined the board of the largest company in the Rhenish lignite mining area after this merger. In 1918 he went to the supervisory board.

Merits and honors

Honorary grave of the Gruhl family in the south cemetery of Brühl

Carl Gruhl was made an honorary citizen because of his services to the development of the city of Brühl. Carl wanted to give back something lasting for the general public to the city where he and his family had found so much happiness out of social commitment. In 1930 he had the Carlsbad (then still with a "C"), the sports hall in Heide and the Carlshalle built. The Carlshalle, a hall for all kinds of events, was unfortunately so destroyed during the bombing raids on Brühl in 1944 that it had to be demolished. The bathroom survived the war with only minor damage. Carl Gruhl's commitment to building settlements for his workers should be emphasized. Of the houses, those in Vochemer, Berrenrather, Margareten-, Barbara- and Grubenstraße are still preserved, even if they have been heavily rebuilt.

Gruhl was a city ​​councilor for many years and was a member of the presbytery of the evangelical parish of Brühl for almost 50 years , to which he donated funds totaling 24,000 Reichsmarks for various purposes in 1926 . His resolute advocacy of the Confessing Church's cause in the years after 1934 should also be emphasized . He was also one of eight members of the Brotherhood Council who represented that part of the congregation that professed to support the Confessing Church.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter Buschmann , Norbert Gilson, Barbara Rinn: Brown coal mining in the Rhineland. ed. from LVR and MBV-NRW , 2008, pp. 60 and 293
2. ↑ According to NDB
3. ↑ Tradition of the Karlovy Vary  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed January 2013)  
4. ↑ Buschmann, p. 294 f
5. ↑ Georg Grosser: Evangelical Community Life in the Kölner Land , Cologne 1958, pp. 63, 78 and 103

literature

• Georg Grosser: Karl Gruhl in commemoration in Brühler Heimatblätter 19 (1962) No. 4S. 25 f
• Fritz Wündisch : A pioneer of lignite. Bergrat Carl Gruhl in commemoration , in Revier und Werk, 1962, issue 67, p. 6 f

Web links

• Gustav Kloos:  Gruhl, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 209 ( digitized version ) (year of death probably wrong)