Adolf Gorizia

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Adolf Goerz in Johannesburg (ca.1890)

Adolf Görz (born December 18, 1857 in Mainz , † June 28, 1900 in Giessbach in Switzerland ) was a large mine owner and banker in South Africa.

Life

Origin and family

Adolf Görz was the fifth of six children of the lawyer and politician Joseph Görz from Bosenheim . His sister Elise was married to the future director of Deutsche Bank Georg von Siemens , who supported him significantly in his later activities in South Africa. He was the younger brother of Friedrich Görz (1847-1926) and the older brother of the electrical engineer and entrepreneur Hermann Görz .

Training and work

From the winter semester 1875/76 Adolf Görz studied at the Bergakademie Freiberg . He initially joined the Corps Teutonia Freiberg , but resigned there and, as a corps boy, participated in the restitution of the Corps Saxo-Borussia Freiberg in 1877 . Shortly afterwards he received the ribbon from Teutonia back. In 1879 he graduated with a diploma. In 1888 he came to Transvaal , South Africa, where he settled in the emerging financial metropolis and gold rush town of Johannesburg . Supported by a 100,000 pound sterling financing consortium of German banks under the leadership of his brother-in-law Georg von Siemens , he became the owner of a large mine and director of the National Bank of South Africa .

His most important endeavors included:

  • Adolf Goertz & Co Ltd, Financial Services (with a branch in Berlin )
  • New Rietfontain and Wittcopjes Gold Mining Company
  • Crown Reef & Mayer Gold Mining Company
  • Charlton Gold Mining Company
  • Rand Central Ore Reduction Company

With the fortune he acquired there, he was socially committed, particularly in his native Mainz. He donated 40,000 gold marks for the Mainz Liedertafel and 300,000 gold marks for charitable purposes.

The Görzsiedlung in Mainz, which is also known as the Görz Foundation , goes back to him . The Görzstraße there is named after him and his brother, the judiciary Friedrich Görz, who was the chairman of the supervisory board of the construction and savings association in Mainz.

There is also the Adolf Görz Foundation - a church foundation under public law based in Mainz . The purpose of the foundation is to promote the educational work of the Protestant kindergartens in Mainz.

literature

  • LONGLAND, Henry: The Golden Transvaal: an illustrated review, descriptive, historical, etc. , Simpkin & Marshall, London 1893 Digitalisat (pdf, 56 MB), with a description of the early days of Johannesburg and gold mining from the Witwatersrand.
  • Adolf Berve, Herbert Dieter Nienhaus, Kurt Schröter, Gerhard Voigt, Karl Heinz Weber: Chronicle of the Corps Saxo-Montania zu Freiberg and Dresden in Aachen, Part II - Corps Saxo-Borussia Freiberg i. Sa. 1842–1935 (1951) , main section II, pp. 256, 290 (short biography and biographical data)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gorizia, Joseph. Hessian biography. (As of February 7, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ↑ CG Gottschalk (ed.): Yearbook for mining and metallurgy in the Kingdom of Saxony for the year 1876 , Craz & Gerlach, Freiberg 1876, p. 220
  3. ^ Helfferich, Karl: Georg von Siemens: A life picture from Germany's great times , second volume, Springer-Verlag Berlin 1923, p. 287
personal data
SURNAME Gorizia, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman and social reformer
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1900
Place of death Giessbach