Adolph Engel de Jánosi

Adolph Engel Edler von Jánosi (born February 6, 1820 in Pécs , Austrian Empire ; died January 10, 1903 in Vienna ) was a major Hungarian industrialist who went from being a poor, merely “tolerated” Jewish peddler to one of Hungary's most important business magnates at the turn of the century 1899/1900 had worked up.

biography

Grave site at Döblinger Friedhof

Company Adolf Engel u. Sons

After a youth full of privation, Adolph Engel took part in the Hungarian struggle for freedom of 1848 as a national guard. Later he turned to the timber trade, began a transport to France, England and Germany, later to Egypt, built the first steam saw and parquet factory in southern Hungary for this purpose in 1860 and founded other large industrial companies with social institutions. The company Adolf Engel Söhne , which received high prices at numerous European exhibitions (Vienna-Sechshaus, Stuhlweissenburg, Neusatz, Trieste, Paris World Exhibition 1878 ) was recorded in 1876.

Champions of physical education

Inspired by Jahn's activities in Germany, he built a swimming school and a gymnasium in 1857, which later became the property of the municipality. The swimming lessons were given according to a dry swimming method, which he successfully introduced in Austria-Hungary and which was taken over by the Vienna Army High Command and the Hungarian State General Command for military swimming lessons.

social commitment

He cared for his workers in an exemplary manner by founding health insurances and relief funds, ended the institute of the so-called “Béres” (the common living of several working-class families of one rulership in common, cramped rooms) and instead provided each family with a separate apartment teaching the working class children, etc.

In 1878 he took part in the Paris World Exhibition with excellent forestry and timber industry products, for which he was awarded the Great Golden Medal by the jury and the crown by the King of Hungary by awarding him the Golden Cross of Merit. In the same year he bought the ärarische Good Felsömineszent, two years later by Prince Alfred Montenuovo the domain Jánosi, both with patronage connected, and so Adolph was Angel patronage Lord of two Catholic Church parishes (in the area of his property Jánosi, Felsö, Mindszent, Szatina, Simonsa and Oesard-Pázdány). He had churches and parsonages completely renovated at his own expense and, thanks to the pastors for having a Jew so much for the Catholic Church, he replied:

"This is of course because the Catholic Church is the daughter of the Jewish one, but the mother always does much more for the daughter than the daughter does for the mother."

Elevation to the nobility

After the Budapest exhibition in 1885, at which his company was represented in many departments, the king bestowed the Hungarian nobility on him and his descendants with the title “de Jánosi”.

In 1892 Engel discovered traces of coal on his estate and went after these traces with zeal, built a coal mine and a coal factory, built workers' houses, a school, a casino, a 20 km long railway, etc. In 1909 the plant was bought by the Hungarian state.

He embellished the city of Fünfkirchen with numerous new buildings, donations for public purposes, etc.

Adolph Engel as a conscious Jew

He always felt like a Jew. Just as his father kept a temple in his house, he was among the first to sponsor the building of a worthy synagogue in Pécs. For a long time he was the praeses of the community, although he really did not fight for this office and was very critical of party and functionaries in general. It was also he who brought the great scholar Alexander Kohut (1842-1894) to Fünfkirchen as chief rabbi and helped to promote the printing of his “Aruch completum” (critical new edition and expansion of the classic Talmud dictionary by Nathan b. Jechiel , 8 volumes).

family

Adolph Engel was born with Anna "Nina". Justus (Tevel / Hungary 1825 - Vienna 1914), married. They had five sons (Ludwig / died as an adolescent, József = Josef, Alexander, the founder of the Engel brothers company , Julius, Moritz) and four daughters (Helene, Berta, Louise and Marianne).

literature

• Adolph Engel de Jánosi, From my life , 1887 (autobiographical sketch, originally only allowed for use within the family)
• Leonhard Kühschelm, Die Engels - the beginnings of a Jewish family in Hungary - Judaic diploma thesis, University of Vienna 2004
• Friedrich Engel-Jánosi , ... but a proud beggar. Memories from a lost generation. Styria, Graz 1974, ISBN 3-222-10831-5 .
• Leonhard Kühschelm, From Péter Engel (1773 - 1823) to Péter Engel de Jánosi (* 1928). On the trail of a Jewish family in Hungary . In: "Zwischenwelt", Vol. 24, No. 4, March 2008, pp. 19–24