Alfred Oppenheim (chemist)

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Alfred Oppenheim (* 3. November 1878 in Berlin ; † 14. May 1943 ) was a German chemist and mantle - producer .

Classified ad of the Berlin company Dr. Alfred Oppenheim , which had its headquarters at Nostizstraße 30 until 1934.

life and work

family

Oppenheim's father, Adolph (1839–1913), worked as a businessman in Berlin during the German Empire . His mother Johanna, née Goldstandt (1851–1920), came from a wealthy hotelier family in Löbau . In 1919 Alfred Oppenheim married Frieda Gehrmann (* 1896), who came from a house with many children. In 1930 his daughter Ilse Lore was born.

education

After finishing pre-school, Oppenheim attended the Kölln High School in Berlin from 1887 to 1896 . Immediately after graduating from high school , he studied chemistry , physics , botany , bacteriology , mineralogy and philosophy at the Technical University , the Bergakademie and the Friedrich Wilhelms University . During this time his lecturers included Blasius, Dilthey, Finkener, Fischer , Gabriel, Günther, van 't Hoff , Jahn, Klein, Lasson , Pringsheim , Rosenheim, Warburg, Wichelhaus and Witt.

Oppenheim completed his doctoral examination with Simon Schwendener in botany, with Max Planck in physics, with Wilhelm Dilthey in philosophy and with Siegmund Gabriel in chemistry. In 1900 he published his dissertation on β-benzoylisobutyric acid and some related pyridazine derivatives . The work was discussed in the Chemisches Central-Blatt and supplemented by Oppenheim himself in an article for the prestigious reports of the German Chemical Society .

Chemist and manufacturer

Richard Fire & Co.

After completing his studies , Oppenheim first worked as an analyst in mantle factories. In 1901 he got a job in the Berlin chemical company Richard Feuer & Co. , which later became part of the Auergesellschaft . After just one year, he was appointed Operations Director.

General incandescent light works Dr. Alfred Oppenheim

Classified ad of the Berlin company Dr. Alfred Oppenheim from 1905

In 1903 the Allgemeine Glühlichtwerke Dr. Alfred Oppenheim & Co. GmbH founded the first own company, in which Oppenheim shared management with Julius and Rosa Rosenfeld. The company soon had 300 employees and produced around 30,000 mantles every day .

Aktien-Gesellschaft für Gasglühlicht

Advertising brand of the Berlin company Dr. Alfred Oppenheim for the mantle with the name "Heart"

In 1905, due to high competitive pressure, Allgemeine Glühlichtwerke merged with other Berlin companies to form Aktien-Gesellschaft für Gasglühlicht , whose board of directors included Oppenheim - along with Alfred Salomon, Julius Janz, Fritz Saulmann and Julius Norden.

Factory and Laboratory Dr. Alfred Oppenheim

After completing his work for the Aktien-Gesellschaft , he founded the Dr. Factory, again trading under his own name, in 1910/1911. Alfred Oppenheim , who was attached to a chemical laboratory . The company primarily supplied authorities and made a name for itself in the railway lighting sector . In the mid-1930s, around 100 people were employed there. The main focus of the company was the manufacture of all kinds of incandescent bodies. The Herz brand , which was produced in various variants , was widely used . Other illuminants carried the legally protected names Edelstein , Topaz and Veilchen . But chemical and pharmaceutical products were also developed in the company, for example self-filtering tablets .

Acquisition of the first Rixdorfer Glühkörper-Fabrik Alschweig & Co.

In 1922 Oppenheim took over the Erste Rixdorfer Glühkörper-Fabrik Alschweig & Co. , which had been founded ten years earlier and - like his own company - specialized in chemical products and incandescent bodies.

Specialist journalist

Oppenheim was not only active in business , but also as a journalist . For many years he was listed as an employee of a specialist magazine for the lighting industry with the title Licht und Lampe (Verlag Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft ).

Association and expert work

Hansabund

In 1909 Oppenheim was one of the founders of the liberal Hansa Association for trade, commerce and industry . He was also a member of the executive committee of this association and chairman of the Greater Berlin branch .

Association of independent incandescent manufacturers

In 1912, under Oppenheim's leadership, the Association of Independent Incandescent Body Manufacturers was founded , which he chaired and headed until the end of the Weimar Republic . The association was very popular right from the start and dealt with all topics relevant to the industry . The focus was initially on improving purchasing conditions for association members and questions relating to the tax on lamps . Above all, however, the association set itself the goal of counteracting the monopoly of the lighting industry under the leadership of the Auergesellschaft . In the period after the First World War , the association then dealt u. a. with the revival of the export business and with the settlement of worker and white-collar issues .

Sworn expert

From July 1921 Oppenheim worked for the Berlin Chamber of Commerce as a sworn expert for gas incandescent stockings and burners. Furthermore, he worked as an expert for the Berlin Court of Appeal and the Berlin District Court districts I, II and III.

Art lover and collector

At the beginning of the 20th century, Oppenheim gave concerts in his private apartment (Berlin, Katzbachstraße). a. with pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach , Alexandre Guilmant , Jules Mouquet and César Franck . He played on an art harmonium that came from the company of his friend, the French composer Alphonse Mustel (1873-1936) and was not performed anywhere else in Germany.

As an entrepreneur, Oppenheim gained a larger private fortune that enabled him to pursue his passion as an art and book collector . He was particularly taken with the painting of the Golden Age in the Netherlands . The Berlin art historian and specialist in Dutch painting, Max J. Friedländer , advised him on building up his collection of works a. a. by Thomas Wyck , Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne and Jan Steen .

After the seizure of the Nazis Oppenheim collection, therefore, the so-called been stolen art is attributable dissolved. Parts of it went on sale, parts disappeared into private property.

The end

Oppenheim left Judaism after his marriage in 1919 . This did not prevent the National Socialist rulers from winding up their "Jewish" companies in the course of Aryanization . At the end of 1939, the Dr. Alfred Oppenheim , in 1940 the liquidation of the Erste Rixdorfer Incandescent Body Factory Alschweig & Co. was completed.

Under massive pressure from the National Socialists, Oppenheim's so-called mixed marriage with his Protestant wife Frieda was also canceled in 1940 .

In the last years of his life, Oppenheim had to do forced labor in a Berlin chemical factory. He died in the Jewish Hospital in Berlin and was buried on May 20, 1943 in the Weißensee cemetery.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the Berlin address book 1931 . Part 2. 1931, p. 220 .
  2. ^ Alfred Oppenheim: About β-benzoylisobutyric acid and some related pyridazine derivatives . Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin. Berlin 1900.
  3. ↑ Chemisches Central-Blatt . Volume 73, Volume I, 1902, pp. 212-213 ( online [accessed May 26, 2013]).
  4. ↑ Alfred Opper home: To knowledge of pyridazines . In: Reports of the German Chemical Society . 34th year, no. 3 , 1901, pp. 4227-4234 , doi : 10.1002 / cber.190103403154 .
  5. ↑ From the Journal of Gas Lighting . XC. 1905, p. 747 .
  6. ↑ Directory of the commercial register of the Royal District Court I of Berlin, which includes the district court districts of Berlin I and II, Charlottenburg and Rixdorf, of all types, as well as their representatives . Berlin 1905, p. 1099 .
  7. ↑ Directory of the individual companies registered in the commercial register of the Royal District Court of Berlin-Mitte, which includes the district court districts of Berlin-Mitte, Berlin-Schöneberg, Berlin-Tempelhof, Berlin-Wedding, Charlottenburg, Gross-Lichterfelde, Lichtenberg, Pankow, Rixdorf and Weissensee and companies of all kinds, as well as their representatives . Berlin 1907, p. 1165 .
  8. ↑ Commercial register of the Royal District Court Berlin-Mitte . Directory of registered individual companies and companies of all kinds and their representatives domiciled in the districts of Berlin-Mitte, Berlin-Schöneberg, Berlin-Tempelhof, Berlin-Wedding, Charlottenburg, Berlin-Lichterfelde, Berlin-Lichtenberg, Berlin-Pankow, Neukölln and Berlin-Weißensee . Berlin 1913, p. 648 .
  9. ↑ Wenceslas address book and list of goods for the chemical industry of the German Empire . XVIII. Output. Berlin 1935, p. 235 .
  10. ↑ Light and lamp. Magazine for the lighting industry . Berlin 1912, p. 93 .
  11. ^ Pharmaceutical newspaper . 61st year, no. 22 . Berlin 1916, p. 183 .
  12. ↑ Light and lamp. Rundschau for the lighting industry and installation . Berlin 1922, p. 455 .
  13. ↑ Light and lamp. Magazine for the lighting industry . Berlin 1912, p. 347 .
  14. ↑ Economic Chronicle for 1912 . Jena 1913, p. 304-305 .
  15. ↑ Light and lamp. Magazine for the lighting industry . Berlin 1920, p. 206-207 .
  16. ↑ Light and lamp. Magazine for the lighting industry. Issue 17 . Berlin 1921.
  17. ↑ See the entries in the Lost Art Internet Database , accessed on May 26, 2013.
  18. ↑ See also Christoph Kreutzmüller: Ausverkauf. The destruction of Jewish business activity in Berlin 1930–1945 . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-080-6 .

Patents and utility models

Extract from patent no. 165609 entitled Method and Device for Burning Incandescent Bodies by Hand
  • Imperial Patent Office , patent specification No. 153758: Process to make mantles ready for dispatch . Class 4f, patented December 14, 1902, published September 28, 1904, inventor: Alfred Oppenheim, Richard Feuer (The patent was also granted in 1902/1903 under number 27.821 in Great Britain and 1903 under number 332.223 in France. )
  • Imperial Patent Office, utility model DRGM No. 242235: Packaging sleeve for incandescent bodies , in which both covers are held in place by a common protective strip . Class 81c, registered January 14, 1905, applicant: Allgemeine Glühlicht-Werke Dr. Alfred Oppenheim & Co., GmbH
  • Imperial Patent Office, Patent Specification No. 165609: Method and device for burning incandescent bodies by hand . Class 4f, patented in the German Empire on March 22, 1905. published on December 1, 1905, applicant: Allgemeine Glühlicht-Werke Dr. Alfred Oppenheim & Co., GmbH
  • German Reich, Reichspatentamt , patent specification No. 499812: Method for forming incandescent mantles . Class 4f, Group 5, O 17802 VI / 4f, patented December 8, 1928, published June 16, 1930, inventor: Alfred Oppenheim.

literature

  • C. Richard Böhm: The manufacture of incandescent bodies for gas incandescent light . A teaching and manual from practice for practice. Hall 1910.
  • Jacques Goldberg: 25 years of incandescent gas light! Dr. Alfred Oppenheim's 25th business anniversary and 50th birthday. In: Licht und Lampe , No. 12, 1928.
  • Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 2: L-Z. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB 453960294 , pp. 1360-1361.
  • Georg Wenzel: German business leader . Life courses of German business personalities. A reference book on 13,000 business figures of our time. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg / Berlin / Leipzig 1929, DNB 948663294 , Sp. 1644.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist and manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1943
Place of death Berlin