Alois Miesbach

Alois Miesbach, lithograph by Josef Kriehuber 1850

Alois Miesbach (born January 1, 1791 in Röschitz , Moravia , † October 3, 1857 in Baden near Vienna ) was an Austrian industrialist. He built up a building materials group, which - continued by his nephew Heinrich von Drasche-Wartinberg - developed into today's global Wienerberger group.

Life

Alois Miesbach initially devoted himself to engineering and construction, and later to agriculture . In 1819 he acquired the brickworks and the Meidling agricultural estate on the outskirts of Vienna. In 1820 the first state brickworks (" fortification brick oven ") founded by Empress Maria Theresia in 1775 was added as a lease . With the acquisition of the Inzersdorf am Wienerberg estate in 1826, he also came into possession of rich clay deposits , which proved to be a solid basis for the further upswing of the building materials company. This upswing was based on the fact that there was a shortage of natural building blocks in the vicinity of the city of Vienna and the massive influx of people from all parts of the empire into the capital and residence city had led to a building boom.

Brick empire

Bricks with the initials A and M (Alois Miesbach)

The raw material for Miesbach's bricks were deposits of a sea from the Young Tertiary (approx. 15 million years ago), which were already used for brick extraction on Wienerberg in Roman times. In 1855 Miesbach already had 9 large brickworks with 4,700 employees and 30 coal mines with over 2,300 miners. This made him the largest brick manufacturer on the continent. Miesbach was one of the first to convert his brickworks to coal firing. In his endeavors to mine coal as cheaply as possible and bring it to his factories, he also got into the mining and transport business. To this end, he leased coal mines in the Wiener Neustadt area and also tried to develop new coal fields. In Upper Austria he carried out successful geological investigations from 1842, which in 1856 led to the establishment of the " Wolfsegg-Traunthaler Kohlenwerks- und Eisenbahngesellschaft AG ". Count Saint Julien and Baron Rothschild were also involved in this society . With the opening of the Western Railway (1859/1860) and the connection to the nationwide transport network, it took off considerably. In November 1846 he also leased the Wiener Neustadt Canal including coal mines near Wiener Neustadt and Ödenburg . The canal barges not only delivered the coal to the brickworks, but also transported the products away.

Miesbach also excelled through innovations. In 1835 he developed the first brick painting machine. With their special brick products (decorative and cladding bricks), he and his nephew Drasche also exerted an influence on the Viennese architecture of the Ringstrasse epoch.

Miesbach still ran his company as an old-style patriarch . He felt responsible for his workers and donated part of his income to social institutions (hospital, childcare facilities) and foundations. He recruited his workers mostly from Bohemia and Moravia ( Ziegelböhm ). The social grievances that Victor Adler pointed out and denounced as a journalist did not appear in the brickworks until after Miesbach's death. At that time, the company had gone public under Heinrich von Drasche-Wartinberg and the return had come to the fore.

Aftermath

The Aloisgasse , named in 1858 by Alois Miesbach and Miesbach alley remember in what is now Vienna's second district Leopoldstadt to the industrialists. He bought land in what was then the suburb of Leopoldstadt and built numerous apartment buildings. In the house at Schreygasse 6, a salettl with the initials AM reminds of the industrialist. Extension buildings at the parish church Inzersdorf are also based on the initiative of Alois Miesbach.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Miesbach, Alois . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 18th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1868, pp. 240–243 ( digitized version ).
• Grete Merk: Two pioneers in Austrian industry. Alois Miesbach and Heinrich Drasche . Viennese research on economic and social history, Volume 1. Böhlau, Graz (among others) 1966, ZDB -ID 503169-2 .
• Hannes Stekl:  Miesbach Alois. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 270 f. (Direct links on p. 270 , p. 271 ).
• Gustav Otruba :  Miesbach, Alois. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 481 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Entry on Alois Miesbach in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Valerie Else Riebe: The Wiener Neustädter Schiffahrtskanal. History of a Lower Austrian building from its creation to the present according to archival sources . Gutenberg Publishing House, Vienna 1936, OBV , p. 54.