Andreas Rieger (industrialist)

Andreas Rieger (born July 1, 1839 in Großpold , † April 26, 1918 in Sibiu ) was a Transylvanian industrialist and factory owner.

Life

He grew up in Großpold as a child of a rural farming family. His ancestors were Austrian transmigrants who were forcibly resettled because of their Protestant beliefs under the government of Maria Theresa . His direct ancestor was a Petrus Rieger, who was sent to Transylvania with his wife and nine children from Himmelberg in Carinthia in 1754 .

Andreas Rieger attended the German-speaking elementary school in Großpold. At the age of 15 he left the village to begin an apprenticeship as a farrier in nearby Sibiu . In 1858 he completed this training and was accepted into the guild as a journeyman . Following the custom of that time he came to pass after the roll that him through Hungary , Austria, Bohemia led to Germany and, to the north of Mecklenburg . There he made friends with another journeyman named Gieber and from then on they both moved from place to place together. Together they designed their own model of a ploughshare . In Augsburg he met Engelbert Buxbaum by chance , who ran a locksmith's shop (which later became the tractor manufacturer Epple and Buxbaum ) and produced the first agricultural machines. He received the offer to sell these agricultural machines as an agent in Transylvania.

At the end of his years of traveling, he returned to Sibiu in 1865 and was accepted as a master by the blacksmiths' guild. He opened his own blacksmith's workshop with two journeymen in the lower town on Rosenanger No. 20 (today Târgul Peştelui ), in the immediate vicinity of today's Zibinsmarkt ( Piața Cibin ). Not far away, on the open area of ​​the castle gate ( Poarta Ocnei ), which was demolished in 1856, was the wood market and also a cattle market, which attracted customers. Two years later, in 1867, he married Johanna Wachsmann, the daughter of a Saxon master strap maker . It is said that in the beginning she helped him to shod the horses. Together they would have four children in the following years. In addition to working as a farrier, he began to use his contact in Augsburg and sold imported agricultural machinery from Epple & Buxbaum.

In 1868 he decided to expand. A piece of land was sold on the lumber yard between the Schülerschanz and the Pulvergasse ( Strada Pulberăriei ) and he was able to purchase it with a loan of 2,500 forints from the Hermannstädter Sparkasse. There he had the first factory hall and a house built and the newly founded “First Transylvanian Agricultural Machinery Factory” started producing its own small devices and machines. Now Andreas Rieger realized the design of the ploughshare from his hiking days. He had the idea patented and this product, soon known as the "Rieger Patent Plow", turned out to be a bestseller, which was particularly suitable for small-scale farming in Transylvania.

In 1873 Rieger attended the Vienna World Exhibition , where the latest technical achievements from Western Europe were exhibited. At the same time, however, an economic slump set in with the start-up crash . In 1878 the economy had recovered to such an extent that the Rieger company was able to open an iron wholesaler in addition to machine production, which meant that tools and equipment were now cheaper for the local farmers to acquire, thus stimulating the modernization of agriculture. At the same time, the production facilities were expanded. During this time, however, the competition in the agricultural machinery sector also increased and Rieger now had to compete against local suppliers such as the Keintzel company from Reghin or machines imported from abroad, such as the bag plows from Leipzig. Industrialization also advanced in Austria, so Rieger's supplier Epple & Buxbaum opened its own factory in Wels in 1883 (today Fronius ) to supply the Austrian and Hungarian markets. At the same time, Rieger expanded its trading contacts and exported to the Altreich , Bulgaria , the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire .

In 1898 the factory in Sibiu was expanded again. He bought a 30,000 m² plot of land on Basteiplatz near the Zibin . In the same year construction began according to plans by Viennese architects and a modern second work was built. This construction work was completed in 1903 and step by step the individual departments moved into the new factory building. In the same year, his son Richard Rieger (1878–1964) returned from studying at the Technikum Mittweida in Saxony and joined the company. In 1910, a semolina was set up on the factory premises, followed by a pipe foundry, which mainly manufactured products for drinking and sewage pipes.

The son Richard took over the management of the factory more and more. Andreas Rieger died in April 1918, before the end of the First World War. He did not experience the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the subsequent annexation of Transylvania to the Kingdom of Romania , as well as the later turbulent development of his factory.

legacy

Old manhole cover produced by the company And before the First World War. Rieger in Sibiu, 2013

His son continued to expand the factory, and in 1918 bought a local competitor, the mechanical engineering company Samuel Wagner, which meant that Rieger now had three plants in the city. In the first years under Romanian rule, the company continued to expand, but after 1930 came into difficulties due to the global economic crisis . From 1939 his grandson Hanspaul Rieger managed the factory through the turmoil of the Second World War. After the Communists came to power, the factory was expropriated without compensation on June 5, 1948. The family was removed from the business, the descendants dispersed and finally emigrated to West Germany. Under the Communists, the company was renamed Independența and expanded. In the 1970s, this state-owned company employed up to 10,000 workers and was the largest employer in Sibiu. However, after the 1989 revolution, the factory was oversized and technologically obsolete. The Independență industrial complex was broken up and privatized individually. Today most of the factories are closed and orphaned. However, there are still some buildings from the time Andreas Rieger was founded, including the factory halls on Zibin built in 1898 and the former administration and office building at the end of Burgergasse ( Strada Ocnei ), which today houses a technical lyceum, which is the only facility still bears the name Independența . Chance are found in Sibiu and Mediaş in side streets still have old manhole cover with the inscription: "CANALISATION / Nagyszeben / HERMANNSTADT / AND. RIEGER ”from the period between 1907 and 1911.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Die Landler in Großpold , accessed on April 30, 2020
2. ↑ Siebenbürgische Zeitung: History, Customs, Dialect of the Landler ; Josef Ramsauer, December 12, 2011.
3. ↑ Christine Wandschneider: Andreas Rieger - From farmer's son to factory owner, p. 599ff ; in: Martin Bottesch (Ed.): Die Siebenbürgischen Landler, Volume 1 , Böhlau Verlag Vienna, 2002, ISBN 9783205994152 .
4. ↑ tribuna.ro: "Să v-amintiţi, vă rog frumos, povestea mea". Când pomeniţi Independenţa ; Maria Spătariu, February 11, 2011.
5. ↑ tribuna.ro: Halele Rieger, de – a râsu – plânsu , May 6, 2010
6. ↑ tribuna.ro: Atracţii locale necunoscute - Rieger nu e singurul ... , May 22, 2009.
7. ^ Răzvan Pop: Andreas Rieger - 10 Mari Sibieni ( transl .: 10 great Hermannstädter).